Signed Away

9

I couldn't help the feeling of happiness as I glided through the cool water. Swimming was one of my favorite things to do. Ever since I was little I was on a swim team all the way up till the end of high school.

When I came up for air, I looked up to see a shirtless Alex watching me from the balcony. Our eyes made contact, neither of us refusing to pull away first. That was the competitive side of me, but this time I fear it wasn't because I was competitive but because I was so entranced by him.

I watched as a he took a puff of his cigarette and ran his fingers through his hair. He leaned against the railing, but still refusing to looking away.

I snapped out of it and took a deep breath and went back under water. I pushed off of the wall and swam back to the other side. When I looked back up, he was gone.

I did a few more laps before getting out of the pool. I dried myself off with my towel and threw it across my shoulder walking in.

"Who knew you were such a good swimmer." Ella commented when she saw me.

"She swam competitively her whole life." My dad said proudly.

"I don't' like to brag, but I'm pretty kick ass at it." I joked. "Where's Alex?" I asked looking around, noticing he was the only one not here.

"I think he's still sleeping." Sarah said, but she was wrong. I didn't say anything and used this time as an excuse to go upstairs to "wake him up".

I walked in to see him sitting on the sofa going through some emails. He whipped his head to look at me and went back to whatever it was on his laptop.

"Good morning to you too." I scoffed and went to go take a shower.

I try to be civil, but he can't even try to make an effort? He always acts like he's the only one suffering.

I came out and he was still in the same position. Ignoring him still, I whipped out my laptop and went to the balcony to work.

Because he so rudely didn't bother to tell me about this trip I had to improvise and do all my work from here. This meant rescheduling all my meetings so I could do a phone meeting instead and it was such a hassle to figure out the time zones and everything.

Right on cue my phone started ringing.

"Hey are you ready?" My personal assistant Christina said when I answered.

"Ready." I confirmed and she connected me to the call with the 3 other people on this project.

"So I was thinking we call it Project X" I said

"Project X just seems too juvenile" Mandy said.

"That's what I thought at first too, but then I thought about it and I realized that a lot of the piece of this collection is very loud and bold. It's very out there and matches with the theme of summer." I explained

"I agree." Rob spoke up.

"Okay let's roll with it then. Now the problem is we only have 18 piece right now. We need 22 for a full collection" Mandy said.

"18? I thought I finished everything. I sent you guys all the design." I furrowed my brows in confusion.

"Right, but those 4 missing pieces are the skirts. The fabric that you chose just didn't hold up well with the design. Turns out the fabric you used for your prototype was much different than the one that was sent to us. We called the company back and they agreed to reship us the right ones, but that particular fabric is just out of our budget now since we spent the budget saved for supplies on the wrong batch of fabrics" Julia said. She was in charge of manufacturing.