Chapter 6

• "C-c-cake?" I asked confused, talk about a conversation spinning 180 degrees.
• Sterling barely looked fazed as he leaned back in his bar stool clasping his hands over his lap, "Yeah like a chocolate one, oooh, how about a chocolate one that oozes out more chocolate when you open it?"
• "Why do you want a cake?" I asked.
• "Why do you ask so many questions?" He asked me back.
• I narrowed my eyes at him, well at least so I know why I was making a cake. Wait, no, I wasn't making a cake, "Just go buy one." not to mention how long it would take, and how long it has been since I baked.
• "Whoa," Sterling sat forward his eyebrows shooting up with a small smile, "Did you just tell me to spend money?"
• I frowned lifting up my toast to take a bite, I wasn't hungry, but it kept my mouthful so I didn't have to reply, and with that look he does he just sends my blood boiling from 1 to 100 fast. I just wanted to slap that look of his face. But no, he did sort of help me in the past twenty odd hours.
• Okay well...
• The loud knock on the door finally broke his scrutinising stare, "Who is it?" I asked.
• Sterling got out of his bar stool, "I thought you were smart, you know, one usually needs to open the door before you know who it is."
• I rolled my eyes as he disappeared into the corridor as I turned back to finishing this toast. I wasn't even hungry, but now that it was on my plate I had to finish it. I shouldn't waste food, and I also should eat something.
• I also should get back to work, try to recover those stupid files, but my head killed.
• There was loud chatter and a lot of excitement from the front door and I didn't have to go and look to know he probably had friends over. Again. That would explain the suit. As the laughter and chatter got closer I groaned, great, now I had to say hi to his friends.
• Or maybe I'll just sit here staring at my half overcooked toast. Why didn't I bring my phone down with me?
• Because it was stolen.
• Oh man, adding contacts all over again was such a pain, please tell me I saved them to sim. The founds of footsteps got even closer and I looked up as a group of people entered the kitchen laughing, that laughter soon died as they met my eyes.
• I remembered one of the guys, short, loud, wait, wasn't he the one yelling last night, "Oh hey she's still alive." why did he sound sad about that?
• I blinked, yep, he was the guy from last night. Of course I was alive toad face.
• Sterling left his group of three walking further into the kitchen and I looked over my shoulder, what was he doing, he disappeared into the pantry shelf.
• "You're not as ugly as he said," I looked over to the person who said that, a small feminine girl in an incredibly tight red dress looking like she just walked off the page of a magazine. In fact they all were dressed to the high tens, I wonder where they were all going.
• None of my business.
• "Yeah you're actually not bad, minus the bandage," the remaining guy in the group of three muttered leaning on the counter winking at me, "I thought you were going to be this fat troll."
• How nice.
• "I'm glad I live up to your expectations because not looking like a troll and pleasing men is what every female aspires to aim for."
• "Huh?" he looked confused as he stood up and then shrugged his broad shoulders tugging at his silver suit jacket, "Whatever. Ster, hurry up we're going to be late." he yelled making me wince. Could he yell it any louder? He probably could and I wasn't going to test out this theory.
• Speak of the devil, Sterling walked out of the pantry and I did a double take, "Where are you taking that." I asked glaring at him, that was my dad's Rum bottle.
• "None of your business dear wife, why don't you just go sleep or something."
• "That's my dads!"
• "He gave it to me." Sterling moved the bottle to the other hand in case I grabbed it.
• "He did not!" My dad loved his rum collection, it was his pride, he wouldn't give his extremely old and valuable bottle to someone who drank it like water. I winced as Sterling patted my cheek, and flicked his hand away, don't touch me.
• "Don't wait up honey." he whispered.
• God I hope he got his stomach pumped or something. I grumbled irritated as his squad followed him like puppies. I hope they all got alcohol poisoning.
• The land line started ringing and I tossed my toast onto the plate leaning over and grabbing it, "Hello?"
• "H-Hey Aedan, it's Duncan. I want to talk to you about business. Do you want to meet up for dinner?"
• * * *
• "Here."
• I looked up as Duncan gave me some ice wrapped in a towel and smiled, "Thank you." Duncan lowered himself onto the ground next to me, "Sorry."
• "Why are you apologising?" I asked as he logged into his laptop. Thank god he had most of the files, or else we would really be screwed. And I was also lucky that I CC-ed Joe into most of my emails he would have copies of ninety per cent of the work.
• "I should have dropped you off last night."
• I gave Duncan a look before shaking my head and leaning against my couch, "Please, it wasn't your fault I got mugged."
