Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 105850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
“It’d be no fun if I told you,” I said after a moment of holding his gaze. “You’ll have to figure it out yourself.”
Theodore narrowed his eyes. “You might regret saying that.”
I shrugged. “We’ll see.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – CHLOE
Pervert On The Loose
The next few days passed by at what felt like the speed of light.
The opening of Adair Travel’s flagship letting office was in one little day, and Theodore and I spent most of the working week up to our eyeballs in paperwork, phone calls, and errands.
Well, he was mostly the phone calls, I was mostly the errands, and the paperwork was a good split of the two.
Auntie Pat came in and out of the cottage without so much as a whisper. Often the only sign of her having been here was the absence of toast crumbs on the kitchen counter and a hot meal stewing away in the slow cooker.
I still wasn’t comfortable allowing her to do my laundry or any other personal chores for me, but I’d come to accept the food she cooked and the fact she always made time to hoover my bedroom floor and put fresh flowers on top of the drawers.
I was going to miss those flowers when I went home.
The food was especially welcome amidst the chaos of our work. I spent half my days going back and forth between the store on the high street to co-ordinate with the assistant manager, Lennon, and the sales associate, Sarah, who was helping him oversee everything.
When I wasn’t driving back and forth across Buckley Heath, I was running around after Theodore in the office. Given how busy we were, we’d decided to go half-business, half-casual for our office work wardrobe. For me, that was slippers, leggings instead of pencil skirts or real trousers, and t-shirts that could either be smart or casual.
For Theodore, his business-casual was a shirt and tie on top and sweatpants on the bottom. If it weren’t already a weird combination, I’d discovered what was perhaps his one true vice: patterned socks.
And I wasn’t talking about spots or stripes, either.
I was talking hot dogs. Seashells. Pizza. Cats. Footballs and other various sports paraphernalia. One pair was even covered with mini faces of the Grinch.
Never had anything been as baffling as seeing him yell at someone for their incompetence over a video chat while wearing socks covered with little cat faces.
I knew I’d seen several sides of him that I hadn’t known existed until now, but the socks were a bit jarring.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to them. Not on his feet, anyway.
Which was why when Thursday came around and I’d returned from spending most of my afternoon at the Adair Travel store, I handled whatever he needed in the office and left him and his stupid-arse hot dog socks to his video call with his dad.
Nobody would ever take him seriously if they saw his socks.
I said that, but there was something strangely endearing about him being a collector of crazy socks.
At least I knew what to get him for Christmas this year.
Huh.
Christmas.
Right. It didn’t matter.
He wasn’t the boss I’d be buying a Christmas present for this year.
Why did that make my chest hurt a little bit?
I shook off those feelings and rolled out my yoga mat on the living room floor. There was no time to contemplate such matters when I had so little of it as it was.
I had a love-hate relationship with yoga. I loved the quiet peace I found while doing it, but I hated that I pushed myself so hard every time. That said, it was definitely preferable to cardio, so there was no way I would stop doing it.
It was one of the few true enjoyments I had to escape into in my life.
Yoga and Korean food.
If I could have those, I was a happy Chloe.
I adjusted my right earbud until it was properly wedged in place and hit play on the lo-fi playlist I had set aside for my workouts. My ears were filled with the calming music as I played the workout video on the TV and got started. I wouldn’t normally do yoga with earbuds in, but since Theodore was on a call with his father, I didn’t want to accidentally interrupt it with my music. Even the workout video itself was muted with subtitles on, although I didn’t need them. I’d done this one so many times I could do it with my eyes closed, but it was nice to feel as though there was someone else in the room with me.
I moved through the positions one by one, only slightly off from the timing of the video. Even with all the furniture moved back I didn’t have a perfect view of the TV, but it was no big deal.
I needed this time before the chaos of the letting office opening tomorrow.