Love At Last

Stuck in a cageNôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

Cayden

She stormed into the house like someone going to war. She didn’t look good, it seemed like she had barely gotten any sleep.

“You left me out there, to be alone in that place while you came back here and slept like a baby. Why did you trick me into thinking we would spend the night together? Are you trying to get rid of me?”

I sighed “look, there are no hard feelings. I’ve been trying to tell you for days but it was not easy and you’re pretty hard to get along with. I just needed some space in my house. It’s my house for fuck’s sake. I should be able to have my privacy when I want”

“I just need you to stay at the hotel for now. I need this space all to myself now” I said as I pointed around the house

“No, I’m not letting you have that. I refuse. I’m not going to stay in a dirty ass motel when you can share this with me. I’m tired of you thinking you can play games with me and get away with it”

She pointed at my face “if you try anything, I’ll report back to the CEO what you did, hiring a local for two days just to get the contract done”

I was so angry. How could they have given me someone so insensitive to work with? This was a nightmare and I needed to wake up.

“Do you hear me Cayden? I said I’ll come for your ass if you try it again” She hissed “you men are so ungrateful. Do you know how much I bring to the table? You’re just misusing a very valuable asset and if I leave, you’d wish you kept me close”

I already wished we never crossed paths

“Yeah, sure. Do you” I started walking away to my bedroom

“Do you? That’s all you have to say?”

I didn’t even turn back, let alone answer her

“Fine!”

I couldn’t stop thinking about how the hell I’ll throw this woman away from my house. I was fed up with all the pettiness. It’s exhausting. I need a breath of fresh air. I walked out to my balcony to enjoy the view. It was really beautiful from up here.

The balcony was a concrete ledge, with square rough edges and a rusty rail, but it was my oasis. I filled whatever space my table for one did not occupy with potted plants and in the spring and summer seasons it was a riot of colour. On my balcony, I could enjoy the breeze, and the sun and even sometimes sit out in misty rain. Below the city flowed in its tense way, bustling and honking.

I’d always been fond of balconies. I felt that if I could only manage to stand on one long enough, the right one, wearing a long white trailing gown, preferably during the first quarter of the moon, something would happen: music would sound, a shape would appear below, sinuous and dark, and climb towards me, while I leaned fearfully, hopefully, gracefully, against the wrought-iron railing and quivered. But this was a very romantic balcony. It had a metallic railing like those on relatively high-income apartment buildings of the nineties, and the floor was perfectly tiled, and it glowed like was being polished every week. It was the kind of balcony a man would stand underplaying a lute…Besides, it was about ten feet off the ground.

I went back inside and dialled Lily’s number. She picked up fast

“Hey, Cayden, what’s up?”

“Hey, things aren’t going as planned. We need to meet at our bar spot”

“Are you fine?” She sounded worried. That felt good to hear.

“Yea, we’ll talk about it when we see”

“Alright, I’ll be there in twenty minutes”

“That’s fine, see you soon”

I ended the call.

Miss “know it all” Wasn’t downstairs when I was going out, good for me. My sneak-out was aided by her absence.

Lily got there before me. It was surprising that she decided to be there for me when she was supposed to be at work, as Jarod is no longer in the picture.

I walked up to her and hugged her

“Thanks for coming Lily, means a lot”

“Sure, my pleasure”

I smiled

“So, turns out our plan didn’t go well. She showed up at my house early this morning, furious that I left her at the hotel. She claims that if I try and play any more games with her, she’ll report me about paying you off to be my girl”

Lily held my hand, it felt so warm

“I’m so sorry Cayden but are you sure she has proof? I feel like she’s just using this as leverage”

“I do not know, I’m not affirmative but she acts as she does and I don’t even want to test it because that’ll be me playing with fire. I’ll get burnt if she does”

“Look Cayden, the best way to beat her is to make her leave and feel unwelcome”

“I’m not so sure about that Lily”

“Listen to me, try and make an ally among one of your bosses, let him know what’s happening just in case anything goes wrong, you’ll have the backing of someone and you won’t seem like you tried to outsmart your boss.”

“Don’t let them hear false and exaggerated news from an outsider?”

“I don’t think that’s possible Lily, it is not that simple. You’d be surprised how inflexible and unbent these people can be”

“Trust me, it’ll work out just fine. It’ll build their trust in you. They’ll know that they can trust you and would recognize you as a very good asset ”

“Okay, I’ll try it out, Lily”

“Please do”

“Yes boss,” I said as she laughed “look at you being all nice to me, who would’ve thought???”

She was so wise, I could be myself being so close to her.

“Thanks, Lily”