Learning How to Bend

January 5

//"I'm sick and should sleep," I told myself.  Cue my muse exploding, and my brain not allowing me to go off to dream land until I typed things out... 

Not having Thaddeus was weird. Up until he was gone, I did not recognize just how much of my daily routine revolved around him. Whether that be spending time with him, talking to him, doing random projects for him...heavens, I even missed his emails, authoritatively telling me to go back to work. It was April 24. He had only been gone for a couple days, and I already wanted him back. Not only that, I hated the time difference. It meant we sometimes each other's phone calls...all of them thus far, actually; it saddened me that email had become the most reliable way of correspondence between us, but we would figure things out eventually. We had to. I could not go a month like this, or I would end up getting on a plane and joining him.

April 24. It was a Tuesday. I usually met with Thaddeus on Tuesdays.

"Crap, what's gotten into you, Lily? Pull yourself together." I sat behind my desk at the office building, digging my fingers into my hair. I never imagined I would miss Thaddeus this much that my heart would feel like it was physically aching in my chest. That looking at anything around me would remind me of him.

I needed out of this place.

Abruptly, I stood and packed my belongings and left the floor with Chelise in tow. I decided I did not want to take the subway or a taxi. I truthfully hated the former, and after the accident I saw on the news, taking a taxi did not appeal to me at all, even though I had actually taken one that morning. I wanted Mike to take me home. It would probably take some worry off Mike's mind, considering how Thaddeus put the responsibility for keeping me safe into Mike's hands.

I did not want to see Antonia, but I had to in order to get Mike's number. Thaddeus never gave it to me, and for some reason, I had never asked for it from Mike any time I had been with him in the vehicle. Bracing myself for a confrontation, I rode the elevator up to the top floor and entered the lobby-type area after the doors opened.

Antonia only paused in her typing for a couple moments to see who I was, then instantly resumed her previous work.

"I won't take much of your time," I said as kindly as I could. I crossed the room, my heels clicking against the wood floor, and I came to stand in front of her desk. "I'd just like Michael Wilson's number, please. I figured you would be the best person to ask."

"Why do you need it?" The other woman was still typing furiously on her keyboard. Was she actually busy, or was she just trying to seem busy?

"He's offered to take me home in the past, and I just want to take him up on it. That's all." I shrugged, hoping it appeared nonchalant rather than annoyed.

"Why would he offer that?"

"Why would he not...?" I paused, raising a brow. "Mike is a nice man."

"Couldn't you have looked it up in the directory?"

I had not thought of that. I did not let the swear I wanted to say escape my lips. Instead, I sighed and rubbed behind my neck uncomfortably. Antonia won this round, but she would never hear me admit it aloud. I did not even want to think what sort of smug look she might get on her face from my surrender. She did not like me because she saw me as competition for Thaddeus's attention.

Unfortunately for her, I had an advantage.

I had his heart.

After all, he had trusted me to protect it, and I was not about to allow Antonia to get within a hundred miles of it if it were the last thing I ever did. She could keep dreaming. If she were fantasizing about sleeping with her boss anymore...heavens, this woman needed to get a life.