(Liam's POV - Mon. 26 August 2013)

"Are you ever going to bring me these reports or do I have to come and get them myself??" Mr. Jones barks in the phone.

"I'm sorry Sir... my computer crashed and I got it back only an hour ago. I'll be up in less than ten minutes... I'm really sorry..." I hear a grunt and the line goes dead. I don't know if I can do this anymore... at least with someone like Mr. Jones.

It was really my luck that my laptop crashed just as I was about to print all these reports for my current manager. I tried to restart it several times, but the damn machine just wouldn't work and in the end, I had to take it to one of the IT guys so that he could fix it. It had already taken me like ages to finalize all the PowerPoint presentations. I even worked till very late at home last night to make sure that I would only have to review everything quickly this morning and print all the documents. Making a presentation on PowerPoint is not that difficult, but if you want to make something that will look nice enough and more importantly coherent, you need to understand what it is talking about. The problem is that I don't know much about Finance in general and it took me quite some time to get what Mr. Jones expected. It would have helped if I had had more time to get used to the job and that department in particular, but I only had two days working with Carola.

On my second day at Pierce Corporation, I met up with Elena again and she took me to Carola's office on the 19th floor. Elena explained that the finance assistant is pregnant and often getting sick, which is why she thought I should train with Carola first because if she needs to call in sick earlier than the usual term, I would be able to take over her job while they looked for another assistant to replace her. My first two days with the finance team went pretty well. Carola introduced me to the whole team. She said that for the first two days, she wanted me to spend time with the various teams of the finance department, such as the accounts receivable and accounts payable teams and the credit control, so that they could explain what their jobs consisted in, and that she would start working with me on the Thursday.

The problem is that on the Thursday, she called in sick and never came back, leaving me all by myself to answer all the requests from the various managers. I am not a complete dumbass and I was trained on Excel in university, so I was able to do some consolidations for the Controller and the other managers, but it took me the hell of a time for each of the requests. I was scared to make mistakes or to misunderstand the purpose of the exercise. I was even more scared to ask for help or to bother the managers with more questions. Some of them were rather patient and kind enough to come to me and explain what they were expecting me to do, but others just threw me an email with a vague description of the request saying it was urgent.

Needless to say that my days were filled with stress and that more than once I thought about giving up and leaving. I can understand that Carola felt too sick to come to the office, but she could have at least given me her phone number and helped me from home. I wouldn't have bothered her all the time but it would have been good to know I could call her if I had a question on a specific subject. Instead of that, I had to manage all by myself to look into her files and folders. My only moment of relief every day has been my lunch break. From my second day, Elena has taken the habit to come and pick me up so that we could go together to the first floor for our lunch. Ally often joined us and on the Friday, when I told her about my situation, she very kindly and willingly proposed to spend the afternoon with me to show me a few things. As she said, we were lucky that Mr. Pierce was on vacation and that she had more time.

I also found out that Elena and Ally are good friends outside of work. Ally is quite a discreet woman in the sense that her position as the CEO's assistant doesn't really allow her to talk too much, but she is extremely funny and energetic. Elena, as an HR assistant, is also bound to secrecy, but she is more open to gossiping and, even though I am not really the gossiping kind, we had quite a few giggles at some anecdotes she told me about. I also patiently listened to her when she told me about a few people she doesn't particularly hold in her heart, like Mr. Jones or Carola. I usually don't judge people too quickly but the little bit I have seen so far was reinforced by Elena's opinions.

Thank God I have Shannon in the evening at home who keeps comforting me and cheering me up. When I came back home on the first Thursday evening, I simply broke down the moment I entered our apartment. I told him how hard the day had been after I was told that Carola wouldn't come back for some time and I had to handle her job although I was a beginner and had only started. He encouraged me and told me that I was the best and I would succeed and prove them that I could do it. Out of nowhere, he pulled out a pack of beers that I would rather not know how he got, and we had a relaxing pizza evening. Over the week-end, he was also the one to make me stop working on my laptop and drag me to one of the gay nightclubs he is used to go.

I have never been a huge fan of nightclubs. For one, I am not at ease with my body and can't really dance. Then, most of the times, my friend chooses gay clubs. Although Shan is bi-sexual, he has a preference for men so it is easier for him to find partners. The problem is that, with his cute face and his great skills at dancing, Shan attracts a lot of people and it sometimes happens that I find myself all alone while he does what he has to in a corner or in the bathrooms of the club. I don't really have a problem with this because I know him and I often encourage him, saying I don't mind staying alone for a while. Shannon is a sex on legs but I also know that he is always cautious to protect himself. However, me ending up sitting alone at a table in a gay nightclub also means that some guys sometimes try their luck with me and I am not gay.

