The Apprentice (Girlxgirl)

Chapter Six

When Ellie and I drive up to my house, Adam's car had gone, which made me feel relieved. Part of me thought that he may have been too upset to go to work after our argument this morning.

"You ready?" Ellie asked, while cautiously searching my eyes to see how I was feeling.

"Yeah, come on." I stepped out of my car and took out my keys to unlock the door.

I immediately went to mine and Adam's room, and took a suitcase from under the bed. Ellie helped me to fill it from my wardrobe.

"You want to take everything?" she asked.

"No, just enough to last for a couple of weeks. I can get the rest of my things once I've spoken to him I guess."

"When are you gonna speak to him?" Her question took me by surprise as I hadn't really thought about it.

"I'm not sure, I guess I just need some time away from him right now, to make sure it's what I really want." she gave my hand a squeeze and smiled at my response, probably realising I had no fucking clue what I was doing.

After we got the suitcase into my car, we came back for the important things, I went into my office, and took my laptop. It had all of my work documents in, all of the business contracts, advertising, and a copy of every single photograph taken by EJ Photography.

I was so proud of how far mine and Ellie's business had come, and I was so worried that me leaving Adam may affect it. We used my house as our base, as we had a dark room here. So whenever we photographed any events, we would print and produce everything from my house.

"Ellie, should we rent somewhere in town for an office?" I asked her, after panicking that my personal life would fuck up our professional life.

"I'd actually been thinking about that for a while to be honest. I saw a space for rent a couple of days ago actually. It was less of an office and more of a studio." I frowned at the last bit, so she went on to explain, "I just thought that when we meet with Ryles on Friday, we'd seem more professional if we had somewhere to shoot."

"Ryles?" I questioned, completely lost in the conversation.

"Damien Ryles... The guy from the modelling agency who called last week."

"Oh shit! That's Friday?" After everything that had happened with Adam I completely forgot.

Last week, I had a phone call of Mr Damien Ryles. He wanted Ellie and I to take up a full time contract with his modelling company. Up to this point we had been working freelance, and although everything was going great for us, there was no guarantee of any income for us at any time. Which is why a permanent contract would be ideal for is. Plus, he was offering to pay us a fortune, and he had no issue with us taking on freelance jobs in our spare time.

The meeting on Friday was to go over a contract, and talk about the terms and conditions of our employment. If all goes well we could have our photos printed in several magazines across the country in a months time.

"Okay, where's this studio?" I asked and Ellie grinned at me.

We made a phonecall to the letting agents, and they were able to see us almost immediately. Ellie directed me while I drove, and we pulled up outside an old run down building. I hadn't expected it to be perfect, but there was a lot of work to be done in the space of four days.

"I know it doesn't look great Jay, but wait til you see inside." Ellie was excited so I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

"Hi, I'm Gareth," The letting agent greeted us as we got out of my car. He looked like he was in his early thirties, he dressed smart and had a kind face, so I didn't feel uncomfortable like I thought I would.

"Hi, I'm Jamie, and this is my business partner Ellie," I said, shaking his hand, then Ellie did the same.

"It's great to meet you both. Now, I know it doesn't look great from out here, but the inside will make it all worthwhile," Ellie gave me an 'I told you so' look. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna be breathing down your neck either. I'll just let you guys in, and wait out here for you."

We both smiled politely and thanked Gareth as we walked past him to get through the door.

As soon as I saw the studio, I was amazed. Ellie and Gareth were right, it was beautiful inside. The room we were stood in had a huge open space that would be perfect for and scenery we would want to use. The walls and floor were a spotless white, which made it seem like the room went on forever.

"Wow," was all I could muster up in my vocabulary.

"I know," Ellie agreed, "Come on, let's go look around."

I followed Ellie through one door, which led us to an office, there was no furniture in there yet but I knew this would be our office. There was space for both of us to have desks in there, a large window on the wall facing the door let in plenty of light. I smiled, imagining us both sitting here talking, probably never getting any work done.

"Okay, now the next room was used as a supply closet, but I think it would be a perfect dark room for us." Ellie said, leading me out of our office, and into the next room.

She was right, it would be a perfect dark room. It was far too big for supplies anyway, and I was guessing it was the only room without a window in.

"What's next?" I asked her, grinning at the thought of all this space being ours soon.

"There's a couple more small rooms and closets but this is pretty much it. What do you think?" She looked nervous to hear my answer.

"I think it's great!" I laughed, and she hugged me excitedly, "how much is it?"

"Six hundred and fifty a month."

"Okay, well we can afford that with Ryles' pay. And we should have enough money in the savers account to get this place all set up. Let's do it."

Ellie hugged me even tighter, and we went to let the letting agent know we wanted to rent the studio. We went to his office to fill in all the paperwork, then went back to Ellie's to start planning out our new space.