Chapter Thirteen
Lemurs
"You slept with him?" Elle's incredulous voice came out crackled. I quickly shifted my phone to rest upright against a pillow.
"The connection's pretty bad here."
"You slept with him?"
"I didn't, Elle." I sighed. Right after Cesc's hasty departure, I had decided to call Elle and ease my burden onto her. However, she was making it a point to shove everything right back at me. "We just talked …" I trailed off unceremoniously, remembering the sudden, unexpected passion of last night. "… On my bed."
Elle snorted. "What are you going to do now?"
"I don't know. I was hoping you had an answer."
"Okay, let me rephrase that." Elle said in a clipped voice. I could hear the unmistakable sound of a hair-dryer whirring. "What do you want now?"
"My job back." I said automatically. There was a long pause of awkward silence on the other line. "Elle?"
"Yep." I heard a grunt followed by a loud clatter.
"I'll just call you back."
"Don't," Elle's voice was venomous. "I just had an epiphany."
I waited patiently as I heard the hair-dryer click back on, the subsequent whirring filling in the long gaps of silence.
"Okay," Elle said after awhile as the whirring died down. "Why do you want your job back?"
"What happened to your epiphany?"
"Answer the damn question, Ley."
"Fine," Disgruntled, I glared at my phone. "I don't know. It's stable."
"There's your answer."
"What?" I frowned. I was paying a ridiculous amount of money just to call Elle, and here she was giving me cryptic answers.
"Cesc isn't stable," Elle sighed, making it sound like the most expected thing in the world. "He's a footballer, he travels everywhere and he has a past. You like stability."
"Den – he wasn't stable," I murmured quietly into my pillow.
"Hadley," Elle's voice softened. "You were fine before him. You actually made an effort to go for the nice guys; now you just shun all of them out. Nobody's perfectly stable."
"You're stable." I muttered stubbornly, staring at the sun filtered through the purple of my curtains.
"No, Ley." Elle sighed. "You tend to harp on my good sides; you forget that I'm a power-hungry, maniacal, boy-toy flaunting bitch."
I chuckled at Elle's bluntness. "But you're always here. You are stable, Elle."
"But the problem is, Hadley," She let out a quiet sigh. "You're not dating me."
I caught my reflection in the glass doors of the café. Nodding to myself, I quickly turned my head to acknowledge the person sitting across from me.
"Hello, Arsene." I meant to graciously sweep my hand out for him to shake, but instead I managed to knock over the salt shaker with it. Arsene merely nodded his head, watching me in bemusement.
I frowned, puffing out my cheeks, as Arsene remained eerily quiet. I had expected him to at least say something – anything really, like how I had dragged him away from his wife on his day-off.
"So …" I glanced around for inspiration. The only thing meeting my gaze was the thick curtains the waiters had draped around our booth, enshrouding us from the bustle of outside.
"You shouldn't do that," Arsene started. I frowned. "Puffing your cheeks out like that, or smirk or any of those weird facial expressions you do. It'll make you a bad spokesperson."
"Spokesperson?" I stared at him, puzzled as to where this was going. Arsene sighed.
"Interview me."
"Sorry?"
"Interview me. Ask questions."
I bit my lip and nodded slowly. Arsene shook his head.
"Stop biting your lip."
"Oh, right."
I let my bottom lip slid out from beneath my teeth. I was sorely tempted to drum my fingers against the table, but thought better of it after sneaking a glance at Arsene's glare. Clearing my throat, I finally popped the first question that came into mind.
"Can I have my job back?"
Arsene snorted. "You don't squeak your questions like some pre-pubescent girl. You're a grown woman, Manserick. Look me in the eyes," He prodded his own for further elaboration. "And ask me."
I stared at him. "Can I have my job back?"
"No, no, no." Arsene muttered, shaking his head in evident frustration. "Now you look like those – those monkey things. With the big eyes."
"Lemurs?" I supplied meekly.
"Yes!" Arsene pumped a fist in the air. "Say it with more passion; scream it to me like you want your job back."
"What?" I was completely dumbstruck. "Lemurs?"
"Lemurs!" He roared, speckle flying everywhere. "Let me see your passion for your job."
"Lemurs." I said blandly. Arsene shook his head vehemently.
"Lemurs! Scream it, Manserick." He flung his arms wildly. I suppressed a groan. This idea had somehow gone very horribly wrong. "For once in your life, do something different. Stop hiding and just be."
"Just be?" I added skeptically.
"Yes, just let things happen. Now, scream to me." Arsene sat back in his chair, arms folded in front of him, waiting. Taking a deep breath, I braced myself.
"I want my job back." I screamed at him.
"Uh, miss?" A sharp tap jolted me from my sudden burst of confidence, letting me down-spiral back to my earlier self. I looked up to meet the waiter's worried face, smiling meekly. "Do you want to place your orders now?"
AUTHOR'S CORNER
Thank you all so much for the reviews! But honestly, I only started OKAS out of boredom and so that I had something to post to whenever I wasn't working on my more serious story, Experiment House.
So, yeah. This is just an outlet for me to ... well, take a break from my normal, sombre writing style :), since honestly, I don't really take OKAS that seriously.
[IMPORTANT NOTICE]
And lastly, I might not be posting as much as I am now for OKAS. It might be going hiatus :/. Right now, I've finally finished sorting the odds and ends for my other more serious story, Experiment House, and my sole concentration will most likely go straight to it.
If you've read EH, you might sort of see the startling different writing style it has compared to OKAS (sorry, I just like abbreviations too much) and I'm slightly worried if I keep updating both stories at the same time, it'll affect both stories really badly. As you can see, as of right now, OKAS's chapters are fairly short and simple while I'm writing 2k per chapter on EH while frantically going through the thesaurus so I can sound like J.K Rowlings (haha, I'm kidding. J.K's too awesome for me and I'm all for individuality, yo :P)
So, yes. I had to pick EH over OKAS, mainly because I don't like how readership for OKAS is so friggin' much higher than EH. I mean, damn, I'm working so much harder for EH. Okay, kidding :D (I have stop making bad jokes now o.o).
Okay, seriously, I had never really meant for OKAS to receive this much positive feedback. I was more or less expecting to delete it after the first few chapters; but then I received so many story alerts and favorites it kinda overwhelmed me.
But, yeah. I need / want to work on EH now, since the plot's finally (FINAAAALLY) sorted out and I can just chill and write loads of crap :). I would really appreciate it if you could pop over to Experiment House and leave some reviews. Don't let the summary scare you off, I just suck at writing it.
I don't know WHEN I'll post the next OKAS chapter up. It could take a week or a month, depending on how 'into' I am on EH (god, I keep harping on EH. I'm sorry D:. I'm just pumping my ass over it).
Signing off, your very busy / sorry / grateful, OKAS writer.