Or at least I don't think so. Actually I don't know. To be honest, my sexual experience is zero. As a teenager, I flirted with a few girls - or let's say I kissed two girls. The first time, I can't really say that I liked it because I was awkward and too shy to let my tongue inside her mouth. The second time was a bit better and I even dared to reach the girl's breast... this is when she slapped me in the face. I guess it must have dampened me and I have never renewed the experience since then. The truth is that I have never felt any kind of genuine attraction for a girl. I don't blame it on my shy temper because I don't even feel attracted to beautiful actresses or singers who I know are unreachable. At some point in my late adolescence, I forced myself to look at some kind of magazines but only got frustrated because I didn't really feel any arousal at the sight of naked women. Seeing a supposedly-sexy woman just doesn't trigger anything within me.

If I say that I am not gay, it is because I have never felt attracted to men either. It is not like I never got to see naked men when I was in the showers after PE classes, but at that time, I was more preoccupied by my straight A's than my sexual life - or lack thereof. Besides, living with a guy who has absolutely no complex, I wouldn't be able to count the number of times I saw him naked, but this is Shannon, my best friend. I have always considered him as an older brother, so there is no way I would feel any kind of sexual attraction to him I guess. I was kissed by a man about a year ago during one of our nights out in a club. I have to admit that the guy was rather cute and maybe I would have appreciated the kiss if he hadn't tasted a mix of so many different alcohols that I ran away. So here I am, twenty years old, still a virgin and not really knowing what I like.

All this is to say that I managed to relax over the week-end because I had a great Saturday evening with Shan in a club. He didn't leave me on my own that night and declined quite a few proposals from other guys. We had a lot of fun and on Monday morning, I was ready to start a new week. My motivation fell on Wednesday when Mr. Jones himself sent me a dozen of files that I needed to organize and make a presentation of them without much more precision. I didn't want to mess up with one of the biggest bosses of the company so I asked him for more information. It obviously upset him but he gave me some helpful instructions and with a lot of effort, I managed to offer him a first draft that he returned to me with a ton of annotations. This was one of the documents that I needed to print out and bring to him upstairs by 3:00 pm the latest this afternoon.

My mistake was not to do it immediately when I arrived this morning. Printing and preparing the bundles was not a difficult talk and I thought I could afford to first take care of another urgent request from the Controller and do it after lunch. I hadn't planned on a crash of my laptop after all. Anyway it happened and I feel sick to my stomach knowing that I have messed up and earned a proper telling-off. As if it wasn't enough stress to know I was about to meet the CEO...

It is nearly 3:30 when I awkwardly gather all the bundles in my arms and hurriedly make my way to the elevator. As the cage takes me to the 21st floor, I try to adjust my tie as best as I can and curse myself for having ruined my best suit with a cup of coffee before I left home this morning. This one is a second-hand suit that I bought two years ago and that is too large for me; so much for my organization skills and having my three other suits at the dry-cleaner's at the same time. When the doors slide open, I walk straight to the meeting room's double door. I try to hold all the documents with my left arm. My right hand is sweaty and shaking a little over the handle. I take a deep breath, knock once and open the door.

I was expecting the meeting room to be full but only four persons are sitting at the other end of the long table. My eyes quickly notice Ally's blond head but that's Mr. Jones' gray hair that they are looking for and it happens to be on her left. My boss has his back to me and I am not quite sure about how I should gain his attention; I don't know if he wants me to hand out a copy to each person or if I should just put them on the table beside his laptop. I decide to go for the second option and mumble a quick apology. As I start walking toward him, my eyes meet Mr. Pierce's. I easily recognize him since he is the only person I have never met in this room. It is as if I could almost see the color of his eyes shifting to the most beautiful electric blue I have ever seen. I feel a weird tension running through my body and the next thing I know, all the documents are spilled on the wooden floor of the meeting room. My eyes drop to the mess I have just made... I feel the panic filling me and I try my best not to burst into tears and run away from the meeting room when I hear Mr. Jones' wrath.

"What an idiot!!! Slow and clumsy as a stupid bear!!! Look what you've done here! As if being late wasn't enough!!" Mr. Jones yells at me while I drop to my knees and begin to gather all the documents.

"I'm so sorry, Sir... I'm sorry..." I keep whispering as I quickly sort all the bundles. My tears are threatening to spill but I hold them back because I don't want to stain the documents.

"How can you be so stupid..." Mr. Jones seethes through his teeth.

"Enough Jones!" a deep and authoritative voice resounds, making my body stiffen, as I hear two chairs rolling back. "Remain seated, Ally, I've got it," the same voice adds with a soft tone.

