Chapter 59

The merged finance department were only half listening to what was being said, and it was not down to the fact that they were on the last stretch of the meeting. Neither was it because the current speaker was not engaging enough on the summarising the meeting's different agendas. In fact, it was Joshua Lore speaking at that moment, which was the reason a lot of them were even half listening. Nor was it due to the fact that this meeting was reaching the four-hour mark without any breathers.

To understand why masses had their thoughts elsewhere, we would have to return to 15 minutes earlier. What happened was a relatively simple series of actions. As they were concluding the final topic of the meeting, Henry Reyes suddenly stood up, his face pale, almost grey. His lips were pursed shut and body trembling a little. Clearly, he did not feel well, and after pausing for a second, ran out of the meeting room, the back of his hand against his mouth. Haerin ran after him.

The room came to a standstill, no one quite sure what had just happened. All that was really clear was that something was wrong with the beloved second son of the Reyes' family. Not even the no co-CFOs were sure with how to proceed. Not until Joshua gave the okay for the meeting to continue.

Now, other than the remaining two present from the secretarial team, who had been warned an hour earlier by the young man that he was not feeling well and might not be able to finish the meeting, the rest of the room was no longer entirely focused on the meeting. Even Joshua, who was now finalising the meeting, was looking over at the door every couple minutes.

Some people were wondering what the man was thinking, how he could continue working instead of running after his clearly unwell fiancé. It was not that anyone doubted them, but it did make them question their couple dynamic. His only action said from the subtle glances was asking the Ramy to get him a bottle of water and a couple small box of some sort, which he promptly put in his pocket. After that, he simply stood up and seamlessly continued with his last part of the meeting.

It was not until nearly 20 minutes after having run out did Henry return, Haerin accompanying to the door before leaving to fulfil her new orders. His face was still pale, his lips now cracked and dry with his sandy hair no longer tied back, now hiding half his face. Adding to his dishevelled look was the now loose colour of his shirt and bottom of his shirt peeking out of the bottom of his jump. That and his staggered manner of walking.

Paused where he was, Henry looked at all the eyes now on him, slightly at loss. At most, all he managed was a shallow bow of apology to the management. He was about to was about to make his way back to his seat before his knees gave out, but he locked gazes with Joshua, who promptly stopped him.

With a simple point, Henry was making his way to the much closer seat that Joshua had been sitting at for the meeting. While he wanted to refute, he knew that it would be better for him to not disrupt the meeting any more than he had already done, as well as further embarrassing himself.

Joshua went onto the very last part of what he needed to say before passing things onto his superiors. His voice was unwavering, as if there had not been a disruption at all. However, by now no one was paying attention to the actual words coming out of the 24-year-old's mouth, even the secretaries had given up and decided to leave the remaining minutes to the audio recording, meeting recording and meeting notes.

Right now, all anyone could pay attention to was Joshua's actions.

The man continued his part professionally, but he had walked over to where Henry was sat, picking up the warm water bottle and opening the sealed lid, before putting it down for the younger man to drink.

Henry did not want to get in his way so rather than stopping the coddling, he let Joshua continue with his part uninterrupted.

Joshua then pulled out a box from his pocket, revealing to everyone the generic painkillers that he had sent Ramy to retrieve earlier. He took out and put two pills in Henry's hand. Once sure that the pills were consumed safely, he took his blazer off the back of his chair and draped it on the other man's shoulders, all before patting his head and walking back to the front. However, not once in his closing segment did he take his attention off Henry, clearly worried about his fiancé.

In reality, it had all been down to Joshua's own experience with Henry when he does not feel 100%. When in pain or injured or unwell, the young man seemed to always put himself secondary. If he had not intervened, Henry would have sat back at his seat, tried to work again, and in the best-case scenario, his knees would give away when it was time to get up, worst case he would throw up or pass out before the meeting was even over. In fact, this quality of Henry's was starting to become the most irritating thing about him, he was good at taking care of other people and knew how to handle himself, so why on earth did he not take care of himself when it mattered.

Joshua had to stop himself from continuing his line of thought before he became so annoyed that it affected his speech or expression.

Eventually, the young man reached the end of his part and handed over to the co-CFOs so they could round up the meeting. Ramy brought Joshua a chair, well aware that his ankle was still in recovery and most likely was in a decent amount of pain after having not taken proper care of it this morning.

Even though Joshua saw Henry as someone who could not lookafter himself when it mattered, everyone saw Joshua as someone who had zero clue in how to take care of himself without feeling like a burden. Had Ramy not brought over a chair, Joshua would have crouched down next to Henry while making sure he was okay, succeeding in worsening his own injury.

