Chapter 159: A Week Off?

Chapter 159: A Week Off?

Arthur's office had always possessed a remarkable ability to make perfectly innocent people feel as though they were about to confess to financial crimes. Sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Manhattan, illuminating the neatly organized bookshelves and the immaculate walnut desk that somehow never contained more than three perfectly aligned folders at any given time. Meanwhile, I sat in the chair opposite him, clutching my week-long leave request with considerably more anxiety than any ordinary piece of paper deserved. My knee bounced beneath the desk despite my repeated attempts to make it stop. This was ridiculous. I wasn't asking for a promotion. I wasn't resigning. I wasn't informing him I'd accidentally deleted another manuscript. I simply wanted... one week off. Unfortunately, considering my work history, asking for vacation apparently ranked somewhere between witnessing a solar eclipse and spotting a unicorn riding the subway. I cleared my throat, slid the neatly completed leave request across the polished desk, and smiled what I hoped resembled confidence. It probably resembled mild food poisoning instead.
Arthur picked up the form, adjusted his glasses, and read it in complete silence. One second passed. Then another. His eyebrows slowly climbed higher and higher until they nearly disappeared into his hairline. Finally, he looked up at me. He didn't say anything. He simply stared. The expression on his face was so profoundly bewildered that I briefly wondered whether I'd accidentally handed him a document requesting legal ownership of one of his kidneys instead of annual leave. The silence stretched on for so long that I became painfully aware of every tiny sound in the office. The ticking clock. The distant ringing of telephones outside. My own heartbeat attempting to escape through my ears. "...Arthur?" I ventured cautiously. He blinked once. "Liela." "Yes?" Another pause. "You..." He glanced down at the paper before looking back at me. "...would like a week off?" "That's generally what the form suggests." He continued staring. "...Are you feeling unwell?" "No." "Have you been kidnapped?" "...Also no." "Are you being blackmailed?" I blinked. "That escalated surprisingly quickly."
Arthur leaned back in his chair, folding his arms with the solemn expression of a man confronting a mystery that defied all known laws of publishing. "You've worked here for three years," he said slowly. "Do you know how many times you've requested annual leave?" I smiled weakly. "...Once?" "Zero." "Ah." "Last Christmas I personally told everyone to take time off." "You did." "You came into the office anyway." "...The manuscript deadline seemed lonely." Arthur closed his eyes briefly, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Liela..." he sighed. "...you're asking for seven consecutive days." "I counted." "I'm aware." He looked genuinely concerned now. "Which is why I'm trying to determine whether this request is the result of exhaustion, temporary insanity, or an elaborate practical joke orchestrated by Elliot." I couldn't help laughing. "To be fair, Elliot would absolutely enjoy watching this conversation." "He would." Arthur nodded thoughtfully. "He'd probably sell tickets."
"So..." Arthur picked up the leave request again, his expression softening into curiosity. "Why?" There it was. The question I'd been rehearsing all morning. I drew in a slow breath, silently thanking Aunt Helena for the extraordinarily detailed script she'd emailed me before breakfast. "My aunt needs my help," I explained carefully. "She's coordinating a destination wedding in Scotland." Arthur raised an eyebrow but remained silent, allowing me to continue. "One of her assistants had a family emergency yesterday, and she asked whether I could come over for a week to help with the arrangements." He tapped the edge of the paper thoughtfully. "Your aunt owns the matchmaking agency, correct?" "She does." "And she's involved in wedding planning as well?" "Quite often." That part, thankfully, required no acting whatsoever. Arthur considered this for another moment before asking, "Do you have... anything confirming that?" My heart skipped exactly one beat before I reached into my tote bag.
"I thought you might ask." Trying very hard to appear calm, I carefully removed the elegant cream-colored envelope Aunt Helena had delivered to my apartment early that morning. Inside was the official invitation to the wedding she was genuinely coordinating in Edinburgh—a beautifully printed invitation complete with embossed lettering, the couple's names, venue details, and every indication that it belonged to a very expensive celebration. I slid it across the desk. Arthur accepted it without a word and began reading. I watched his eyes move slowly from top to bottom. Then back to the top again. He turned the invitation over. Examined the envelope. Even ran a finger across the embossed gold lettering. Honestly, the level of concentration was impressive. I sat perfectly still, resisting the overwhelming urge to blurt out, It's real, I promise. Instead, I folded my hands together and waited while internally calculating approximately seventeen different ways this conversation could still collapse into disaster.
At last, Arthur placed the invitation back on his desk and looked at me again. "...Well." His tone was noticeably less suspicious now. "This certainly appears legitimate." Relief flooded through me so quickly I nearly sighed aloud. "It is." He nodded slowly before an amused smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. "I have to admit..." He leaned back in his chair again. "...I never imagined the day would come when Liela Brooks requested time off because she had somewhere more exciting to be than the editorial department." I laughed quietly. "Neither did I." "Scotland," he repeated thoughtfully. "That's quite a trip." "It is." "You've never traveled abroad before, have you?" I shook my head. "No." Arthur looked at me for a long moment before smiling properly. "Then perhaps it's about time you did." I blinked in surprise. "...Really?" "Really." He picked up a pen, signed the leave request with one smooth stroke, and slid it back across the desk toward me. "You've more than earned a week away from manuscripts." He paused, his smile turning teasing. "Although I fully expect you to return incapable of resisting the urge to edit the wedding vows." I grinned, carefully accepting the signed form. "...I make no promises."

