Etched

Chapter 34

"Jenna, would you stop pacing around. It's giving me a headache" remarked Cassie making me pause in my step and look at her.

"S-sure sorry" I mumbled, sighing and slumping in my seat. "Ouch!" I hissed as Cassie smacked my head, I looked at her shocked at the action. Geez!

"What? You stop Ken from chewing his nails off and now you're doing the same thing" It was only then I realized what I was doing. What was I doing?

"I'm just panicking" I squeaked and she shook her head at me.

"I know, I'd realized that much but just don't" she replied, sipping water like she was enjoying some tea.

"Why didn't I think of that. Thanks Cassie genius" I said sarcastically. I had my presentation in less than half an hour and I was anxious. I'd been working on this for over a week and I thought I'd perfected everything but now that the time was here, I wasn't very confident. Cassie was here to boost my spirits but I was just a mess.

"Okay fine, wait till Ken's here then" she said and I looked at her alarmed, the disagreement at her gesture was clear on my face.

"Don't call Ken" If he's here he'd obviously make fun of me. I was actually acting dumb and he would find the situation hilarious but then he's seen worse but-

"Too late, I'm here. Thanks Smurf for the very warm welcome" he said rolling his eyes and I hid my face in hands but he's kind of the person who would distract me and may be that's what I need.

"Well, what a sight. Smurf is freaking out like crazy... What did I miss, when did he propose, who's walking her to the altar? How many tiers is the cake?" he started firing his questions and my breathing nearly stopped as I gawked at him.

"Shut up Ken!" Thankfully Cassie intervened and I pretended to ignore the questions but Holy Moly Ken can easily give someone a heart attack without so much as batting his eyes.

"Very interesting. You call me to visit then ask me to shut up. Where's the justice?" He took a seat in front of mine and looked at me and I saw how he was refraining a number of remarks which must be right on the tip of his tongue.

I ignored him and started itemizing my prepared speech, shutting my eyes close and revising everything, making sure that I don't miss anything out.

"What are you doing?" Ken looked at me like I'd lost my mind as I felt like I really did lose my mind. Cassie shrugged probably being used to my solicitude.

"Rehearsing" I said in between my practice. I counted on my fingertips the things I missed.

"Woah ma'am the deal is over. You look like you're doing voodoo rather than some simple presentation and we're better off without it. Thanks but no thanks" Ken said pretending to be some collogue and he looked horrified, I stared at him blankly.

"Yeah, that'll help her so much" Cassie told Ken and he bowed in gratitude ignoring her sarcasm in the statement making her yell, "Where am I stuck?"

"Okay fine but I don't get it. You've done it before then what went wrong?" Ken noted looking at me. He was right, I'd done it before but it was usually extemporaneous and sometimes just the explanations of ideas and graphs compiled by professionals. In this, I had a say in everything so all of it was done and prepared by me and they were coming here with the Chief executive for my work.

"It's just- just different. The whole 'thing' is solely dependent on me and even though I've worked this through I'm not sure if I'd be able it pull it." I sighed, twisting my fingers together. Only if Gabriel had read it and affirmed it before hand but no, he just found excuses to distract me by his sweet assault of kisses that had me crazy.