Chapter 1

•Benjamin Walker•

We had been in that office for what seemed like hours, but then again, I wasn't doing anything to get distracted, I just kept my eyes on the boy that was focusing on the task at hand. His eyebrows kept furrowing from time to time, probably from thinking about the report, sometimes he tapped the pen against his lips, which made me slightly annoyed since the pen was mine. The question about why he was doing it by hand? Because I was curious about his handwriting.

At first, it was a way to make him go nuts since I figured he was used to writing reports by computer, I thought it would be a challenge for him to do it by hand. But I was mistaken, he could remember all the steps from writing a report and that made me a bit nervous since I had never seen anyone be able to make a report from scratch, and less a sales report, which had a lot of numbers.

Before I even realized, he had done the report, all the products we were selling, the number of products of each type we had sent and at what prize and even what days we had done that. "Explain," I said, he placed the pen down on the table and moved closer so he could do that. "All the cars are separated by models, colors, and functioning, Ford Mustang Cabriolet was sold to collectors from Detroit for 72492.21 dollars, that same week, the Ford Mustang convertible was sold to the same collector but in a store located in Russia," He said and made a pause before he opened his mouth to continue explaining, I stopped him before he could continue, I understood he knew what he was supposed to do, and I was impressed, but I didn't want him to read all the report to me.

"I get it, good job, I will send this to my friend as soon as I can and then we can continue working normally," I said, making him nod his head and stand up to stretch his legs a bit around the office. I heard him hum silently to himself as he paced around the room, humming silently and staring at all the things in my office. He focused on some old books, and even if I figured he didn't know what they were about, he seemed pretty interested in them, but before he could touch one I talked again. "Don't, they are expensive," I said, making his hand retrieve slowly from the action and going back into his pants pockets.

"Why do you have them then? To make sure people know you are a wealthy person or just to let them collect dust?" he asked. I rose one of my eyebrows as I completely stopped the action of sending the report, just to look at him as if he was an idiot. "Maybe you just like to make people jealous." He concluded.

"Do you even know what they are?" I asked, and I wasn't surprised when he shook his head and flushed red slightly. That made a smirk appear on my lips, which only managed to make him blush even more. I chuckled before I shook my head. "I figured, so before you judge what others have for their economic stability, make sure you know what their importance is," I said, just sternly enough to make him understand I was totally serious and that, I wouldn't let anyone with no idea of what they were talking about, give me lessons of what I should or shouldn't have in my office.

He exhaled and then proceeded to walk to the glass panel, and despite thinking I had to warn him to not touch it since it was hard to clean, he didn't look like he was going to touch it, so I went back to typing the report into my laptop. It didn't take long before I had send it and I turned my chair to look at the boy, who was still in the same spot and in the same position, staring outside that big glass panel that showed the city. It was beautiful, I wasn't going to deny that, but then again, I didn't understand what he found so fascinating about that place. "Do you like it?" I asked eventually, making him turn his head slightly so he could look at me, probably surprised that I even cared about that. -I didn't really care but there was nothing else to talk about and I knew it was time for him to leave the place.

•Kyle Kuznetsov•

"Do you like it?" His voice pulled me out of my thoughts, I hadn't even realized he was looking at how I stared out the window in my own world. But it was beautiful, it was such a fascinating view, to be able to watch the people in the street without them noticing, and being able to imagine where they were heading and their stories. Maybe it was just my mind being creative, but there was something about that place in that exact time that felt magical.

Before I could get sunk back in my thoughts I decided to reply to the man, just to avoid making him mad or pissed about me not replying, and I also didn't want him to think I was ignoring him, so I turned my body towards him slightly and then nodded my head. "Yea, it's pretty beautiful," I said simply. I wasn't going to get in detail about my thoughts with this man, who probably asked just to break the silence. I glanced down at my watch and then exhaled softly, finally, it was time to leave work. The bad thing was that I had a night shift and I had to rush if I wanted to make it in place."It's my cue to leave, I will see you tomorrow morning, sir." I said.

I made my way to the door to give him enough time to call back for me if he needed anything, but since he didn't I just left his office and headed to the elevator. On my way there I met with Brodie, who sent me a quick smile and was returned with kindness. I clicked back to my floor and then just waited. It didn't take long for the elevator to reach the destination, so I rushed to my table and gathered my things, hoping no one would take it back so I could use it to go down and leave this hell.

Luckily it happened as I wanted and I was able to catch it to go back to the first floor, where I scanned my card ID and then was able to leave for sure.

When I arrived at work I was lucky to still have ten minutes before my shift ended. I had gotten dressed in work clothes, which consisted of black pants and a black shirt, yes, like a goth. But it was the place's colors so they thought a bartender wearing all black would also attract more attention. Sure, it didn't have anything to do with colors, but I wasn't going to correct my boss.

The night started as always: people coming in, asking for a soft drink and leaving for the dance floor. Usually, it wasn't until three am that people began asking for stronger drinks -paying more, of course. I was lucky that the organization of the club was in such a fair and methodic way: the first drinks were always for me, what meant the money people paid for the first drinks was for me, and then I had the monthly paycheck. That way, even if I didn't get the monthly payment, I had some money in my pocket.

