24

ELEVENTH HOUR

It was way past midnight. The free falling dream that Christian had seemed to have dissipated. He was no on his back with his arms splayed out, the girl had pulled away all the sheets and had tugged it all the way up to her chin. She was on her side with an arm over her head and another spread on his clothed front. Her head used the crook of his armpit as the pillow and her legs tightly intertwined with his.

The apartment was so quiet. Nothing was alerting, and even the security in the security room had a fleeting thought about taking a nap instead of staring at the screens. Taylor was sleeping on his bed next to Gail in a much more reserved and civil position than the couple in the master bedroom. Snoring softly, he knew that he needed to sleep as much as he could, knowing what the Boss had planned in just a few hours.

He could see the love radiating off the two of them just like it was between him and Gail. In the four years that he had worked for him and in the four years that he had known Gail, none of them would be shocked to find him caving in his home office just to pass another insomniac night. While Gail had an inkling feeling that this girl was different from the ones that Grey had encountered before, but Taylor would have never pegged the Boss to fall for the girl first. He could tell that she was feeling something for the Boss, but he never thought that it was the Boss who cracked first. When he was ordered to do the background check of her, he was impressed with her accomplishments in school and also in fighting. He knew about her carry permit and her Krav Maga practice, but when he met her in person for the first time, he felt the standard background didn't even give him half of the information that was there of the girl.

Before Anastasia came crashing in like a wrecking ball, or to be more accurate, before Christian discovered the creature named Anastasia, Taylor's life was at least structured with a schedule that the Boss would follow. However, his life was thrown off balance the moment he saw her.

Taylor knew about the lifestyle that the Boss participated in, but he didn't judge. Whatever issue that he had which led him down this dark path was not in his job description. He remembered being down at the club with the Boss for his seasonal surprise check-up. He would show up at the club unannounced and walk through inspection procedure, look around, have a drink or two and leave. Taylor would always remain close by since it would be a quick check-up if there wasn't anything major that caught the Boss's eyes.

It was a few days after Grey's twenty-seventh birthday, and he attended the party that his parents threw him every year, with the same forced smile and expression as if he had an incomplete mission waiting for him at home. The Mile High club was even more crowded that night. If it wasn't for the young men and women dancing to the sound of popping of campaigns and the sharp increase in the sales of the more expensive brands of alcohol, Taylor wouldn't have noticed that it was the graduation season for universities and colleges, and everyone was out celebrating.

At a corner next to the stage, there was a crowd gathered that didn't look like they were watching the pole dancing performance on stage. There must be something else attracting their attention. Taylor would normally go check it out just in case if it was a potential security hazard, but he remembered that he was with the Boss and that they would be leaving at any given moment.

Grey was having a conversation with the manager, though how they could hear each other over the loud noise was beyond Taylor. He could only take it that everything was in order and the Boss was satisfied so there was no need for an office meeting. Their exchange was cut off however, by loud chants coming from the crowd next to the stage. Taylor couldn't make out the words that they were chanting, but he could see Grey stretching his neck in an attempt to see what was happening.

To save the Boss from the trip, Taylor tapped the shoulder of someone who had hopped onto the bar table just to look down at the center of the crowd. He was told that there was a dance-off that no one could miss. Apparently, there were two college graduates that just got back from Los Angeles. They were here every night since last week and there would be a dance-off between them every night when the clock struck midnight. They would be here from eleven to one, and in the short three hours that they were here, they would attract the attention of almost the entire club and they would take over the DJ playlist with their own. No one knew who they were, and only some knew the names that they went by.