Missing You Again

I'm Not Insane...Honestly

I did not feel guilty. I had no reason to feel guilty. None. Nada. Noping out on the guilt. Except... Fuck, I really was a shit sister and best friend. A couple of hours could have had me in Huntington Beach visiting my sister and best friend before they flew out again with their boyfriends.

Except there was a tiny, not bitter at all – okay really fucking bitter – part of me that didn't want to let them know that I could have called up the company jet with a snap of my fingers. Neither of them actually ever asked me about my job other than the generic 'How's work?' questions. As far as I knew, considering our overall lack of conversation regarding my career, they thought I was an executive assistant. Not bad for a hot blonde from the Gold Coast.

Oh but this hot blonde was so much more.

Unfortunately the bitter taste on my tongue was entirely my own fault because this hot blonde had secrets and they were entirely of my own making and keeping.

Were they guilty? Nope. Embarrassing? Uh, NO! Not unless you find professional success beyond your wildest dreams embarrassing.

So why keep them?

Partly because I'm an idiot but mostly it was due to force of habit. I'd never really been an open person. I did a bloody great job of pretending that I was but the reality was that even as a child I liked to keep a little something up my sleeve.

So whilst it stung for my family and some of my friends to underestimate me it was entirely a problem of my own creation. That was the thing with me and my secrets, I didn't keep the same ones from everyone but with almost everyone I held a little something back. There was only one person who knew almost everything about me and sometimes, if I took into account the number of face to face interactions we'd had over the course of our friendship, it felt like he was an imaginary friend.

Guilt over my secrets and lies spun on a loop through my head as I sighed and adjusted my skirt. I stood up and crossed to the window to stare out over the San Francisco financial district. The view was pretty sweet and I wondered idly if we could make these temporary offices permanent. San Francisco was one of the cities we were considering for our new US base. It was certainly convenient for the talent that we needed but then Los Angeles would be more convenient for me. I'd be closer to family and friends, if I ever sucked up my pride and admitted the truth about some of my secrets.

A soft tap at the door had me turning to see my executive assistant popping her head into the room. That's right, I wasn't the assistant I had the assistant.

"Ms Cooper? I've sent all the information you requested through to your email."

I mentally rolled my eyes, I loathed being called Ms Cooper but it went with the territory. I'd tried to get Carley to call me Kelly more than once and she steadfastly resisted. In her soberly tailored dove grey skirt, soft cream blouse with a jaunty bow tied at one side of the neckline and her hair done up in a ballerina bun she looked far more likely to be the COO of a major company than I did. I might have been wearing a skirt but it was black leather, only the collar of my white shirt was peeking out from beneath a black t-shirt displaying an image from our most popular game and my black blazer had its sleeves rolled to my elbows. The only thing Carley and I had in common were our black high heels and whilst hers were an adorable pair of mary-janes mine were a lethal pair of stilettos.

A quick glance at my watch told me it was after six in the evening. "Thanks Carley, you can leave for the day. There's no need for you to wait for me." I had a couple of hours left to collate my thoughts on what I'd been working on that day ready for an early morning conference call with Sean and Wes in London.