I was yanked off my thoughts when I heard the voice of another customer over the music. I listened to the order and began preparing it, the music was blasting and to be able to listen to each other people had to approach each other too close. The neon lights changed from purple to green, then red and then yellow before they started the course again, so it made hard to look at someone and be able to identify them.

I smiled at the male and then went back to cleaning the glasses that people left there after finishing their drinks. I watched as people danced while I dried the glasses with a clean wipe, a smile not leaving my lips at any moment, and less when I had to attend a customer. Despite being chaotic, this place was my refuge, I felt safe here, ironically. We had never had any trouble with any customers despite the easy access to those types of crowds to enter. Apart from that, people were overall nice, there was always the drunk jackass that explained people their lives and then got offended when they left.

I heard some commotion on the dance floor, but I decided to not move since it was probably just some teenagers having a fight over who the man had to dance with. It wasn't until a blonde, tall female approached with a worried expression that I figured it was better to go check and get it over with. I placed everything down and walked behind the girl, who told me her name was Jasmine, and that if it wasn't because I was sane, I would have offered a nightstand. Soon though, we approached were some people were crowding, seeing a younger-looking girl on the floor.

People always thought that when something happens people cared too much, but it wasn't like that, they always made sure they weren't in the way and that they were taking care of the situation before they went back to their jobs. And I think that was a good thing, since it didn't make me stressed over having to move people off the away, and the female didn't feel observed, even though she probably couldn't since she was passed out.

I couldn't help but sigh at that, how careless were the girls there? "I think she drank too much," her friend said from beside me, it looked like that was the case, and it probably wasn't too bad, maybe just an overdose of alcohol. I crouched and slid my arm by her back and the other one by her thighs, lifting her up and motioning for Jasmine to follow me. I walked to what we called the chill zone since it was the place people that didn't want to dance stayed at, and after looking for an empty space and laying the girl down, I went to fetch her a glass of water.

•Benjamin Walker•

I stayed at work with Brodie, even though he had moved to my office to finish signing files, we didn't talk at all. I was bored out of my mind, and I didn't seem to be able to stop thinking about kyle. I was impressed with his skills, he truly was an expert making reports. And being able to explain everything in a way that people understood was also impressive.

"What's got your attention?" Brodie's voice cut the silence, making me blink my eyes a bit before I glanced at him, waiting for a more elaborated question. "You are deep in thought" he clarified."Oh, I was thinking about the report Kyle did." I said. Brodie seemed interested, and he showed it by placing the pen down and giving me his full attention. "I mean, it's not like I haven't seen better reports, but the fact that he knew how to do one without needing to look templates kinda shocked me," I added.

Brodie chuckled slightly and then nodded his head, "I told you, the kid is a genius, and I hope now you will think about raising his salary."

Salary? Kyle hadn't mentioned anything about a salary-

A few months earlier

I was sitting in my office when I heard someone knocking on my door. I figured it was someone with papers for me to sign, so I allowed them in. I stared at the boy in front of me, who looked like he was going to faint. I then noticed he wasn't holding papers or anything at all, something that made me raise my eyebrows in confusion.

"Morning sir..." he started, his voice was soft, almost too soft. "I needed to talk to you, you know I'm living alone, and I gotta pay for everything, but the monthly payment is not quite enough for all the hours I do, so I was wondering if you could pay me more?"

Back to present

"I see you remembered" he smirked a bit, making me roll my eyes slightly before I sighed "I denied it because he was not working that many hours, and he always did his own work, he never came to ask about stuff or-"

"Yes, Yes, we know that Mr. Walkers, but you have to admit he has shown to be quite useful". I just stared at him before I nodded my head, "I will talk with him." I said simply before we both went back to work.

When it reached out time to leave, Brodie informed me he was going to go out drinking and offered me to accompany him, at first I figured that that wasn't something I would do, but having in mind that the next day we were entering work later because I had meetings, I figured it wouldn't do me any harm.

"I swear Brodie if you bring me to a strip club I will slice you open myself" I threatened him when I saw the neon lights that reflected from the small building. He chuckled and parked his car on an empty space, unbuckling his belt before he gave me a pat "don't worry that much, I'm not a monster." He testified before that annoying smirk appeared on his lips. I knew that was true, so I decided not to argue and just follow him inside the building.

The first thing that I noticed was the strong scent of alcohol in the air, apart from that, the place was packed and people didn't seem to know what personal space was. But before I could get further into detail about why this was a bad idea, I was pulled along to the bar, where a man was serving drinks busily.

It took about five minutes for another person to come and attend us after he apologized for being late and saying he was taking care of a problem on the dance floor, he asked what we wanted. After saying our drinks the person left to prepare them and I was left with Brodie, who was slightly swinging at the music. "His scent was familiar" I muttered, but it wasn't anything specific since I knew I had smelled that cologne somewhere, but I wasn't sure where.

"Yea, I'm sure it is" he teased me, making a motion at the waiter, Brodie lead me to a table, where we were able to sit down and breath calmly for a bit, something that my legs thanked me, despite being there for only a few minutes. We stayed silent until our waiter came with our drinks, and it wasn't until then that I realized why that scent was so familiar.