My True First [18+]

Chapter 7

My parents taught me to be grateful.

I didn't come from money. In fact, it'd always been scarce, but my mom and dad used to say there was always someone who had it worse — someone who'd give a lot to have what we had, even if what we had wasn't enough for us.

When I lost both of them, I was grateful I had Tim.

When I was left alone with Tim and no money, I was grateful Victor, my father's boss at the time, came to our town, found me and offered me the job in his construction company, where I met many of my friends.

When there was an opening at the office, and my boss thought about me for the position, I was beyond grateful.

And now, I was grateful Sky offered me to move in with her.

It'd been only a week of us being roommates, and I liked the kind of person she was.

She was nice. She was friendly. She was turning into my friend, and I was beginning to notice when something was off with her, like this morning.

Sky didn't have breakfast and seemed lost, and she wasn't the kind of girl to skip meals. She had a killer body, and I'd wondered whether she did some sport I knew nothing of, because those curves—

"Liam." Mathis, Victor's assistant, stopped at my desk, distracting me from my inappropriate thoughts about Sky. "I'm taking you to the meeting with our beach cottages customer. Victor plans on delegating a part of this project to you. We'll discuss how things go with it, and you'll meet the guy in case you have to work closely with him in the future. We're heading out in twenty."

Mathis was young, but there was nobody who'd do his job better. He was a people person able to placate the angriest customer. His job title said he was an assistant, but there was much more to him and what he did. Mathis was Victor's right hand, the guy who earned our boss's trust.

I told Aiden I was heading to the meeting and accompanied Mathis to his car.

We drove downtown, where the restaurant was. When we made our way inside the bistro, Louis, our customer, was already waiting at the table.

Smiling, he stood up to greet us, and after ordering our lunch, we got down to business.

The topic was new to me, so, much to my shame, I felt lost. I knew Mathis didn't expect me to do or say much. Thanks to that, the whole thing wasn't so awkward.

I cast a glance at the interior of the restaurant — plush chairs, wooden tables, suspended chandeliers. I still felt uncomfortable in fancy places like this one. No matter how many times I'd been to upscale restaurants because of my job, deep down, I was still the guy who was more at ease in a pub or pizza place. My humble upbringing was to blame.

The customers were few inside. Most people opted for having lunch at the terrace, taking advantage of not so shitty weather. At least, not so shitty yet.