Forbidden Heat

Reiner – Curious Question

**A week later**

Although it had been decided that Charles would help out on the project, things didn’t work out quite as

I had expected. At first, I thought that he would be spending time working with Reiner and me at the

office on the project. However, as it turned out, Charles working on the project meant that he would

engage in a few calls with Reiner to give advice each week and if required, he would come to meet

Reiner in person.

I wasn’t sure if this was the original plan or if this was what Reiner decided afterwards and I had no way

of finding out. However, from this arrangement, I had next to no exposure to Charles at all for the

project. It wasn’t like I was eager to meet or talk to Charles in the office. After all, I could meet him at

the bar or elsewhere if I wanted to. It was just a shame that I couldn’t learn more from him even though

he was acting as the expert on our project.

Of course, it would be a suicide mission to voice this concern to Reiner because he definitely would

have taken it the wrong way. So, in the end, I just kept this to myself. After that meeting with Charles in

the office, Reiner had been in a bitter mood. Although it had been a little over a week since then, his

mood showed no signs of improving and I didn’t quite know what to do about it. We continued working

together at work, but Reiner spoke to me a lot less and he didn’t seem to enjoy working with me like he

did before.

Precisely because of that, I found my work daunting and dealing with him became difficult once again.

That didn’t mean that I didn’t try to make things better between us. I tried a couple of things.

“Knight, want to go out for lunch? You don’t have any meetings this afternoon,” I suggested with a

beautiful smile.

“I’m a little busy. You should go ahead,” Reiner replied without a second thought.

Inviting him out to lunch took a lot of nerve on my part and he turned me down just like that. Just

remembering it made me scrunch up the recycled paper that I was holding. After that, I tried finding

new topics related to work to report to him so that I could start a conversation with him. That didn’t work

out very well either.

As a result of my depressing day job, I started working at the bar after work more often during the past

week. Seeing Kat and my other colleagues made me feel better. I learnt that there are many things in

life that gave me happiness and meaning to go on even if my love life and relationships were in

shambles.

“Are you working at the bar again tonight?” Reiner asked.

I looked up from the report that I was reading and stared at him in wonder. I wondered what amazed

me more, the fact that he spoke to me first or the fact that he was interested in what I was going to do.

Then the way he phrased his question gave me pause. We haven’t really been talking this past week,

so when did I tell him that I’ve been working at the bar?

Perhaps, he just naturally assumed that I had been working at the bar?

“Oh, yes. It’s my shift today and one of the staff called in sick so I really need to help out over there,” I

replied, trying to sound casual.

“I see…” Reiner said softly.

Just like that the short-lived conversation between us died. I couldn’t help but wonder why he was

asking but then decided that it must have been nothing. The workday ended uneventfully once again,

and work started to feel boring. The project was making much better progress, though. With Charles

stepping in to help review the current team training courses and schedules, we should be getting

insights on where we could improve very soon.

…

The bar wasn’t too busy at the start of the night, thankfully so, because we were understaffed. Jamie

was in a jolly good mood as he drank beer with some of his regular customers. They were an old and

very loud bunch, but I loved how they looked like they were having the time of their lives. Kat, on the

other hand, was in a bitter mood.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Bad guy troubles…” she replied before rolling her eyes upwards.

I watched her jerky movements as she arranged some plates and utensils on a tray. It wasn’t new news

that Kat was having guy problems. I grinned at her while I wanted to tell her that I understood her pain.

My life had been storm after storm of bad guy problems.

“Want to tell me about it?” I asked.

“No. It’s over and done with. I’m all up and ready for a new guy. Hopefully, he’s mixed in with tonight’snovelbin

crowd,” Kat said as she eyed the crowd on the floor.

“Aha…” I mumbled.

“Yeah, so I’m gonna go over there…” Kat said before flashing me a sexy smile.

I nodded my head as I watched her walk away into the crowd. Guess there was nothing for me to worry

about. Someone surely moves on fast. I haven’t learnt the name or face of her old guy and now she is

out hunting for a new one in tonight’s crowd. Awesome.

Since meeting Charles in the office on that day that he had a meeting with Reiner, I have only seen him

once at the bar. It had been a few days since then and I had started to wonder if he was on another

dangerous mission again. My conversation with Charles the last time that we met was surprisingly

casual considering what had happened. However, that conversation made me realize that Charles was

a lot more perceptive than I gave him credit for.

--To be continued…