Six months?!

Next Day ….

Tuesday morning ….

7:00am ….

“Ahh,” Tricia exhaled deeply walking out of the bathroom, she used her face towel to wipe her hair dry and wrapped it around her head.

Her phone dinged signalling the arrival of a new message.

She rushed towards it and picked up her phone on the bed, it was a message from Jane.

-“Hey, you’re still alive?!”- The message read.

“Aishhh,” she grunted rolling her eyes as she turned and dropped on her bed with a soft thud.

-“You’ll hear from me soon!!!”- She texted back, turned off her phone and threw it carelessly on the bed.

She stood up from the bed, cleaned her hair well with the towel and hung it on the towel rack.

“Meet his parents, really!” She muttered to herself picking up the spiral binder papers he gave her yesterday.

**

“No don’t tell me that!” Tricia heard Harold rant as she walked into the living room, he seemed to be packing up his bags and was on a phone call at the same time.

His phone was on the center table and on loud speaker as he moved around the sitting room putting together his things.

Tricia stopped in the corner and decided to just watch him, holding back her breath to try and make her presence as invisible as possible.

“The Manager in charge seems to think this particular unit holds value, let’s just give him a chance,” the person at the other end of the call said.

“Give him a chance?! We’re already loosing a lot of money from that unit! We keep pumping money in and we get nothing in return!”

“This is business! Stop being sentimental!” He growled, he picked up his phone and gently took his seat on one of the couch.

“Sir I ..”

“No! Not a word from you again! We’re selling and that’s on period! Put it on the market this instant!”

“If the manager in charge of that unit thinks the place holds value why sell?!” Tricia suddenly said, her hands immediately flung to her mouth as soon as she realized she had just spoken out loud.

Harold stiffed and his gaze slowly moved to her direction.

“What?!”

“I think you should listen to your manager and give them one last chance, with a few changes ofcourse!” She said as she took slow steps towards him.

“Hold on luke, I’ll get back to you!” He muttered and ended the call.

He gently rose to his feet and tucked his hands into his pocket.

“What are you talking about?!” He asked.

“Well I’m sure this unit you’re talking about is one of Noble Nosh’s branch that’s really not doing well right?!” She asked and he nodded slowly and wordlessly.

“You can actually keep the place running, I guess you don’t want to waste any more money there , so you make do with what you already have, unlike other Noble Nosh branch, this unit can serve extremely simple and affordable meals to attract costumers,”

“Ofcourse simple and still upholding the Noble Nosh’s Signature,”

“Noble Nosh is a restaurant quite popular and only availble to the Elite and the wealthy, how about you make this one a lot more open and modest,”

“Have you considered giving staff incentives ?! You’d be surprised at how much effort they’ll put in their jobs,”

“You can learn to cut cost also, try to go through all the operations that you’re currently running, cut off the inefficient and fund consuming ones at least for now,”

“Instead of selling out, why not consider a very relatable ambassador in that area, well known and well loved to be the face of that unit,”

“You’d be surprised how that can change a lot of things,” she finally concluded.

“Wow, interesting” he muttered removing his hands from his pocket and stroking his chin gently.

“How do you know so much about business?!” He asked, she shrugged stretching out her hands.

“I don’t know, maybe because I spent about four years in the university sudying business management” she replied and his eyes went wide open.

“Please don’t ask me why I was sleeping with men instead!” She added immediately, he nodded slowly and gently picked up his phone.

He dialed a number and placed it on his ear.

“I changed my mind Luke, we’re no longer selling,”

“But you’ll have a new Director!”

“Who?!” The other guy at the end of the phone asked.

“My wife!” He replied and ended the call, Tricia’s eye grew wide where she stood as soon as she heard him say that.

“Y-you d-dont mean me right?!” She stuttered as he dropped the call.

“Umm, ofcourse it’s you!” He replied placing his phone back in his pocket.

“How?!”

