Free Web NovelChapter 84: THE CCTV
KEISHA’S POV freewebnoveℓ.com
Two days passed without seeing either of them.
Which was fine. Obviously, it was completely fine. I had work and Evelyn to talk to and the daily bustle of the communications office and I was definitely not counting the days or noticing the absence in any significant way.
Completely fine.
The third day started like any other. I got in early, made tea from the small kettle in the break room, sat at my desk and opened my queue.
Sera was already at her desk across the room and we exchanged brief nods.
At half past nine, Mrs Velaris came in.
Not unusual. She came in at half past nine most mornings, collected the overnight reports from the tray by the door and went to her office. But this morning, she stopped in the middle of the room and looked around at all of us, the air different from usual.
Everyone looked up.
"I have an announcement." She called out.
The room went quiet.
She stood there in her good coat with her hands folded in front of her and looked at us all with a small smile. "I’ll be retiring at the end of next week." She said. "My family is in Florida and I’ve been away long enough." She paused. "A new supervisor will be brought in. I’d ask you all to receive them well and make the transition as smooth as possible."
The silence lasted about three seconds. Then everyone started talking at once.
"Florida?" Sera looked confused. "You’re going to Florida?"
"My daughter is there. The pack there is very warm too." Mrs Velaris said. "And her children. I have grandchildren I see twice a year and that’s not enough anymore."
"How many grandchildren?" Evelyn asked.
"Four." She said with a smile. "The youngest just turned two."
"We have to do a send off." Someone said from the back of the room. I turned to see who it was— it was Peter, one of the senior filing coordinators who had been here almost as long as Mrs Velaris and who I had previously only ever seen express opinions about filing protocol.
"Absolutely." Sera said.
"A proper one." Evelyn agreed and looked at me. "Keisha."
I looked at her. "What?"
"You’re good at organising things." She said. "Help us plan it."
"I don’t—" I started.
"You found the misfiled report in four minutes that I’d been looking for for two days." She smiled. "You can plan a send off party."
"Those are completely different—"
"Are they though?" She raised a brow.
I looked at her and she looked back at me with complete sincerity.
"Fine." I agreed.
Mrs Velaris looked around the room at all of us with an expression that looked almost sad. "Thank you." She said quietly. "All of you." She picked up the overnight reports. "Back to work."
She went to her office and the room immediately descended into planning.
Over lunch at the big table in the break room with everyone crowded around it we talked about the party— where to hold it, what to have, who should give a speech. Peter suggested the east common room. Sera suggested the garden if the weather held. Evelyn suggested both, which wasn’t really an answer. I suggested the east common room with food from Becca’s kitchen.
"Can we get Becca?" Sera said. "Is she allowed to cater for non-mansion events?"
"I’ll ask." I sighed.
"You know her?" Peter said.
"She’s the cook at the mansion." I said. "I live on the estate."
"Right." He nodded like he had forgotten that. "Can you actually ask her though?"
"Yes." I said. "I can actually ask her."
"What about a gift?" Evelyn said. "We should get her something. Not just flowers."
"What does she like?" Sera looked around.
Everyone looked at each other.
"We’ve worked with her for years." Peter said. "Does nobody know what she likes?"
"She talks about her grandchildren constantly." I said.
"Then something for the grandchildren." Evelyn said. "Or something for her to do in Florida." She pointed at me again. "You figure it out."
"Why do I keep getting assigned things?" I said.
"Because you’re competent." She said simply. "It’s a burden. Accept it."
I looked at her with a roll of my eyes.
We talked through the rest of it— date, time, who would handle decorations, whether we needed to send a formal invitation or just a message in the group channel — and by the time lunch ended we had something close to a plan and I had been assigned three separate tasks and Evelyn had been assigned one and seemed extremely satisfied with this ratio.
Of course she was.
The afternoon moved normally after that. I worked through my queue, documented two new log sets and helped Sera cross reference a set of inter-pack correspondence that was more complicated than it looked because the dates on two of the letters didn’t match the filing sequence.