I see a pair of nice and shiny shoes stop in front of me - and most probably very expensive too. For a few seconds, my body remains frozen at the knowledge that they can only be Mr. Pierce's. I finally grab all the documents in my shaking hands and slowly rise to my feet, cautious not to do the same mistake twice and to keep my eyes down this time. Mr. Pierce holds his hands out to me; they are long, thin, yet manly; his skin so dark. As I hand him the pile of paper, his warm fingers quickly brush my cold ones, bringing the same tension I felt when our eyes met. I immediately withdraw my hands, stutter another poor excuse and run away from the damn meeting room without another word or look back.

Thank God, the lift cage is still here and when I reach the 19th floor, I rush to the bathrooms and lock myself in a stall. I sit on the lid, my elbows on my trembling knees and my face in my hands, and let the tears of anger silently spill down my cheeks. For a good half-hour, I stay hidden there and mope about my ponderousness. I can't believe that I had to mess up on my first occasion to deal with the high level management. I eventually get out of the stall to refresh at the sink. However much I try to dab some paper tissue drenched in cold water, my eyes keep slightly red and puffy. I know it is a bit early to leave the office, but I am already screwed and will probably get fired tomorrow, so I discreetly rush back to my office to pack my things and go. My bad luck hounds me as the lift stops by the 17th floor on its descent instead of going straight to the ground floor. I keep my head down but I recognize the nice pair of stilettos that step into the cage.

"Hi Liam!" Elena says. "Are you on your way out?" she then adds after a bit of hesitation.

"Er... yeah... I started early this morning..." I automatically reply, which was true anyway.

"Liam, is something wrong?" she asks with concern.

"No... No..." Fortunately, we already reach the floor she was going to.

"You sure? You look kind of upset..." she insists, holding the door.

"Yeah sure. I'll see you tomorrow..."

"Okay... See you tomorrow..."

As soon as I reach the ground floor, I rush out of the building and head toward the train station. Shan had a couple of job interviews this afternoon and I am hoping that he is still out when I get back in. The apartment is indeed empty when I walk in, so I go straight to my bedroom, strip off my suit that I carelessly toss on my desk chair and lie down on my bed. As I brood over this awful day, I hear the entrance door open, soon followed by Shan's squeals.

"Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! Are you already home??? Hey!! I got a job!!!!!" I hear him shuffle around before he walks into my room and jumps on the bed. "Li!! Did you hear that? I found a one-month job in a food store!! It's not great, but that's still something, right???" Seeing my lack of enthusiasm, his face falls. "Hey Bunny... what's wrong?"

"I'll probably have to look for another job too..." I say, my voice cracking.

"Why would you do that? What happened?" he asks, now really worried. So I tell him how I messed up by not prioritizing my tasks properly and how the chain of events resulted in me being late to bring the documents to the executive meeting room; I tell him how my klutziness caused me to scatter all the bundles on the floor, and that, in front of the CEO. Of course I don't mention the fact that I was highly distracted by the said CEO's beautiful eyes. Shan spends a good hour trying to cheer me up but nothing works this time and I end up asking him to leave me alone for a while.

That night I keep rehearsing the moment I met eyes with Mr. Pierce. I have never felt that tension which took over my body then... so much so that I barely noticed the rest of his features; I believe his hair is rather dark but this is all I can remember. Actually, no... this is not all... his eyes are not the only thing I can remember. His voice also struck me. I had never heard a voice so deep and so... sexy? I can still feel the ping of happiness when he told off Mr. Jones... and that kindness when he spoke to Ally! The last thing that my mind dwells on before I finally fall asleep very late at night is the moment when his fingers gently brushed mine. He could have avoided this by grabbing the bundles at their other end, and for a moment, I wonder if he did it on purpose. The thing I know for sure is that an electric shock ran through my body then; I don't know what it was, but it made me feel weird and I am not sure I liked it. In the darkness of my room, as I close my eyes, the last thing I see are these electric blue eyes.

Published on 27 Aug. 2016

Sometimes, even a punchy Shannon can't help...

It is a rather short chapter, but as I said, some of the chapters will be a bit shorter in this story, and it was just to summarize Liam's last two awful weeks and briefly mention his point of view on the encounter with Joshua.

The picture above is a screenshot of the exterior of Liam and Shan's apartment (Credits to Google Street) or at least this is the building that inspired me to describe their place. They live on the last floor. A sketch of the setting will come later...

This chapter is dedicated to the sweetest bear of all because he is a great guy and, I've missed you buddy since I Was Shooting For The Moon was finished :) There you have the chapter!