“Prepare, you’ll resume there on tomorrow , after dinner with my parents tonight!”

“So go through everything I sent you throughout today, remember we’re meeting with my parent tonight,” He said picked up his bags and walked out of the room.

“What?!” She muttered as she watched him walked outside the house.

Meanwhile ….

-“You’ll hear from me soon,”- Jane read Tricia’s message and she bursted out laughing, her laughter slowly subsided and her smile grew wide her eyes still fixed on her phone.

“Ahh!” She muttered as her body hit a hard structure and her phone fell to the ground.

She gently took a step back and realized it was her classmate, the most handsome boy in Adler high right now, or so they say.

Although she wasn’t very impressed with his looks, probably because of his character she thought was stinking, but either ways she didn’t give two shits about him.

“Hey! Are you blind?! Can’t you look where you’re going?!” She yelled suddenly getting irritated by everything about him.

He just stood there staring at her, his lips tightly pressed together, his hands tucked in his pocket and his bag hung at one side of his shoulders.

“God! You’re so annoying!” She muttered as she picked up her phone at once and stormed towards her class room.

He gently turned to look at her, and with an almost inaudible sigh, he turned around and continued in his previous direction.

****

Later that evening …

“What’s my full name?!”

“Harold Marshall Houston!”

“When was I born?!”

“13th August 1995!”

“What school did I study at ?!”

“New York university, In New York. You studied culinary arts and after Business administration,”

“You hate the snow, you hate the color orange, you’re allergic to Cinnamon and Garlic,” Tricia continued already getting tired of the annoying question and answer.

“You’re not on talking terms with your step mother because you can’t just seem to accept her, you got married to Carrie last two years and she died fourteen months later,”

“Your mother died while you were eighteen, we met in New York where I was studying accountancy and you Business administration,”

“We ended things back then because I was based in new York and you needed to come back home to Canada, and I wasn’t ready to compromise!”

“Thank you for making me the selfish one,” she muttered rolling her eyes.

“Well I can see you did your job well, that’s good,” he replied with a small smile stepping closer to her.

“I feel very hot already, Can we just go already, it’s not very nice to keep adults waiting!”

“Sure, you look nice actually,” he said as he walked towards the door and held it open for her.

“I know,” She muttered in reply, his smile widened at her very sharp reply.

“Good Evening Ma’am,”

“Good evening sir,” Tricia greeted his parents as she walked down the stairs with Harold behind her.

“Oh, she’s beautiful,” His father said but Tricia was a little bit less bothered about him, she actually tried her best to impress his mom, because she knew most disapproval came from the women.

She had no idea why she put in so much effort to impress her, but she knew her life will be a little less miserable in the span of the contract if his mother liked her.

She watched his mother let out a small sigh and adjusted in her seat, her heart fell immediately, by the way her countenance changed it was quite obvious she didn’t like her.

“Please seat,” Harold said to Tricia pulling out a chair for her directly opposite his mom.

“Thank you,” she whispered as she sat and pulled the chair closer to the table.

“So how long have you guys being dating,” Katie asked as Harold was about to take his seat.

Harold paused and slowly looked up at her,

“You …”

“That’s okay,” Tricia interrupted immediately and gently pulled him to have his seat before looking back up at Katie.

“Six months,”

“Six months?! You dated for six months and that’s enough for you to decide to get married?!” Jane asked raising her brows at her.

“Uhh, ma’am , I …”

“I think we should eat first, let’s not make make her uncomfortable,” Ethan interfered immediately.

“Tricia dear, go on and eat first,” he whispered with a small smile.

“I’m just going to be straight, I don’t like her for Harold, she seems …” she said and trailed off, her gaze slowly seizing Tricia up.

“She seems very fake, there’s something fishy about her!”

“That’s not for you to decide!” Harold snapped.

“Not everyone is a gold digger like you Katie!”

“Harold!” Tricia and Ethan cautioned in a loud voice respectively.