20

“You look a little pale, didn’t you eat anything?” His mom says, tapping his cheeks and taking a good look at him

“Mom, I ate, a lot even, please stop” he begged. He knew that most times, she deliberately chose not to remember that he was a grown man, as most mothers would, but he still enjoyed how dramatic she was every now and then.

“Fine. It feels like I haven’t seen you in ages” she says, going back to her cooking.

“Momma, you woke me up only a few hours ago, how does that translate to ages?” he asks her, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, you mean yesterday when you were all cozied up with your boss?” she said in whispers.

“Momma!” Cory almost screamed.

“What? Have I said anything false?” She tells him with a shrug.

“no, it’s not, momma, we weren’t ‘cozied up” he said, placing emphasis on the cozied up.

“Of course, you weren’t. I’m going to set the table, I’ll serve some for you to eat” she tells him, waking away.

“Thank you” Cory says, feeling free from her interrogation.

“We’re not done with this conversation” he hears her mutter silently as she walks out of the kitchen.

Cory takes a deep breath, rubbing his palm through his face. First it was Damien and now his mom, he felt stuck. How was he to handle this moving forward? He knew they wanted the best for him, but he knew that staying away from Jasmine was now next to impossible. He was her personal guard and driver after all and that meant, them being together except when she explicitly indicated that she needed to be alone. He shrugs the thought off and takes out his cellphone to call Baptiste, he needed to be updated on all the recent developments within the martial school in his absence.

A week had crawled by without anyone’s notice and the long-awaited launch of the Links mobile frugal ii was finally just a few days away. Cory could feel the anxiety within the other employees but most importantly he could tell Jasmine really needed the launch to be over with. She had also promised the security detail a much-needed break as she had secretly planned for a short vacation. He knew he would have some rest time after all this was over, and so would Jasmine.

After their trip to Beijing, the days seemed unnecessarily prolonged and everything looked to be moving at a turtle pace. Jasmine still had numerous engagements during the day, but they weren’t long, exhausting sessions of deliberations that brought back memories of the previous weeks.

Cory now had something bothering him though; and that was Josh. He couldn’t understand why Josh wouldn’t grow up from being the spoilt brat that he was and find another time to be a whole lot of work. He would call every now and then to bicker and rant about stuff that made absolutely no sense.

One time, he threw a tantrum about how Jasmine failed to acknowledge him when she gave her speech on national television. Cory could not wrap his head around how a grown man could be so petty. These days he would show up at the office unannounced, acting like a leach around Jasmine and most times, she didn’t act like it bothered her, but other times, it was obvious she wanted to scream on top of her voice to get him him to leave her the fuck alone, but for etiquette and self-restraint.

The new development Cory had taken to notice was how girly Lisa was each time Josh showed up. The pitch in her voice would for some reason become higher; her blush would become a lot redder every time he said hi to her. Cory found it amusing and wondered if she was always like that around Josh before now and even wondered if Jasmine had noticed it too.

Barely a few days before, Josh had dropped by without calling Jasmine first and spent nearly an hour lamenting on how Jasmine had been avoiding him and post ponding their dates. Amidst all this drama, Cory was certain Lisa didn’t have that much cleavage in the morning even though it was too obvious to not notice her boobs all up in the room whenever Josh came by the office. Cory literally had to restraint himself from bursting out laughing at how hard she was trying to get Josh to notice her.

With Lisa’s drama and Josh’s new found hobby, Cory had something to keep him entertained. Jasmine on the other hand, still always made out time to talk with Cory, have a good laugh or just go on and on about how she couldn’t wait for the launch to be over with.

***************************************************************

Jasmine finally decided to squeeze out time for a date with Josh. She had told Juanita to make them a special meal consisting mainly of fish, and some dessert, set the dinner table and instructed the other staff to retire for the day. Cory noticed how she didn’t want to send him away, but when she did, he understood. There was this feeling and he couldn’t quite place a finger on it. The thought of leaving Jasmine alone with Josh was not as casual as it was when he started working here.

He wondered if it was because he had gotten to know Josh a bit more to realize he could be a danger to Jasmine, or was it the share thought, dare he say that he was what? Jealous? Impossible! He couldn’t be. He knew he wasn’t; Jasmine was his boss after all and was way out of league and even though they had become good friends, she was in love with Josh, right?

He scoffed at his own thoughts and wondered what was going on with him. Jasmine needed rest, he understood that. Being in the company of someone she loves would also be nice for her. Cory finally settles with that thought, an assured consolation to get him to stop thinking about it all.

Jasmine had gotten ready and she stood in front of her mirror, admiring how beautiful the dress looked on her. She was not a big fan of the color blue, but looking at how this silk dress laid perfectly on her skin, she began to rethink her decisions. She smiles to herself, excited about the night and hoped it would go great, considering how persistent Josh had been about a dinner date.

Jasmine’s phone buzzed and she knew Josh was downstairs so she dabbed her lips together, making sure her lipstick was still in perfect condition, had one final glance at the mirror, and turned towards the door