What should a girl do after kissing her boss the night before?

Nothing. Especially after getting a cold shoulder from her sister and a not-so-friendly reminder from Aunt Martha about her mom.

Cobie has to agree with their aunt that she needs to speed up finding the best dementia facility house for Mom before the situation brings everyone down. Rose not being home for almost a week has put the situation in perspective. If they can't be solid in supporting their mom at home, residential care has to happen now. Her aunt also has a family to take care of and life to attend to; she can't promise that she will always be there when they need her. At the end of the day, it's for her mom's safety, and for her and Rose's peace of mind.

Cobie's morning is all about getting her job done while making some phone calls and pressing several nursing homes to put her on this weekend's appointments. She needs to move ahead —with or without Rose— and check all the options within their budget. Despite the money they've been saving up for this, she expects there will be some adjustments that have to be made. Not that she minds it. Her mother's needs come first. She will be giving up the house if that's necessary.

At least, Luke has been keeping himself inside his office, behind the closed shades, and having a few meetings with Marketing people. It gives her less distraction. well, not entirely. Her mind still occasionally jumps back and forth around the kiss. Luke hasn't said anything about it, unlike those giddy boys who texted her right away after she let them kiss her. Maybe the kiss was not a big deal for him. Maybe it was just a spontaneous action from last night's situation.

Her mind is in the middle of a chaotic intersection when her phone goes off.

"Hey," Luke's voice echoes from the other side of the line, prompting Cobie to glance at her boss' office room. The shades are already pulled back up, and Luke is alone again, leaning back to his chair backrest, but he doesn't look in her direction. "How are you feeling?"

Cobie briskly looks at her surroundings to make sure no one is paying attention to her. Even though there is zero chance that they know about them talking on the phone, she still needs to make sure. When her eyes land on the girls from the Finance division, one of them is staring back at her with a sharp glare, sending her an invisible bullet to make a hole in her head.

"Better than someone in this office at the moment," she replies.

"Sorry?"

"Never mind. I'm okay. At least Rose went home this morning."

"Good. How was it?"

Despite the temptation to check what he's doing right now, Cobie refrains from doing so. She gets up and makes her way to the pantry after making sure there is no one there. "She was ignoring me, of course. But she's home. That's all I'm asking for right now."

"Yeah." There is a brief pause between them before she hears his voice again. "I've been thinking. After what I heard and saw last night, I think I made a mistake with...us. I shouldn't have kissed you, Cobie. Our situation is just...not in our favor. I was carried away and did not think clearly. I'm sorry."

Cobie freezes. Is he trying to break up with her despite the fact that they aren't even together? Is this some kind of a game? Right after proving his point that she's attracted to him, she succumbs to his advances, then he plays this "I'm sorry, it shouldn't have happened" card? How familiar. She should have known better than to trust a man. Especially someone like him who has things easy in hand.

"Don't worry about it. It's just a" —she looks at her surroundings once again, lowering her tone— "kiss. No biggie."

"I feel terrible now."

"Look, spending time with you last night was nice, but honestly, that's the least I need right now. I don't know what got into me, but I agree, that was a mistake. I have enough on my plate, and we both have someone, kinda. Do you remember the guy I'm talking to online? He's coming to this state next week. So, we're going to see if we work."

"I see."

"I'm sorry I didn't bring it up earlier. I was too caught up with my family drama."

It takes a good thirty seconds until she can hear his voice again. "Very well. My apologies for treating you inappropriately last night. It will never happen again. I'm happy for the good news, by the way."

"Thank you."

It's okay, Cobie. It will go as fast as it came. It always does.

The days go by in repeated scenes for Cobie. Wake up, get ready for work, turn the robot mode on at work, go home on time, have an awkward dinner with Mom and Rose, and slump down into her bed at the end of the day, beaten and exhausted. For now, she just needs to ignore her chaotic mind and let time unravel everything. Again.

If the things with Luke were a bit problematic after the accidental email, it has now become a closed case. At least, it's what she wants to believe. What she needs now is just count the days until Luke announces his resignation and disappears from her life. She avoids having direct contact with him, refuses to look at him when they have a team meeting, and just stays invisible. As much as she doesn't want to admit it, what happened in the past weeks with him affects her more than she allows it.

It was good while it lasted, and now she needs to focus on more important matters. Her family.

Despite Rose's gesture that is getting more relaxed when Cobie is around, she still hasn't talked as she used to. At first, Cobie believed this was her own fault for starting all this mess; it must have been the domino effect of her own doing. Even though it's painful to be compared with their father, Cobie swallowed her guilt and kept her promise to give her little sister all the space she needed.

But it has been almost a week and Rose is still acting like a spoiled brat. It's driving her up the wall. Rose knows by now that she never made a move on her ex-boyfriend or intentionally ruined their relationship. She might have lied to her about the phone call —for a good reason— but she did apologize to her, and she's willing to have a heart-to-heart talk about it when Rose is ready.

At the moment, Rose is being plain childish, especially when they need to go hand in hand about their mom's care. Soon, they have to decide which facility they're going to pick for Mom, and talk about the adjustments they need to make afterward. Besides, Mom should have the best environment they can give before she leaves the house for good. Having two daughters quarreling in her last weeks of being home is not the way to go.

