1 | repercussions

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repercussions

There was something creepy about sitting with your dashingly handsome rival in a hospital - Cate Miller thought, stealing a sneaking glance at Ryle Davis whose 6'3 figure was bent forward as he leaned with his elbows on his knees.

He sat on the chair beside her, sucking a plump bottom lip between his teeth. One of his thumbs rubbed absently at his stubbled chin while the other hand raked through his thick, dark hair occasionally. His amber eyes were bored down on his polished black shoes which made a rhythmic tap tap tap on the tiled floor that smelled of chlorine.

She looked away when he almost caught her staring. She couldn't help it. With him near, her nerves were always on fire with the itch to strangle him.

"Stop distracting me," Cate grumbled, causing the movement of his feet to immediately cease as the man turned to her.

"You should know — it was all your fault," he said bluntly. "If you hadn't tried your little magic trick with the tablecloth, we'd have been at home now."

"You shouldn't have pissed me off. You should be glad it wasn't my shoe," she retorted, continuing to chew on her chipped nails with the nervous waves that rushed through her body.

It wasn't supposed to turn out the way it did — their evening. It was because of Ryle that they were now here, waiting for their darling boss, Samuel Dollop, to fix his broken leg. It was the poor old man's birthday and the staff had planned a surprise party for him, only for it to end up with him slipping on the cake and crashing straight into the shit elevator.

Cate had been responsible for the cake and Ryle had changed the flavor of it behind her back. He now had the audacity to remind her whose mistake it was that had enraged her.

Bad temper and Cate Miller were old friends. In fact, they were best friends. It wasn't her fault she had a temper. It was the fault of the twelve heartbreaks that she had endured in life.

Her heartbreaks ranged from family, career, and boyfriends until finally, she decided that she was better off alone. Her last heartbreak had been a year ago when she discovered that her two-year-old boyfriend, Harlow, had been fucking her lawyer older sister behind her back. She had sworn then that it would be her last heartbreak. She was never letting the unlucky number 13 tag along with her. 12 was the time to seal the deal.

Being alone was a heartbreak too, except it was more tolerable than being the victim of someone else.

Through her periphery, she found Ryle lifting a bulky arm of his behind the neck of her chair as if it were an ordinary thing to do. He leaned back, spreading his muscular legs, strong enough to carry a one-twenty-pound woman for hours with ease. His muscles rippled under his faded blue shirt, paired with black jeans.

"You need to have a leash on that temper," she heard him suggesting.

Irritation built in her throat; her eyes burned and her mouth had the urge to spew some filth out which would destroy him within seconds. She bit down upon her tongue, swallowing those vulgar words before they could escape her. Clearing her throat, she produced something of what she thought was a more professional tone when talking to a coworker/stealer of clients/reason why she was doomed to never marry.

The last reference was from the one tiny minuscule time when she had felt him brush his knuckles over a lock of her hair while she had bent to retrieve her pen that had fallen under his desk. He had immediately adjusted himself before she could catch him red-handed but that one second had ruined her ability to think when she was near him.

It was easier to be angry at him instead of letting him have a clue of her real feelings which charted from 'Maybe we could go out for dinner sometime?' to 'I'd like to ride your face, Mr. Davis. Lie down, please'.

"I'd appreciate it if you removed your arm from my chair."

He gave her a disdainful look, scoffing like he found her request comically amusing. "You don't appreciate anything, kitty Cate. Say please first."

Kitty Cate

She cringed at the nickname. He had tagged it to her on the first day of their meeting when he had sat on her chair instead of his own for a casual chat with his client. She had gone through a terrible breakup that day and was in a shitty mood. When she saw him, that mood had inflated to such a degree that she had fought with him right in front of that client, who to no one's surprise, was supposed to be hers.

In her defense, it was her chair.

"Ryle..." she gritted out, sweetly smiling at him with venom in her voice. "Please remove your arm from my chair before I cut it off your body."

She noted the motion of his Adam's apple which bobbed under tanned skin as he did as asked politely, noting the irony of her words. She could see upon his face that he didn't wish to mess with her any more than he already had this evening. Replacing her cake order for Sam with strawberry instead of her favorite vanilla had been enough trouble he had raised tonight.

Footsteps drew near and they both lifted their gaze to find a sweet-faced nurse coming out of Sam's hospital room. The entire office had been here but one by one everyone had left leaving only the two of them behind to clean up the mess they had made in their hating games.

"The patient is doing fine. He needs to be off his foot for some days," the nurse informed them. Cate thought she saw a blush on the woman's cheeks when Ryle stretched his arms beside her to relieve his stress. "He wants to see you. You're allowed to go in but please don't make him talk much. He's slightly sedated due to the painkillers."

"Thanks. We'll take care of him," Ryle said, flashing his pearly white teeth at the young nurse as he stood to his feet, Cate following along.

The woman seemed to be flattered by the attention. She smiled at him, eyes dreamy and Ryle tucked Cate's arm within his, pulling her with him towards the room where Sam was currently in.

"Can't you keep your flirting under control for just a second?" Cate said abashedly, yanking her hand out of the crook of his arm. "It's a hospital, in case you have forgotten."

"It's hard to do that with such a gorgeous woman near me," he said, throwing her a wink.

Cate felt a bug in her stomach flutter. She knew he wasn't talking about her but there was something in his tone that caused a slight shiver to greet her.

When they reached the door of Sam's room, one of Ryle's thick arms came on top of her head as he pushed the door open. She bit her lip, telling herself not to watch his muscles flex again.

