Sixty Seconds

Chapter 25

Haha, oh God. Ever get that feeling that once you finisha chapter on a cliffhanger and you're like: YES!!!

Then you go to update and you're kinda like: Oh God, WHY???? WHY DID I DO THAT?  HOW AM I GOING TO CONTINUE!

I now am all to familiar with that feeling. 

Jessica

I blinked my eyes slowly, letting the early morning light slink in. I could hear a heartbeat from my right ear, which didn’t seem like the type of place a heart usually went. My eyes snapped open quickly and I sat up. Carter mumbled something incoherent and rolled over, his breathing steady and almost rhythmic. Completely different to my fast ’oh God what just happened’ breathing. I stood up and looked down at Carter. The duvet was wrapped carelessly around him and I caught myself getting distracted by his lack of shirt. He also looked younger, more carefree when he slept. Picking up one of his shirts that lay on the floor I left the room and made my way into the bathroom and showered, letting the steaming water calm my heartbeat. By the time I had finished I could hear Carter up and moving around the kitchen. I groaned inwardly. Wasn’t sleeping with your boss one of the top ten things not to do?

I pulled on some clothes and towelled my hair, wondering how we were going to react to each other. I tugged my hair through a bauble and put it up and looked in the mirror, half expecting to look different but I didn’t, I looked the same as I had for the past while, same hair, eyes and skin. Nothing noticeably different but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel different. My thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Jess?” Carter’s voice drifted in, it’s tone soft.

I opened the door, Carter looked down at me.

“Hey” He said softly.

“Hey” I replied, noticing a tiny scar through his eyebrow that I’d never seen.

“I made bacon” He shrugged, “Well, actually I burnt bacon, but it looks edible” He grinned at me and I felt my heart flutter.

I nodded and followed him to the kitchen, where what looked like very burnt charcoal sat on a plate. I couldn’t help myself and giggled. Opening the fridge to make a new batch, I noticed Carter smiling softly at me.

“I phoned the board earlier” He said, I straightened up and looked at him, my heart falling. “And persuaded them to let you stay”

My eyes widened and my mouth must have opened slightly as I leapt on him, with an open packet of bacon in my hands. He caught me and I dropped the bacon, hugging him. He laughed softly, his lips beside my ear.

“Why?” I heard myself asking. “Why did you change your mind?”

“Because I realised I couldn’t let you go”

I felt my heart take a swan dive and I smiled. “It wasn’t just because you can’t cook was it?”

I could feel him smiling “How’d you figure it out?”

My eyes drifted towards the pile of bacon flavoured charcoal. “I have no idea.”

****

We arrived in the underground car park and I got out, closing the door of the car. “Seriously? You used your badge to get free food? That’s mean.”

“I was hungry”

“Should’ve ate the bacon”

“You dropped it on the floor” Carter told me, grinning while munching a bar of chocolate.

“That’s irrelevant” I told him, hopping up the stairs. “It was clean enough, plus you had your bacon already made.”

Carter followed me, still eating his chocolate. “I think that bacon became dust and left burnt behind, it was disgusting”

“You ate it?” I shuddered, Carter nodded solemnly. Scrunching up my nose I said “Gross”

We arrived at the top of the stairs and showed our passes and headed inside the building. Numerous glances were thrown at Carter’s still bruised face. We passed Joshua who winked as he struggles to carry the mound of files he had in his arms.

“I thought the point of having leave was to actually stay off” A voice called from behind us. “Apparently I was wrong”

I swivelled round to find Harper standing looking slightly amused to find us there. She was dressed crisply like usual and wore her blonde hair coiled in a bun.

“I’ll have leave when I’m injured” Carter told her, smiling.

Harper raised her eyebrows “Right and what actually counts as injured to you, Carter?”

“Coma, or a stubbed toe. Either or”

I felt myself smiling as Harper openly grinned. “Well, neither of you are scheduled for anything today so you can all help Joshua with filing, I think I saw him stumbling off that way, follow the out of place papers he’s dropped”

 Harper excused herself to go shout at some new intern who had accidently put the wrong case files into the shredder.

“Follow the paper.” Carter shrugged. He nodded to a member of security who looked so keen he nearly saluted before nodding quickly back.

We found Joshua struggling to open a door. I jumped forward to help him while Carter stuck his foot out. Joshua looked dagger’s at him while Carter looked away innocently. I helped Joshua pick up the last few files and he grinned at me. “Looks like your staying”

“Apparently so” I smiled back.

Joshua pushed through the door and asked. “What made him change his mind?”

I felt myself blushing slightly and Carter grabbed half of Joshua’s pile and pushed him into the storage room.

“I changed my own mind, you hit home, well done” Carter said quickly. Joshua’s eyes darted from me to Carter before he finally spoke.

“Okay, seems legit” He grinned and dumped the files down, Carter set his files beside them and looked around.

“I should have just stayed at home” He groaned. I followed his gaze and gaped. The room wasn’t big but it had files piled up to the roof.

“Why do we have to do this?” I asked.

“A, we’re on leave and B, security doesn’t need the help, the office does.” Carter told me, picking up a file. “Just pick up a file and find the corresponding number in the filing cabinet.”

I groaned. Joshua grinned. “It’s not too bad, we can read about all the missions”

“And you wonder why you hardly ever file Joshua” Carter told him. “Don’t read the classified documents Joshua, they’re classified.”

“Exactly” Joshua muttered and leafed through a file. Carter sighed and put a file away.

I had a feeling it could be a long day.

I honestly have no idea what I'm doing, but anyway, haven't updated in ages as some people have been subtly reminding me. Haha, hopefully I'll get creative soon