Bed Sheets

4. A Fraud

During the time there, Draven exited his office a few times, but did not glance even once at Eric, who examined the colouring, the design and the storyline of Draven's characters in Cold Shoulder.

Frankly enough, he was unsure whether he was supposed to be honest to him, since what he read was complete garbage. The characters made not a single sense, as if they were running around as chickens with their heads cut off. There were extreme grammar errors that a bunch of sentences needed to be re-written. He even had difficulty reading those paragraphs, since multiple lines were run-on sentences, awkwardly written, or simply did not make at all any sense whatsoever.

He certainly needed a drink, maybe coffee, hence why he deposed his pen and headed towards the elevator. No editors had yet greeted him, and they did not seem to favour him, a few glancing with narrowed eyes in his direction.

He descended to the main floor, and was seconds from marching to the cafeteria when Justin walked by, his briefcase in his palm. They met each other's gaze, and Justin's eyes widened.

"Why are you here?"

Eric shrugged his shoulders, "I'm not sure myself, he came over today and made me come back."

Justin raised an eyebrow, "Seriously? He must really favour you — Draven never rehires people he fired."

"He's making me work on Cold Shoulder—"

Justin's eyes seemed to be seconds from falling from their sockets, "No way! Really? That's exciting, that's his biggest project at the moment. Can't believe he gave that to a newbie. Anyways, I'm in a hurry, I'll come by tonight."

"Sounds great—"

"Eric."

He heard his name being called behind him, and the familiar low voice caused all his muscles to become rigid. Justin had already exited the building, and he turned around to face Draven, who did not seem content.

He raised an eyebrow at him, "What are you doing?" He was holding his phone in his hand, and continuously glanced at it, typing at the same time.

"I was thirsty so I wanted to get something to drink—"

"You could've asked me," he said, "I have a small fridge in my office, you're right next to it so you can use it as much as you'd like."

Eric was surprised, and he nodded his head, "Thanks."

"Yea no problem," he paused for a moment, typing into his phone before finally shoving it into his pocket, "How is the work coming along?"

Eric raised his eyebrows; he couldn't say it was completely garbage, could he?

"I'm almost done the chapter."

"By the end of your shift, you think you'll be done?"

Eric nodded his head, "Definitely."

"Could you come talk to me about it after you're done?"

"Certainly."

Draven smiled, "Alright, let me know if you need any help."

When Eric headed back up the elevator with a can of soda in his palm, and when he reached the floor, he was surprised to find that a few of his co-workers were surrounded around his desk.

He frowned, approaching them and they raised their eyebrows at him, before scurrying to their seats faster than he could speak to them. When he sat at his desk, staring across them strangely, a man that had been walking by for photocopies said, "They wanted to know what the newest project looked like."