"After you," he ushered her, holding the door open.

She entered after flicking a lock of her black hair over her shoulder such that it hit his face. She entered and her spirits fell more when she found the figure of almost sixty-year-old Sam lying on his white hospital bed on his birthday with his left leg propped up on a pillow. She felt guilty when his beady eyes met hers. The old man had been the most amicable boss for her for three years, ever since she took the editor's position at his startup - Pages Unbound. He was the kind of boss who celebrated every occasion, be it the birthdays or anniversaries of each of his employees. He was like a father figure to all of them and it suited him with his greying hair and growing white beard which he didn't plan to style until it reached a good length.

"Sam—"

He didn't let her speak as he raised a hand to shut her up just as Ryle came in to stand beside her, both of them looking like kids about to get grounded. She could only pray the old man didn't lose his respect for her which he probably had. She couldn't afford to be fired. Her apartment still had its lease to be paid in full and she wouldn't hear the end of it if her Mom found out that she had no job.

Should have thought that before pulling the cloth under the cake, Cate.

"To say I'm disappointed would be a disappointment," Sam spoke in a baritone that was tipsy with the sedative. "You made me look like a fool in front of my employees."

"Sam, we're sorry—"

"I'm not finished talking!" Ryle was cut off with a sharp note.

They both bowed their heads down, looking at each other's feet instead of their own. The fear that they are both about to get fired because of their stupid rivalry made her wish to slap herself.

"Aren't you two ashamed of yourselves?" Sam continued in that upset tone that made them both wince. Ryle had his hands behind his back while Cate had hers clamming clasped on the front. "I understand that you both cannot stand each other for reasons I can't seem to fathom. I still don't appreciate becoming the victim of your stupid pranks. This has been the most humiliating birthday of my life and it's worse than the time my late wife, bless her soul, burned my birthday cake which she made for me with so much love."

They were both speechless, motionless, even senseless as Cate presumed, considering how loud Sam was being. The entire hospital could have heard him.

"I didn't know you would go this crazy over a management position. I'm wondering if I made a mistake considering the two of you."

Dread washed through Cate as she dared to look at Sam. He sounded and looked so damn serious.

"No..." she couldn't stop the gasp as it left her.

Her one mistake was going to cost her the position of her dreams in Pages Unbound. The tensions between Ryle and her had only escalated further these days after Sam's announcement that he was going to choose one of them for his position when he retired next year.

But Cate had to go and screw things up.

He wasn't going to choose either of us now. She felt Ryle tense beside her too and knew that the same thought had crossed his mind.

"Yes," Sam deadpanned. "Either make me change my mind or I'm outsourcing but there's no way I am putting one of you in a superior position with this kind of animosity between you. I know you're both hard-working so there's no way I'm losing one either to please the other."

"What do you want us to do? We'll do anything," Ryle jumped in promptly while Cate was still staring with her jaw hung low at Sam.

"Anything?" Sam raised a grey brow high up his wrinkled forehead. "You want me to choose your punishment?"

A hand touched the small of my back — Ryle's hand. His fingers spread, all five of them as his little finger found a spot just between her waist to press. She nearly flinched at the suddenness of his touch but understood what he wanted when he dug those fingers a little into her back as if he was urging her to do something.

He wanted her to join his little battle for the job even if it meant only one of them could get it. As long as Cate had known Ryle, she had known him to be competitive. He was a fair player even if he meant he had to support the nemesis in the game.

Just because she didn't want to lose the opportunity either, she took the dive with him.

"Anything." She nodded.

A fragile calmness settled upon Sam as he looked between them. They were standing close together, his hand around her back almost imperceptible to a third person's eyes with there being no inch between them. They were hip-to-hip, the heat of his skin seeping into hers.

"Fine then," Sam dropped. "I want you two to prove to me that you could be the best of friends if only you took the chance. I'll be watching your every move and if by the end of the month, you aren't able to settle your differences, like two colleagues who respect each other deeply, you can say goodbye to the dreams of ever being in my chair."

Ryle's hand dropped from behind Cate, coldness replacing his touch like ice on her body as they both blinked at Sam. He still looked serious, which told Cate that there was no way he was just kidding with them. He crossed his arms as he watched them closely like he was studying every minute twitch in their faces.

She lifted her gaze to the side of Ryle's face, seeing a muscle in his jaw twitch as if he was fighting every impulse to not knock some sense into their senior citizen boss. He quickly covered that twitch by forcing a smile on his face that didn't bode well for her.

What Sam was asking of them would take every bit of repulse between her and Ryle to die down. They weren't even proper colleagues. There was no way they could be friends. They had no similarities that a friendship would require.

He had coffee with sugar every morning. She had black tea.

He did small chats with his authors. She jumped straight to their texts.

He had dreams he wrote in a manuscript and locked in his drawer. She was living her dream job.

He was too full of light. She longed for the lights to go out so that she could hide in the dark.

She had a crush on him once. He had fucked one of his girlfriends on her desk, oblivious to that.

The sky would collapse before they became friends.

That was why she couldn't perceive she was hearing right when the next words left Ryle as smoothly as if he were referring to the weather.

"As you wish, Sam," Ryle exhaled, suddenly yanking her to his side by wrapping his arm around her body like they were old friends. "We'll be the best of friends from here on."

word count: 2441

• author's note •

hi lovelies!

hope you enjoyed this first chapter
I look forward to knowing your opinions!

leave a ❤ if you're excited for the next chapter!


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