The moment I stepped out of Arthur's office, the door clicking softly shut behind me, I stopped in the middle of the hallway and looked down at the signed leave request in my hands. For exactly three glorious seconds, I simply stared at Arthur's unmistakable signature across the bottom of the page. Then, very quietly, I pumped my fist in the air. "Yes!" I whispered triumphantly. Against all odds, it had actually worked. Arthur hadn't questioned me for another hour. He hadn't demanded fifteen additional forms. He hadn't called Aunt Helena to verify the wedding. He had simply... approved it. I hugged the folder against my chest with a grin that refused to disappear. Step one was officially complete. Scotland suddenly felt a little less like an impossible dream and a little more like something that might genuinely happen. I resisted the overwhelming urge to skip down the hallway like an overly enthusiastic musical theater character. Professionalism, after all, was important. Besides, if anyone from Human Resources witnessed spontaneous hallway dancing, there would almost certainly be paperwork involved.
Unfortunately, my celebration lasted precisely until I rounded the corner and spotted Elliot's desk across the editorial floor. I stopped walking so abruptly that a passing intern gave me a concerned look before carefully walking around me. My smile froze. My victory dissolved into thin air. "...Oh no," I whispered. There he was. Elliot. Blissfully unaware that his best friend had just received approval to spend an entire week in Scotland. My eyes slowly drifted upward toward the ceiling. Arthur had been the easy part. I couldn't believe I'd actually thought convincing my boss would be the difficult challenge. Compared to Elliot? Arthur might as well have rolled out a red carpet and handed me complimentary airline tickets. Elliot was an entirely different category of obstacle. A final boss. A human lie detector wrapped inside an aggressively protective editor with unlimited free time and an unhealthy talent for noticing details nobody else ever saw.
I quietly backed around the corner before he could glance up from his computer. "Think," I muttered under my breath. "Think, Liela." I pressed my back against the wall like a detective hiding from dangerous criminals. "How exactly does one tell Elliot they're leaving the country?" My brain immediately supplied several disastrous possibilities. 'Hey, Elliot! Funny story. I'll be gone for a week because Aunt Helena needs help with a wedding in Scotland.' He'd narrow his eyes. 'Scotland?' Then would come the interrogation. 'Which city?' 'Whose wedding?' 'Why you?' 'Since when do editors become wedding planners?' Somewhere around question number twelve, I'd probably forget my own name. Worse still, if I accidentally looked guilty for even half a second, he'd somehow connect Scotland... to Grayson... to the publishing schedule... to the exact promotional tour itinerary... and then I'd never leave the building alive. He'd personally zip-tie me to my office chair while delivering a three-hour lecture titled Absolutely Not.
I let out the longest sigh of my life and slowly slid down the wall until I was crouching beside a potted plant that was now, quite unintentionally, my emotional support fern. "This is impossible," I informed it. The fern, displaying remarkable professionalism, declined to comment. "Arthur believed me in under ten minutes." Still nothing. "Elliot, on the other hand, once correctly guessed I'd spilled coffee on chapter fourteen because I used three fewer exclamation marks in an email." I buried my face in my hands. The man had observational skills that belonged in a detective agency, not a publishing house. He remembered everything. Tiny details. Strange habits. The exact number of sugar packets I put in my coffee. If I so much as packed an extra phone charger, he'd probably ask whether I was traveling internationally. Honestly, it was less like having a coworker and more like sharing an office with an FBI profiler who had somehow developed an emotional attachment to my continued survival.
Taking one final, steadying breath, I stood back up and straightened my blazer. Running away wasn't an option. Eventually, Elliot was going to ask why I'd submitted leave paperwork, and eventually I'd have to tell him the story Aunt Helena and I had carefully prepared. It was a good story. A believable story. A perfectly reasonable story. The problem wasn't the story. The problem was the audience. I glanced toward Elliot's desk again and watched him laugh at something on his computer before returning to his manuscript with complete innocence, blissfully unaware that his afternoon was about to become considerably more dramatic. "All right," I whispered, squaring my shoulders with the determination of someone marching into battle. "You've defeated Arthur and Keeper of Annual Leave Forms." I swallowed hard. "...Now comes the real challenge." And somehow, facing one overly protective best friend felt infinitely more terrifying than asking my boss for permission to fly halfway across the world.