Chapter 22

“What are you doing here?” Sean asked Rege, eyeing him wearily when he pulled out a seat and sat beside him. His lunch was taking a turn for the worst.

“Having lunch with Mon Cherie” Rege answered in a high-pitched tone, he swiped the menu off the table.

Sean wanted to hit his head “Melissa alone cannot bring you down here” Sean said, Melissa put her hand on her chest indicating mock hurt “No offense” Sean said to her.

“Have you ordered already baby?” Rege asked Melissa who shook her head in response.

“I guess I’ll be on my way” Sean said, he glared at Rege “Thanks for ruining my lunch”.

Rege smiled, enjoying how uncomfortable he was making Sean “You’re very welcome.”

Sean was about to leave when Ma walked in with a tray of food “Where’s Rosalia?” She asked, placing the food on the table while eyeing the other two.

“Rosalia?” Melissa asked, her posture perking up at the name.

“She had some work to finish up and had to leave early” Sean said, paying Melissa no mind. Now that he thought about it, he was glad Rosalia had left earlier, he didn’t want her meeting Melissa of all people.

“Okay” Ma said.

“You’re not going to take our own orders?” Melissa asked. Ma looked at her and left without a word. Sean smiled on the inside when Ma left, the old woman didn’t warm up to just anybody, but he was glad she liked Rosalia.

“Can I have this?” Rege asked picking at Sean’s food. With an appetite long gone, Sean braced himself for the worst lunch in the history of man.

Rosalia searched everywhere for Max but couldn’t find him. She was about to retire to her desk when she saw his brown hair that was long enough to cover his entire face.

“Max!” She called out to him. He stopped and turned, lollipop sticking out of his mouth.

“Hey! Where have you been? Wanted to have lunch together” He said when he got to her.

“I could ask you the same” Rosalia said. “Meanwhile…I need your help.”

Max removed the sweet in his mouth entirely, holding it by the stick. “What’s up?”

“There’s this project Sean asked me to make a presentation on. It’s huge and I don’t want to fuck it up” She said.

“Ah…first name basis with the boss I see.” He said, smiling, “Let me see the file.”

Rosalia took him back to her desk and handed the file over to him. She watched him skim through the file.

“This is the project everyone has been talking about” he mused to himself.

“Everyone?”

“Yeah, this particular project is personal to the boss. They’re trying to build a hotel here” Max pointed at the picture attached to the file “But the boss proposed an orphanage instead and managed to convince them. That man is one hell of a businessman.”

Rosalia had not known this, that was why they had gone to France. “Why is an orphanage more important to him?”

Max looked at her like she was asking a question with the most obvious answer “He’s an orphan dear Rosie. I’m surprised you did not know considering how close the two of you are.”

“He never mentioned anything.” Rosalia hated that she didn’t know this vital information about him. Now that she thought about, he never even mentioned anything about his family or if he even had any.

“I’m not surprised. He’s a very private person” Max said as he flipped through the file some more “When is this due?”

“In two days” She answered.

“What!”

“He said the investors would be here in two days and it has to be ready before then.”

“But…that’s not possible” Max whined “Plus, you only just started working here.”

Rosalia rolled her eyes “Trust me, I said the same thing, but he was adamant on me getting it done. He believes in me, that’s why I want to do a perfect job and you’re going to help me with it.”

“Oh boy” Max whined “I’m probably going to regret agreeing to this.”

Rosalia clapped, excitement seeping back into her “Where do we start?”

“We have to visit the site, interview a couple residents on how they feel about the structure we’re about to put up in their neighborhood.”

“That’s right” Rosalia agreed “How do we get there?”

Max sighed “We have to take my car; I hate riding the train downtown.”

She hooked her hand around his elbow “Let’s go then!”

Sean didn’t wait to tell Ma goodbye. He would have to make it up to her later. She was the closest thing to a mother figure that he had.

“Are we going or what?”

Rege’s annoying voice brought him back to reality. They were all standing outside the restaurant, the cold air taking a swing at Melissa’s hair.

“What do you mean going? Did we come here together?” Sean asked, not hiding the annoyance he felt.

“No, we did not” Rege answered “But, we’re close to your company building…why not just show me around since we’ll be working together soon.”

“What??” Sean asked, bewildered.

“Oh, I see you’ve not been informed yet. Well, I’ll be honored to break the good news to you” Rege said, smiling too brightly. Sean knew what he was about to tell him was anything but good news, nothing good came out of Rege’s mouth.

“Since the New Age project is one both close to our hearts” He stated dramatically, placing his two hands on his chest “They Picassos accepted my proposal too and agreed that we’ll work on the project together!” He finished, beaming at Sean with open arms.

“What! When did this happen?” Sean asked.