And Cobie is going to do something about it.

"We need to talk."

Rose is lying on her bed, Hello Kitty earphones over her ears and a magazine in hand. Her neatly made bed reflects the rest of her bedroom space; no scattered clothes on the ground, no used mugs on her table, and no stray accessories or make-up kit on her dressers. She cranes her neck to look at her sister before moving her earphone to the side. "Did you talk to me?"

"Yes. We need to talk."

"About what?"

Cobie looks back to check the hallway, to make sure her mom isn't within hearing distance. "About Mom."

"Sure." She takes off her pink earphones completely, sticks them inside her nightstand drawer, and shifts her eyes back to the magazine in her hands.

"Can we...can you at least give your full attention when we talk?" Cobie asks, answered by a shrug by her sister.

"I hear you alright." When Cobie doesn't reply for a while, Rose glances at her and closes her magazine. "Fine. Talk."

Not waiting for an invitation from her sister, Cobie enters her room and carefully closes the door before plopping down on the dresser stool. If Rose is not happy about it, she doesn't show it.

"I've been calling around and got a few appointments with some of them for a quick tour. But I can't do this alone, Rose. I do want us, you and me, to work together on this. I know we are not in a good place right now but," Cobie pauses, dropping her head and massaging the back of her neck, "can we just be civil and stop this nonsense, at least until Mom is settled in her new place?"

"I am civil. Wait, did you just say it's nonsense? Lying to me is nonsense?" Rose nods a few times. "Noted."

"I said sorry and I'm willing to explain when you're ready to talk. But look at you! You've been dodging me and acting like a five-year-old not getting the toy she wants. Don't you think it's time to act like an adult?"

"If being an adult is about lying and deception, then I'd rather not be one. You lied to me, Cobie, about everything! You hid the fact that you liked Harry before, that Harry also found you attractive, that you guys were close but never wanted to date each other for some reason, that he still adored you and talked to you from time to time when I wasn't around." Rose's nose flares and turns red.

Cobie tilts her head in surprise from Rose's sudden attack. "Who told you this? Harry?"

"It doesn't matter who told me this."

"It does matter because then I know why the person said what they said."

"I don't kiss and tell, but I can assure you it wasn't your favorite boy who told me this," Rose replies. "But it's true, isn't it?"

Cobie sighs loudly, starting to feel the heaviness in her head. "It's not wrong, but not entirely true, either."

"Are you trying to wriggle yourself out from your lies, Cobie?"

"No. I'm not! Please let me finish," Cobie begs. "I was indeed attracted to him, but it was in the very beginning when we hung out together with our group. You weren't in the picture yet. But I never did anything about my feelings because you know I didn't want to have anything to do with a guy like him. But I swear nothing happened. It was just a teenage crush that disappeared as fast as it came. It's nothing compared to what you and Harry had.

"You know I will never do things to hurt you, Rose. You are way more important to me than any guys in the world."

Rose is staring at her with an assessing look. "Were you jealous when I went out with Harry?"

"No! If anything, I was worried about you."

Rose's upper lip twitches, a sign that she has questions cramping up her head, yet she doesn't say any words.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you the nature of our friendship before, but I genuinely thought it didn't matter. Maybe it was also because I noticed you had a hard time seeing us act like buddies."

"I did not have problems with you two being friends," Rose mumbles but the hesitance in her tone says enough. "I just didn't like the feeling of being left out."

"I'm sorry I made you feel that way. I had no idea."

Rose shrugs. "Nothing you can do about it now. So, back to our previous topic. What do you need?"

Feeling deflated because Rose changed the topic abruptly, Cobie straightens her legs forward and rests her hands on her tight. "I got spots for brief tours this Friday, including at the Sunshine nursing home, the one we think is the best fit for Mom. The thing is, Mom's daycare is still closed because of the flu outbreak at their workplace, and aunt Martha needs to be elsewhere on Friday morning. I can't take Mom or she will figure out what we're up to. Can you maybe watch Mom? I just don't want to bother our neighbor again for this. Mom can be, you know, a handful lately."

Rose purses her lips and nods. "Sure. I'll talk to Mathias tomorrow."

"Thank you. I'm sorry it's a last-minute request. I just heard from Aunt Martha a couple of hours ago."

"No problem."

Cobie stands up, fixes her skirt, and makes her way to the door. She stops by the door and turns her head to her sister. "I really am sorry I hurt you, Rose." With that, she slips out of the room and closes the door behind her.

I have to say I can't wait for tomorrow. I wonder what you look like. You must be very pretty.

Well, at least my mom always tells me I'm pretty. But every mom does that to their kids. So...

My mom doesn't do that

Oh?

Mom never says I'm pretty.

-_-

So, one o'clock at Ebirra's cafe. I need to check the bus route to get there. Or maybe I'll just grab a taxi. Friday afternoon's traffic can be a pain in the ass

I have booked the table under the name Bread Pott.

You ruined my name

I find it sexier. On that note, I need to sleep now. I have an appointment at seven-thirty in the morning. See you tomorrow, Mr. Pott.

Until tomorrow, girl. Sleep well.

🔹🔹🔹