FRICTION

Ch. 13: Negligence

-Shawn-

Fifteen minutes. It had been fifteen minutes already, yet the brat still hadn't returned with my breakfast.

I huffed at the kid's uselessness, glowering at the door with a festering irritation that sunk deep into the crevices of my bones, drilling down past skin and muscle until it fused itself into the very essence of my being. There was ire, and then there was this desire to tear and crush. while impatiently tapping my fingers on the desk, I quietly contemplated why I felt so angry in the first place.

Really sat with it.

Ironically enough, the only answer that made sense involved ignoring rationality altogether: I wanted him to pay for the mere possibility of endangering my daughter. And in that moment, that felt like enough fuel, regardless of how reasonable I was being.

"Really?" I scoffed when another ten minutes came and went.

Frustratingly enough, I could easily picture the kid struggling to use the coffee machine or straight up getting lost on the way to the break room. We weren't in a massive building by any means, so I was almost surprised when I realized 45 minutes had passed by in total. Here I was, wasting away at the hands of an imbecile.

And this was who Jacqueline had settled on as an intern. Yeah, what a joke.

Quite frankly, this level of inefficiency was disappointing, though not entirely unexpected. I didn't even want to humor how incapable he'd be at helping with more important matters, or anything even remotely time sensitive. Clearly, he couldn't be trusted with responsibility.

I messaged Jacqueline as much, scoffing when all I got in return was a thumbs down reaction.

"If the coffee's cold, I'm firing him," I muttered under my breath, though the more logical part of me understood that I couldn't actually do that. Jacqueline had set precautions in place, so all I could really do was seethe... and taunt the brat.

Of course, there was also the fact there were no bagels, since Paul had foolishly forgotten them this morning. That was probably freaking him the fuck out. Well, if he had any sense of self preservation, that is.

And yeah, sure, I had sent Eric to fetch my breakfast explicitly for this reason, but... well, whatever. He should've figured out it was a fool's errand and worked something out by now. Or at least crawled in here and apologized on his knees for not being able to fulfill such a simple request.

I clicked open and peered at the security feed of the main reception, frowning when I caught sight of Eric nervously standing behind the main desk, taking a call in Paul's stead. He kept glancing around as if worried that anyone might actually need his help, clearly restlessly awaiting Paul's return. Well, that was certainly an interesting decision...

I'd expected Paul to make Eric fetch them, but perhaps he'd overlooked that option in his frenzy to make things right.

"Now you choose to be proactive?" I grumble in annoyance, rolling my eyes at the development. Paul was a good employee. A great one, even. But he wasn't the kind to over-exert himself. He did what he had to do, and let that be enough.

He certainly didn't bother putting in more effort than was merited, so why was he suddenly bothering with this?

I closed the browser and went back to work, tiredly glancing at the case I had just accepted. It was by no means an open-and-shut case, though there was not much complexity to be found in something that was heading down such an expected, though perhaps morally reproachable, path.