The CEO's Secret

Chapter Two - Roomies

I finally got home around the same time as Megan and Ashley. It was Ashley's night to make or buy dinner, and she decided to bake chicken and asparagus. We split the rent and bills evenly, each kept some food and toiletries of our own, but otherwise took turns being responsible for meals and buying toiletries.

“We're almost out of butter.” Ashley announced, writing it on the whiteboard we kept on the fridge. She set to cooking and I grabbed a hard seltzer out of the fridge to start drinking.

“Sooo... you're just going to sit there and not tell us anything?” Megan accused, sliding onto the seat at the island next to mine. We were watching and chatting as Ashley cooked, and I knew my night with Colt would be the topic of conversation.

“You guys were there for everything!” I argued.

“No, no, no. Give us details!” Ashley demanded.

“Okay, fine. It started with us all sitting at the bar, which you two were there for. He sat next to me and asked to buy me a drink, which obviously I accepted. We were just making small talk, catching up, talking about people we both knew from school, what we'd been doing, all of that stuff. He asked if I wanted to go sit outside where it was more quiet, and I did. We went outside and it was more just talking. He told me I was very beautiful and he wished we'd gotten to know each other better in college. We obviously had different majors so we didn't really have any time together and I only know him through you guys so, whatever. Anyway, we just talked and got to know each other a little. We went back inside because it was getting cold, I was pretty drunk, we had a good buzz going. We danced and started getting a little handsy on the dance floor. We were kissing and he was running his hands down my sides, it was pretty hot. Once it was getting late he waited outside with me for my Uber, and told me he wanted to see me again soon. That's kind of it.” I said.

“Okay, so do you like him? Are you going to see him again?” Megan asked.

“Yeah, he texted me tonight and asked when we could see each other again.” I told them with a smile. “I don't know what I should say back. We already kind of know each other so it's not like we need to do everything from scratch, but I definitely want to go on a few more dates before we go to each others' house or anything.”

“You should tell him you want to go on a few more dates, and tell him you're free this weekend if he is.” Ashley said. We discussed the wording and I eventually got a text back to Colt saying I'd love to see him again this weekend if he was free.

“Okay, enough of that. How was work?” I asked.

“It was work. Not much happening, accounting is boring.” Ashley said.

“Why'd you even want to be an accountant? It IS boring.” I joked.

“Both of my parents are accountants, so I'd probably be disowned if I wasn't.” She said.

“I argued with the person who makes our medications about how long it's going to take for us to get more of the nicotine patches in stock, and that's the gist of what I do daily.” Megan said. She was the manager of our Purchasing department. “Oh, and I'm getting coffee with that cute guy Andrew from R&D.” R&D stood for the Research and Development department.

“Ooooh, Andrew IS cute.” Ashley agreed.

“I had a meeting with Shane today to hire a new assistant manager.” I added in. “The girl who was in that position walked out because I wouldn't give her the millionth day off she asked for in six months.” I rolled my eyes, and they chimed in with groans.

We finally moved to the table to eat dinner and continued our gossip.

When I first moved to New York City from a rural town in Pennsylvania, I struggled to fit in at first. I was only 18. I had been raised in a rather conservative family and had strict parents, so I had barely done anything for myself. My original set of roommates were from the city, so they were not thrilled with my culture shock. I begged the dorm resident to let me move my room, and eventually, she agreed to let me move to a new room. Megan and Ashley were already there and friends. They were both from Chicago, so even though it was a drive and a little different, they were more used to living in a larger city. I felt a little left-out at first due to their already existing friendship but I eventually melted in with them fine. We became the best of friends, they helped me adjust and taught me a lot. How to do my laundry, how to order food delivery, how to get an Uber or Taxi to get around if I couldn't walk to my destination. We were roommates all four years of college, and when we graduated at 22 years old, none of us could imagine living separately. We'd thought about it, possibly going our separate ways and each getting our own studio apartment. When we were looking, we stumbled on a well-priced 'students or professionals' two bedroom apartment, and made it work from there. We applied at Addiquit, never imagining we'd get jobs in our fields. Ashley was an accounting major, Megan and I were business majors. We all got hired, eventually, and over the four years we'd been there had slowly risen to the heads of our departments. We were all twenty-six now and knew soon we'd find out own way in life, but for now, we were happy partying and making our way in the big apple.