• "I should have walked you down." he said almost frustrated and I let it drop. He was here to talk about work, not about how we could have prevented me getting mugged and losing all my work which could cost us so much.
• Besides, it was already done, it didn't matter now, it was best to move on and find a way to finish all our projects on time. I didn't like being late, my pride was in my punctuality.
• "Sorry for making you drive all the way here." when he suggested we meet up at a restaurant, I wasn't exactly sure how we could cover lot of work there, better here, and also I couldn't drive because I had no car.
• "No that's fine. I liked the drive. Is...anyone home?" he asked looking around.
• "Nah," I took over his laptop logging into my emails to download all the work.
• "In this big house by yourself?"
• "Sterlings out, he'll be back soon." I said.
• "Oh, oh right yes of course." Duncan nodded clearing his throat. I opened the PDF files breathing a sigh of relief when the most updated version was there, okay. That was good. I didn't have my work in progress but I had my most recent one.
• I emailed it to myself so I had a copy at home I could work at.
• I flinched when I felt something on my face, pushing the hair to the side, and looked at Duncan, "Sorry I just wanted to see how bad it looked,"
• "Uh," I leaned back a bit, "It'll heal," sure it looked like a baseball hit me, with the way it bruised, but I'll just leave my hair down even though that was annoying and people wouldn't stare, much. I did have a few meetings penciled in, but I couldn't remember when.
• My planner was in that bag. No, no Aedan, don't think about it and make yourself have a panic attack, you can figure this out, between Joe and Emilia you can find out when all your meetings are. But that just meant more work for me, and I didn't want to back track.
• "Here, put the ice back on," he grabbed the ice from the table and held it up to my face, "Uh, thanks," I said as I reached for it as I scooted over trying to get a bit more space between us. Why was he so close?
• I looked up as the door opened and I could hear voices again and my eyes flickered to the clock, it was only eleven, they were back incredibly early. Sterling walked in his grey eyes meeting mine, "Did you move the GPS out of my car?"
• What.
• I stared at him, "No?"
• "Are you sure?" he asked.
• "Positive." I didn't even touch his car, why would I have anything to do with his car anyway, apart from paying for it with my money. He nodded turning around walking into the closet and I shook my head going back to my work when I heard something fall and break.
• "What the hell," I muttered throwing the ice package onto the desk, "Excuse me," I told Duncan, I lifted myself off the ground. What the hell was he breaking now?
• The closet room had a lot of things from my childhood that no longer had place in my house, I didn't need him breaking anything valuable.
• "Sterling get your fat arse out of there," I muttered switching on the light, it might help if he had the light on, "What the hell did you break?"
• I looked inside my eyes flashing bright lights till they settled, god my head hurt, and I saw him hunched silhouette on the ground picking something up. Yep, he definitely broke something.
• He turned around as I neared him, "It's just some stupid picture."
• "What picture?!" I tried pushing his giant body out of the way so I could see but he barely budged, "Your GPS wouldn't be in here, why would I touch your damn GPS?!"
• "I don't now, so I don't know where to drive since you're like a warden." Sterling muttered behind him.
• I scoffed bending down over him trying to grab the photo frame, "Give it to me."
• "Go away, why are you so annoying, go back to your boyfriend." he muttered holding the frame above me.
• "He isn't my boyfriend and give me the fucking photo frame," I snapped recognising the frame. Sterling froze making me look down at him, and it wasn't the close distance that was making me feel all hot, it was the throbbing head and my anger building up.
• "Did you just swear at me?" he asked.
• "The frame Sterling, now."
• He handed it over in a second and I stood up looking down at the broken glass and frowned, it was ruined. I wiped the dust off the glass seeing the photo below that nearly made me smile. I forgot I even had this photo.
• I pulled away the broken glass looking at the clearer photo underneath, "You're going to cut yourself."
• My eyes flickered up to the grey ones and I frowned, "Get out of here."
• "What?" Sterling asked.
• "Your GPS isn't in this room, go search somewhere else and stop going through my shit!"
• "Whoa are you ok-,"
• "Sterling get out!" I yelled.
• He waited a second before hastily shoving past me muttering something like crazy bitch under his breathe, which I probably was.
• I waited till he left and heard the front door slamming and knelt at the box he was rummaging through. Why was he touching this?
• He knows that his GPS wouldn't be in here, god this is why I hated him. He did shit like this to piss me off, and breaking a photo frame, real mature Sterling.
• I opened the torn wooden lip looking at the other things that were dear to me, hidden in this box and pulled out a small statute from the lot. And my heart broke seeing it broken.