Chereads / The Temhos / Chapter 2 - The little brother

Chapter 2 - The little brother

He woke up early in the morning, turned around in his bed and snuggled behind his lover, nuzzling against her hair, grabbing her belly and pushing her towards him. Only a few minutes passed before his alarm went off and the smile from his face vanished, instantly replaced by irritation.

He reluctantly and slowly let go of her, push away the blanket and got off bed. It was time for him to go to work and clime the ladders to that promotion he had been aiming for, for the past few months.

Striding to the bathroom, shaving and washing his face, he came out and began putting his white shirt and his gray suit on. As he was working on some last adjustments, knotting his dark blue tie, staring out the window and checking the weather, he noticed that his bed was empty. She was no longer in their king size bed. Where could have she gone to?! He looked around in the tidy, nicely decorated bedroom.

He strolled into the living room, the first thing facing him was a huge painting of Cthulhu gifted to him by a friend….he thought about the friend but his mind simply went blank….he had no recollection. Still fixing some of his features, he carelessly strolled to the bookshelf right next to the painting, filled with mystery and horror novels. He care little about the collection, Amid of them all, however, stood his jewel, his favorite of them all….the Cthulhu mythos.

He looked deeply into its cover, and changed his gaze into the painting….slowly mesmerized by it before Lea came out of the kitchen, delightfully surprising him with a little home-made panini, "I won't let my man go to work on an empty stomach!" she said in the most sweetest tone, putting her hands around his shoulders, staring deep into his brown eyes. "Baby, did you simply wake up to make me breakfast?!" she nodded cutely, her Bambi eyes looking even deeper into his, closing her eyes and kissing his lips gently for a few seconds, teasing him with what was to follow later on in the evening.

"I could have grabbed something on my way to work, besides I'm taking that jackass brother of mine to lunch and God knows how much we eat when we are together. There is something about our brotherly bond that makes us hungry all the time…. maybe it is the sheer effort of tolerating his existence that I burn so much calory and----" Lea put her index finger gently on his lips, shushing him lovingly, "Eat your breakfast, my love!" she said softly, in a motherly manner.

He took the first bite, her hands lovingly stroking his hair. With a mouth-full of panini he strugglingly said, "Do you really have to stare at me while I eat!" uh-hum she replied, fixing his hair and pushing the panini near his mouth, gently forcing him to finish it before Daniel was to leave.

Feeling a little embarrassed from the motherly love he was receiving, questioning his own manliness, he quickly finished breakfast, put both of his hands on Lea's flawless face, kissed her soft, luscious lips good-bye before letting go of her straight, brunette hair.

Daniel speedily put on a pair of brand-new brown, Scarosso shoes, rubbed off some imaginary dust from his shoulders and with a wide smile and one last look at Lea, looking deeply into her precious grey eyes, headed out. 

As he got off the busy morning subway station, the first thought that could not flee his mind was coffee! "A warm, large cup of cappuccino with no sugar is a must right now!" he mumbled as he stood in a long line at the local coffee house.

Boy, he could not stop himself from fidgeting, constantly looking at the length of the line. Daniel checked his watch nervously, maybe he should have gotten a cup of coffee at his office but then again, the coffee there was so artificial and bland, it barely tasted anything like coffee. The watch pointed at 7:45, he still had 15 minutes left before he was to be scolded and looked down upon by his boss.

With that realization, he relaxed and loosened up a little, the fidgeting gone without any effort. He was going to make it in time after all. With his ever over-thinking brain relaxed, he slowly fell down a deep drain of thoughts.

"How can I complete the current project with the given obstacles?!----Am I going to be able to finally earn that freaking promotion and become the head of my division without anyone ordering me around all the time?!" Drowned deeply in questions, searching for the right answer and without even noticing, he reached the end of the line, it was finally his turn to order, but his eyes were fixated on the table nearby, still wondering and thinking. He was quickly interrupted by the rude, annoyed barista who shouted, "Hallo?!?! What would you like to order?!" 

"Whoops, getting lost in one's thoughts is quite common in our family." Daniel said, confidently coming out of his thoughts and glancing at the long awaiting line behind him before he quickly ordered politely, and waited a few minutes at the corner.

A cute blonde barista called his name, and he swiftly went to the counter and grabbed his coffee with a cold thanks and an enigmatic expression on his face, ignoring her smile. Strolling to work, Daniel ignored every single glance given by any female who was fortunate enough to stand on his way.

He strolled inside his office building, coffee in hand and his black briefcase's strap on his left shoulder, his eyebrows frowned, a very serious expression on his face, determined and certain of himself and his skills to finalize the tasks at hand.

 "Good morning, Daniel, you are surprisingly on time!" said the familiar voice from behind, he instantly stopped, the frown vanished, replaced by a huge grin.

"Good morning to you too, miss I am on a mission for greatness!" He replied to the tender voice.

"I got to say, for an Italian, you are very punctual, that is a huge milestone!" they both strolled in the direction of Daniel's office.

 "Ohm, are you this desperate to tease me by my heritage, miss Rafaela?! Because it is sure as hell not going to work on me, nope not anymore, nah-ah no how." he smirked at her teasingly, "Ever since I moved to Vienna, I have worked endlessly onto adapting and perfecting the Austrian ways, costumes and magnificent culture. I have basically become more Austrian than anyone at this office …. except for my poor German which---I promise----I am working on …. On the weekends when I am sometimes free of my other Godly burdens."

The brunet, short haired Rafaela instantly frowned and smiled wickedly, opening the door to his office and gently push him inside, "We got work to do!"

Strolling inside the glass-room, steadily treading over the bland, gray carpet, she quickly closed the dark blue shutters hanging from the glass walls, effectively making the room look like a prison cell rather than a peaceful office, but Daniel kept the one on the glass door open, "Let's not give our trustworthy co-workers any funny ideas, now, shall we?!"

"Not that they don't already have plenty!" she said slowly taking a seat on Daniel's desk chair.

He simply looked at her with a smirk, taking a seat at the corner of his desk, "Miss Rafaela dares to come to my office and pretend to own the place ohm, pride such an unforgivable sin. What shall we ever do about that!?" he said jokingly; teasing her like an older brother rather than a flirty colleague.

 She could not hide her discontent and continued, "You know I am doing this for you, right!? I stopped caring about a promotion after that convention week with Julian. And believe me when I tell you, that was more than enough to make me realize that the stress of higher positions, especially in this company, is not worth the money and I would much rather keep this position or something similar rather than sacrificing everything in the name of independence and proud feminine progression." She stopped and glanced at Daniel as to see his reaction. He was simply smiling and patiently listening, "Although that does not mean I will stop being a perfectionist and put a halt on my monitoring of your every move!"

He got up from the corner of the table, slowly and dramatically clapped his hands in a cheerful applause, "I got to hand it to you, you really nail these speeches. Have you considered running for office? I would have surely suspected that you're a clone trying to infiltrate our company if you missed out on that last bit of information." he chuckled at his own remark.

She giggled and jokingly threw a punch on his shoulders, but he dodged her fist and looked at her with a genuine smile, slowly turning it into a devilish smirk, "You are one ungrateful Italian bastard, did you know that, Daniel!?"

"Oh really, did you figure that out all by yourself or did you need help with that?!"

And with those words being said, the two colleagues began their long, unscheduled meeting.