The Matchmaker

Chapter 12

"Cat!"

I hear her, but force my eyes to stay closed – I want to sleep just a little longer, just an extra ounce of sleep is all I need before accepting the reality that awaits me as soon as my tired eyes crack open.

"Catherine Lewis! Wake up!" Paying Celia's threatening tone no attention, I move closer to the edge of the bed and hug my pillow tighter. My acute sense of morning hearing catches her grunting out of frustration and the next thing I feel, is a pillow slamming into the side of my face.

I hate, no loathe, nope. DETEST morning people.

Opening my eyes, I send her a glare in my sleepy state. Unzipping the sleeping bag, I grab a knitted sweater and quickly put on a pair of thick socks as the apartment was back to its depressingly cold atmosphere.

"What?" I finally ask, facing her in annoyance.

"It's almost two in the afternoon and I'm starving!"

Groaning, I roll my eyes, "right, I keep forgetting you're hopeless in the kitchen."

"Hey! Excuse me for not being your typical, ideal woman." Eyeing her arms as she picks up another pillow, I take in the noticeable goosebumps fleshed out on her arms and silently hand her a sweater. My friend was actually quite understanding, being in a business together brought us even closer and this is more so the case when money is tight, your partner is the one who feels the same pains and burdens as you.

She would never openly complain about my economic efforts to save money, but of course I knew that just because she didn't vocally claim that our meagre earnings and operations were an issue, it still affected her nevertheless.

"Is it okay if I stick around and catch up on some work?" She asks, gratefully throwing on the sweater. Shrugging my shoulders, I walk into the kitchen to make her a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of tea to warm her up. I was fortunate to have packets of leftover instant oatmeal; it was relatively cheap and on sale – two things that appeal to me the most other than oatmeal being filling enough to get us through till later in the day.

"Stay if you want, I'm going to spend the rest of the day working anyways," succeeding to convey this through a mouth foaming with toothpaste as I brush my teeth and begin my working day off with an extremely late morning.

"Any new clients?"

Taking out my phone and putting on my glasses, I connect to Wi-Fi and skim through my emails, "we do have two new possible clients. I'll have to message them later."

"What about the Simmons case?"

Shaking my head, I offer Celia a glum look, "That's a fairly hopeless cause, we have two matches for him but he's a tough one. He might not warm up to the idea of decent girls his age, the rebel in him will want to sleep around and play with older women."

"I can't believe his parents let him go around doing such disgusting things."

"Well, sometimes a taste of freedom leads to an abuse of freedom. Take my neighbour, the country's golden boy for example, he made a faulty mistake and has to pay the price for it."

"I don't think that's fair Cat, at least Zander's trying to fix his 'problem' Simmons could learn from him."

"Maybe I'm being mean, but it shouldn't be this hard to stay out of trouble considering how most of the people on this earth manage to do just that. Zander needs to learn to cool off for a bit because suddenly dropping a bomb like needing to find a matchmaker, on the leader of this country can't be easy." After a moment I can't help but add, "But I'll admit, it can't be easy for him either, considering who his parents are..."