In less than a minute, the lights came back on but Cassie could tell that it was the backup lights that had come on as the elevator wasn’t even half as bright as it usually was. Before now, Cassie had been stuck in an elevator only once in her life and that elevator had been nowhere as nice as Tech Town’s as it had been marred by graffiti and stank of piss.The upside to the fact that the elevator stopped working was that she no longer had to listen to the god awful music that floated out of the speakers. But as for the downsides, there were many of those. She knew that if the elevator didn’t start working anytime soon, she would have to contend with the heat that was sure to follow. Being stuck in the elevator also meant that she and Felix would be late to their meeting, but to no fault of theirs. She would also have to stand throughout the time she was stuck in there. But the most concerning fact about being stuck in the elevator was the fact that she was stuck with Felix.Working w

The moment Felix walked out of the office, Cassie knew that she had made a big mistake. When he didn’t return to the office after an hour had passed, Cassie had grown concerned for his welfare and her job. So, she had called Annalisa on the office phone to find out if she knew about Felix’s location. Annalisa had said that she didn’t know anything about Felix’s whereabouts and Cassie had to stop herself from asking for Felix’s personal number so that she could call him directly. That would have been too weird. She had resorted to walking around the building asking if anyone knew of Felix’s whereabouts. Everyone had denied knowing where he was and although she had a feeling that some of them were lying to her, she knew that she daren’t push the matter further. In the end, she had left the office without ever knowing who the mystery woman was or were Felix had disappeared to.When she had resumed work on Friday, she had found Felix slaving away in front of his laptop. She had handed him

“Isabel made hot chocolate for everyone!” Aaron declared excitedly as he shuffled into the living room with two mugs in his hands. “Here. And sorry that there are no marshmallows in it. We’re all out.” He said handing a mug to Felix while Lily handed the other mug she was holding to Cassie.“Thank you.” Felix said. “I drove by a supermarket on the way here, I can go get some marshmallows if you’d like.”Cassie had to stop herself from chortling into her drink. During her first week of work, Felix’s response to her question about supermarkets had led her to believe that he hadn’t been to one before but he was now offering to drive to one in the middle of the night to grab a packet of marshmallows. It was completely out of character for him. Besides, there was no way she was going to let him drive while he was drunk and upset.“Thank you but that wouldn’t be necessary. They aren’t even supposed to be having this much sugar this late at night. It’s going to take forever to get them to be

There were many events that had the ability to alter the employee-employer dynamic: suddenly becoming in-laws, blackmail and having sexual relationships. Cassie knew of these three things but had been completely unaware of the fourth – letting her employer cry on her shoulder in the middle of the night, sleep on her couch and then take her and her siblings out for ice cream. She hadn’t thought that she and Felix’s dynamic would change as he had said more words to her siblings than to her at the ice cream store but it had changed.She would have never been able to predict just how different things would be when she had been sitting across from him at Frozen Treats, slowly savoring the strawberry ice cream in front of her. She still couldn’t believe that he had remembered her preferred ice cream flavor. Or that he had reached over to wipe a dollop of ice cream from the corner of her mouth and her stupid body had just had to react by deciding to blush at the gesture. She had never been m

“You look stressed.” Felix said from his desk as Cassie walked in on Wednesday morning. He was used to seeing bags around his eyes whenever he looked in the mirror but it felt odd seeing them on Cassie. She looked like she deserved to be at a spa or an exotic getaway rather than at work.Cassie grunted in response, barely sparing him a glance. Of course she was stressed. She had already started to feel the effect of working three jobs and taking care of two children. Her shift at The Bean House had been extra difficult the previous night as she, Diana and Austin had had to cater for a group of rowdy frat boys who had been kicked out of a bar and had come to the Bean House seeking oily bacon and enough space to perform terrible renditions of pop songs with the help of the newly installed karaoke machine. Halloween was barely a week away and she hadn’t even bought any decorations and the twins had already started hounding her for potential costumes. The date for Tobias’ trial was gettin