“Frankly, it was just this morning. That’s why I came down here, to make sure that you don’t kill yourself with excitement that you’ll be working with me”.

“I did not agree to this” Sean said to himself. He had to contact the Picassos immediately, they should have informed him before trying to bring Rege onboard. He always worked alone and that wasn’t about to change.

“Get her home safely” he told Rege and walked away with one glance at Melissa. He knew he should have brought his car with him. The excitement of having lunch with Rosalia had made him not think properly.

He was about to ride the elevator to his office when someone stopped the doors from closing.

“I love that you’re always happy to see me” Rege said, as he stepped into the elevator and pushed the button. Sean was about to ask him how he knew the floor his office was on but thought better about it. That was the least of his problems.

“What are you doing?” he asked instead.

“Getting familiar with my new workplace” Rege replied as they moved up “And before I forget, I’ll need an office and all that stuff.”

“I don’t see any need for all these formalities” He looked at Rege then “And I assure you, we will not be working together on this project”.

“It’s already decided. You can go ahead and try but I promise…your efforts will be fruitless” Rege said just as the elevator dinged.

“Watch me” Sean said before leaving the elevator for his office.

“Mind if we share your office for a while?” Rege asked, “I promise I’ll be gone once you set up my working space. And in a couple months we would never have to see each other again”.

Sean eyed him wearily “Why do you even have to do this?”

Rege’s face turned serious at the question “The same reason you are. Look Sean…” he turned so he was facing Sean fully “I know you don’t like me but for the sake of this project let’s work together. Together we stand a better chance of realizing this project without Mr. Grata’s interference. Unless you want a hotel to be standing in a place where shelter for orphaned kids could have been. You’ll never forgive yourself if that happens Sean.”

He was right and Sean knew that. Rege was his best choice, he had to admit it no matter how much he didn’t want to be around the annoying guy.

Sean muttered the words he hoped he wouldn’t regret later. “Welcome aboard.”

Rege scratched the back of his head “Now that we have that out of the way…Can I crash at your place for a while?”

Rosalia sat on the warm leather seat of Max’s car. She knew nothing about cars, but she could tell this one was pretty expensive. Max got in after her.

“Like it?” He asked as he started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.

“Yeah, it’s really comfortable.”

“Want me to take the roof down?”

“You can do that?”

Max showed her instead of just answering. With the top of the car gone cold air whipped at their hair. Rosalia giggled loving the feel of breeze on her face.

Max watched her, the way her hair flew around her. The pink tint on her cheeks and her obvious excitement. She turned to look at him at the same time the sun caught her eyes making them shine brightly.

It was at that exact moment that Max felt something he hadn’t felt in a while. There was a thud in his heart, so loud he didn’t hear what Rosalia said.

She tugged at his shirt pulling his attention from her and back to the road. He was lucky it had been a red light.

“Ice-cream!” Rosalia screamed pointing at an Ice-cream truck that was parked across the road.

Max laughed as he stopped at the truck. Rosalia hopped out of the car before Max could kill the engine. She skipped to where the truck was as Max trailed after her laughing. She was like a child that he suddenly had the urge to protect.

“All this excitement just for ice-cream?” He asked.

Rosalia nodded furiously “I’ve not had it in a long while. My sister never let me have much, said that it’ll ruin my teeth and body.”

“That’s a good sister you have.”

“What will you lovely couple like to have?” A man asked them, smiling brightly as the light from the truck danced on his face.

Rosalia blushed deeply at that “We’re not…”

“Chocolate for me” Max interrupted, the idea of them as a couple beginning to sound intriguing.

“Vanilla” Rosalia said, suddenly growing hot as her blush deepened. Couple. She had imagined herself many times with Sean as a couple. She put her fingers on her lips as she remembered how close they had been that morning. She could’ve sworn he wanted to kiss her.

“Here young lady” The man said, handing Rosalia a cone of ice-cream.

“Thank you so much” She said and dug into the ice-cream immediately making Max laugh.

“You could’ve waited to get to the car first. I’ve actually never seen an adult have so much eagerness to lick ice-cream.”

“Then you’ve been meeting the wrong adults because…” She lifted her ice-cream to her face “This here is the real deal.”

He opened the car door for her before going over to his side. He left the roof open as they sped off once more.

“Your ice-cream is melting!” Rosalia screamed like it was a deadly offense.

“I can’t lick it while driving. Want it? So it doesn’t go waste.”

“No, it’s yours. Don’t worry I’ll feed it to you” She offered. She took the cone from him and leaned over towards him. She scooped the ice-cream with the little spoon and fed it to Max.

He licked the ice-cream off the spoon almost moaning from how good it tasted, or maybe it was the image of Rosalia feeding him. They were both so engrossed in the moment that they didn’t notice a car following closely behind them.