The pair were simply hopeless.

Seeing as the final part was not too important, Joshua leant his head towards Henry and asked quietly, "Are you already in withdrawal?"

Henry looked at the water bottle rested in his hands, nor having the face to look Joshua in the eye. He nodded with his head bowed. It was embarrassing to admit but the jitters and sudden wave of intense nausea was due to the lack of nicotine. "The hangover made it worse," he mumbled out, just loud enough for Joshua to hear.

"How many a day?"

"…pack and a half."

Joshua almost choked at the answer. Of course, he had not been much better himself, smoking through a whole carton in less than two whole days, but he had not been expecting such a drastic answer from Henry. Even if he considered the young man unable to look after himself, his inherent image of Henry was still someone with little to no faults, someone who was better than him in the things Joshua knew he lacked in himself. Henry falling into a nicotine addiction so drastically clashed with that image.

The meeting was ended promptly seeing as the co-CFOs were not nearly as blind to the loss of focus amongst the department, of course they were not paying too much attention themselves. There was no way any of the leadership team could with the dog food being scattered right next to them.

Once adjourned, everyone seemed hesitant on whether to pack up and leave with haste or take their time and watch the show. Unsurprisingly, everyone was leaning towards the latter. However, there was one thing everyone in the now, merged company had in common, a key reason as to why they got the job to begin with: they all had a good head on their shoulders. So, as reluctant as they were, everyone quickly gathered their belongings and left the packed conference room.

As the streams of people left, Haerin returned, a paper bag in her hand from the cafeteria. Simultaneously, Joshua pulled out the other box Ramy had handed him earlier, the contents of which were extra strength, 24-hour nicotine patches.

The two stopped dipping their voices, Henry still looking anywhere but at Joshua's face. He had even started to subconsciously hide his face, nibbling on the rim of the plastic water bottle, taking small, frequent sips.

"Are you really up for quitting like this?" Joshua could not help but ask, worry seeping into his voice.

"I said it was the hangover…"

Joshua did not take that as an answer, sending Henry an unwavering gaze with an unamused face. He did not make the fact that he was waiting on an answer subtle in the least.

Henry could feel the other man's eyes like lasers boring into his head. Eventually, he found himself having to give the other a proper answer.

"Yeah, I can do it. I might feel like rubbish, but if anything, today was one ohell of a wakeup call."

"For you and me both then." There was a slight laugh in Joshua's voice, but it was not at the younger man, if anything it was directed at himself. How cocky had he been to decide he would not end up addicted to smoking this time just because he did not last time. While it did not show up on his face nearly as much, but his head felt so loud that he was almost at wit's end.

Joshua, "So, we are definitely quitting?"

Henry, "Cold turkey?"

Joshua waved the box of nicotine patches, "Not really cold turkey, is it? But, as long as you are up for it, zero smoking here on out."

"I already said I can do it. Like hell am I staying dependant on the nicotine."

There was a moment of silence, eventually Henry breaking it to confirm out loud what they both already knew.

"So… we're quitting."

"We're quitting."

Finally, it seemed like they had taken quitting smoking seriously, much to Ramy's relief. He had been unsure with their conviction last night considering how tired they had been.

"Eat some food, both of you," Haerin chimed, placing the bag on the table, between the two men. "This room is also empty for the rest of the day, so the two of you take your time before heading back to the house."

"And a reminder that dinner is at ours tonight," Ramy added. "Also, may not be a bad idea to stay at Henry's the next few days, Joshua. You'll worry your parents a lot if they watch you go through withdrawal, even if they might not show it."

The two men looked at the two PA's, they both could not help but share a sentiment of having another set of parents, which felt incredibly strange seeing as they could all be considered peers.

"Anyway, we will leave you two here to collect yourselves. When you want to leave, call the reception and they will have a driver ready waiting for you by the carpark entrance."

"And do not even think of asking anything more from us two today. The after party last night may have been a blast, but it leaves us with having to redistribute the whole family's work."

"And pass the message onto your brothers'. Those two are the biggest troublemakers for the secretarial department."

"Anyway, we're out. Whether you tell your parents about this whole thing is up to you two. We are very busy now."

With a shallow bow from the both of them, Haerin and Ramy both left, not even waiting for acknowledgement of their words.

Said acknowledgement took the young men a few minutes to obtain. It was too much too fast for their poor, hungover, nicotine- and food-starved brains.

Once it did all compute, Henry and Joshua shared a look, although what emotions were behind it, even they did not know. It was a strange mix of helplessness and determination, which made no logical sense.

Then again, since when have emotions been logical to start with?