How to love

fourteen: Keeping company.

Frankie's point of view:

"I refuse to believe this!" Jenny exclaims, her wide eyes scanning across my newly signed contract. Whilst my stomach somersaulted, I carefully place my belongings that once decorated my desk so neatly into a cardboard box to be moved to my new upstairs office. "And you tried to say you and Mr Hayes were just friends."

At her scoff and smirk, I roll my eyes cautiously placing the small succulent plant beside the photo frame of my mother. "We are just friends. This was merely a new job opportunity when he found out my degree - nothing more, nothing less."

"Oh yeah?" She grins. "And why would he be moving you up to his floor? Don't tell me - a new office opportunity?"

I poke my tongue out although my insides tingle. Jason and David both persuaded me during a meeting yesterday morning to move from the pokey little reception desk at the main entrance, to a spacious office on the twenty first floor. I always thought that Jason's and David's offices where the only rooms up there, but apparently there was two others. One which would be my new office, the other still unoccupied.

"I can hardly design anything sitting here, can I?"

She hums with a giggle. "Whatever you say. Just don't forget little old me when you're running with the posh suits, okay? And please, don't even think about ever replacing me with Jillian."

"Not in a million years." I promise. "I don't think I've ever even spoke two words to her. She gives me the cold shoulders everytime she sees me, I'm not sure why." Closing up the box, I huff a sigh and smile sadly at Jenny's pouted lip. She holds her arms wide and squishes me into a bone-crushing hug. "Jenny, I'm literally seven floors up!"

"I don't care." She cries jokingly. Lifting the cardboard box, she follows me to the elevator and I nudge the button with my hip. "Say hello to Mr Moody for me."

She blows a comically kiss before the elevator doors close. I sigh, the haunting classical music tormenting me as the numbers rise higher and higher until the ding sends my heart battering through my ribcage. My heels click against the marbled floors until I reach Jillian, hidden behind her desk with glasses pushed up the bridge of her nose. She stops her typing.

I clear my throat. "I-I'm moving into my new office today. Is Jason or David about?"

Her sudden movement made me stumble a step backwards. She doesn't remove her frosty gaze as she moves to the front of her desk, and I clench the box tighter. "They're in a meeting. I've been told to show you where you need to go."

I was afraid to walk to close, but I hurry to keep up with her fast strides. She directs me to Jason's side of the hallway and stands outside a door I have past before. I halt just a quickly as she does, and gulp loudly as she faces me with her glasses falling to the tip of her nose. Why she made my stomach knot, I wasn't sure but the feeling was something I didn't like. Instead of saying anything like I expected, she stalks back in the direction we had just came from and takes her disturbing aura with her.

I breathe out a nervous breath and fiddle with the handle, stumbling forward onto the cushioned carpet. My new office. White and very bare walls with matching carpet, a beautiful oak desk and even a separate station for sketches that overlooked a breathtaking view of the city. I could even see the bridge that crossed to my hometown.

"Do you like it?"

I flinch, yelping and clenching the box desperately. Leaning against the door frame, Jason chuckles. His tie was loosened and the top button was undone. "Really, Jason? Do you want to kill me off before I even start?"

He pushes himself away from the door frame as I set the box down on top of my desk. "You didn't answer my question, Miss Fields."

The formal use of my surname made my knees weak and I quickly turn to the view to disguise the heat rushing to my cheeks. I stared at the bridge. The bridge I crossed many of times, the bridge that separates me and my family, the bridge where my old life stopped and my new one begun.