"Someone misdated these." Sera said, frowning at her screen.
"Misfiled them." I corrected. "The dates are right. They went into the wrong thread."
"How do you know?" She looked at me in awe.
"The reference numbers." I said. "Look at the last four digits. They should run sequentially." I pointed at her screen. "Those two are out of order."
She looked. "Oh." She paused. "Oh that’s—" She started moving files. "How do you see these things?"
"I just look." I shrugged.
She shook her head and kept working and I went back to my own desk. By the time the office emptied out, I had finished everything on my list and added two things to the send off party plan.
I packed my bag and walked home quietly.
Callum was standing near my porch.
He was not exactly at the door nor sitting on the steps. Just standing near it with his hands in his coat pockets and his face tilted slightly toward the evening air.
I looked at him. "What are you doing?" I slowed.
He looked over. "Enjoying the breeze." He said.
I looked at him standing there with absolute composure claiming to be enjoying the breeze outside my house.
"Come in." I said. "I’ll make tea."
Something shifted in his face. "Thank you." He said.
We went up the porch steps and I unlocked the new door, — combination working perfectly, first try—pushed it open and stepped inside.
When I turned around, I saw Dane standing there and I gasped.
How did he get there?
I looked at Dane with shock. "Breeze?" I asked.
"Good evening." He cleared his throat. "Just lurking around for the breeze too."
I looked between them. "Tea." I said flatly. "Both of you. Sit down."
They came inside and I went to the kitchen and put the kettle on.
I heard them settle in the sitting room and thought about how two days without seeing them had apparently ended with both of them standing outside my house simultaneously claiming to enjoy the weather.
Of course they came over.
I came back to the sitting room with three cups and Callum was on one end of the sofa while Dane was leaning against the far wall and I set the cups on the table, sat and looked at both of them.
"So." I started.
"How was work?" Callum said.
"Fine." I said. "My supervisor is retiring."
"Mrs Velaris?" He raised a brow.
"You know her?" I said.
"I run this pack. She’s been at that office for fifteen years." He said. "Of course I know her. I haven’t looked through the documents on my table, so I haven’t seen her letter yet. Where is she going?"
"Florida." I said. "Her grandchildren."
He nodded slowly. "Good for her." He sounded calm about it.
Dane pushed off the wall, came to sit and reached for his cup.
I looked at his hands and thought how it would feel to have his hands on me right now.
Callum looked at me as though he could sense what I was thinking and then the distance between us on the sofa decreased as his hand found my jaw and tilted my face up.
I felt the bond pull from his direction immediately, as he kissed me slowly and I kissed him back because two days was apparently long enough that my body had opinions about what I could do.
Dane’s hand found my waist from the other side.
I pulled back slightly. "Tea." I whispered. "It’ll get cold." I said weakly.
"Forget the tea." Callum said against my mouth.
"I just made it—" I started.
"Keisha." He grunted.
I looked at him.
"I missed you." He said simply.
I stared at him.
He said things like that so rarely and so plainly when he did say them that they landed fully every single time.
I sat there absorbing it while Dane’s hand tightened slightly on my waist and I thought— two days. It had only been two days.
What was wrong with all of us?
I reached for my tea cup.
Dane’s other hand came up and redirected my reach very gently and I opened my mouth to object and that was when he said it.
"I saw you on a camera." He whispered.
I looked at him.
"When I was tracking the intruder’s movements." He said and his voice was even. "Cross referencing footage from the area. I saw you entering the clinic." He paused. "The pack medical centre."
The sitting room was very quiet and my heart jumped.
When I went to get a pregnancy test done.
"When?" Callum frowned and he was looking at me now.
"A few days ago." Dane said and he was still looking at me too. "I wasn’t going to say anything. But then I thought—" He stopped. "Are you sick?" freeweɓnovel.cøm
My heart stopped.
Oh shit.
