The Rush

Chapter 18

An hour later and my mood was not fucking improving. If anything it was getting worse with every beer I drank and every time I saw a couple acting all sweet and loved up. I wanted to be like them so fucking badly. I should be one of them. I have a fucking girlfriend, although we never had the are we dating talk yet, but she might as well be my girlfriend. I'm going to ask her... soon.

Fuck it. I need to get out of here. I need some fresh air. I stood up and made my way outside onto the balcony. I was so in my thoughts I didn't even notice Anise was out there until the door had already closed behind me. From the looks of things, she was deep in thought herself. Looking off in the distance, leaning on the banister with a joint between her fingers. I could smell the sweet smoke from here and knew immediately what she was doing. I smiled as I walked over to her. "Whatcha doing out here by yourself?"

She started as I obviously scared her before she let out a little giggle. She lifted the joint to her lips and took a deep hit before she answered, "Social anxiety. Came out here to chill out, figured a joint might help. Want some?"

"Fuck yes." I took the joint from her and inhaled, holding the smoke in before handing it back to her. Weed was the only drug I touched. Mostly because it was the only legal one, but it also was the least likely to fuck up people's lives.

"So what are you doing out here?"

I just shrugged, "Just got a bunch of shit on my mind that was making it hard to enjoy myself."

"If you ever need to talk, I'm a pretty good listener. Plus, my dad grows the best weed so we can get super stoned while we talk."

I barked out a laugh as she handed me back the joint. I took another hit and looked out at the night. "This is definitely some killer weed. Give your dad my compliments."

"Will do." She answered. We stood together there together for a while just sharing the joint between us. Once there was no more weed to share the two of us didn't want to go inside so we sat down on the little bench out there. It was perfectly placed so the wall behind us blocked the cold night wind of Canada in mid-November. Honestly, it was a miracle that there was no snow yet, but it had also been a very warm fall.

"So how did you start working with my aunt Mel anyway?" I asked. We were talking about her job and I wanted to know more about Anise.

"Oh, well I moved here for university. I was never actually planning on staying here, but then I got an internship working at Mel's firm. I totally fell in love with the work and I got to meet so many interesting people. I also admired Mel; she was kinda everything I wanted to be. She's so confident, sure of herself, and everyone respects her. I think she also liked me, well, I know she had to have liked me. She said that when I moved back home that she would set me up with a job with one of her manager friends which was something she'd never done for anyone before."

"So, why'd you end up staying here?"

"Love." She shrugged before looking down at her hands, "I met my ex, Shauna, online and kinda fell for her hard. She's a nurse and works at the children's hospital. Since she was established in her career, I decided to see if Mel would be open to me continuing on working for her. Mel absolutely leaped at the idea. I became her protegee, she started with me shadowing her and helping her help the artists signed with her firm. Even if she has assigned other managers to work with an artist, she still likes to make sure that everything is running the way she likes it. She's a bit of a control freak, but I think that's what makes her so good at what she does."

"That sounds like Aunt Mel." I laughed.

"Yeah well, I started working insane hours. Late nights, work trips, three am phone calls because some fucking stupid guy decided to get in a fight and was arrested. It's what I expected for working in this industry. Mel was awesome at making sure I had time off when I needed it and if I genuinely could not make it someone else would go. Shauna could not handle it. I tried my best not to remind her that she worked twelve-hour shifts and was constantly rotating between the day and night shifts when she got mad about my schedule. She constantly said that I was using work as an excuse to cheat. It was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard. Turned out she was projecting her own issues back on me because she was cheating on me."