Or at least someone to distract me while I'm living in this house.

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

Work drags the next day. We have meeting after meeting about the Christmas campaign and have to start pulling out ideas together properly so we're ready to have the big-boy meetings with our higher ups at the end of the week.

We grimly decide to pull a late one on Thursday in preparation for our Friday meetings.

Chelsea sits at my desk towards the end of the working day, both of us manically typing away on our tablets and looking frazzled beyond belief.

"Ugh," she groans, pushing her tablet away from herself. "What are you doing tonight?"

Her green streak appears to have gotten slightly larger. If I didn't know her any better I'd think she was trying to get away with dying her hair green without HR giving her a bollocking. Who am I kidding? That's definitely what she's doing.

Today she's wearing an overcoat that looks as if she's dropped onto the Earth from some sort of 1970's detective show. She pummeled Zach on the shoulder with a phone book when he called her Terminator at our first meeting this morning.

Her eyeliner is winged out over a smoky eye and, upon thinking it over, she also looks like a hot extra that's been pulled out of a My Chemical Romance music video.

"Matt's game night is tonight," I remind her. "Since my bedroom is the living room, I think I'll be in attendance."

"With his Uni math buddies?"

"Uh huh."

She chews on the end of a pencil, dragging some pictures around on her tablet and frowning at them. I'm scrolling through some of our analytics, impatiently waiting for the clock to hit five.

"I'm thinking of wearing something cute, dressing up." I tell her mindlessly.

I see her perk up from the corner of my eye, grinning.

"Something cute, huh?" She asks, and I nod whilst still scrolling through the endless pages of data. "Are you trying to catch someones eye?"

I put my tablet back onto my desk and lean into the swivel chair, pushing the hair out of my eyes and behind my ears. My shoulders sag.

"I think it's about time I did."

Her mouth pops open. There's gum on her tongue that I didn't even realise she was chewing.

"Is that Madelaine Grayson I'm speaking to?" She reaches forward and slowly presses on extended finger into my cheek. "Who are you?"

I swat her away and pretend to go back to my analytics.

"All I'm saying is that I'm going to dress cute. It's not like I can pull anyone there tonight, they're all Matt's mates and - apparently - he has this thing where me dating his mates makes him want to vomit."

"When did he say that?"

"He mentioned some guy from high school who fancied me. They stopped being friends because of it."

"That's... odd."

Don't I know it. I'd never given him the slightest idea that I'd be in any way interested in dating his friends. Hell, I never even wanted them at the house.

We continue working next to each other until five on the dot, at which point I receive a text from Noah stating that he'll be a little later than usual because he only just left work.

"I've got fifteen minutes to kill," I tell Chelsea.

"You wanna look cute tonight, right?" She digs around in her purse, pulling out a small black pencil. "How about a bit of a sexy eyeliner look?"

"I don't think that's very..."

"You're going to look hot." She continues to reassure me as she pulls my chair closer to hers. I settle between her legs, her minty breath fanning my face as she studies my eye shape.

I can tell she gets a bit carried away. There's a lot of pulling and muttered comments about resting my face and at one point she even licks her thumb and drags in under my eye.

She claps when she's finished, like she's on a plane that's just landed.

"Okay," she mutters as she puts the pencil back in her bag. "When you get home, wear something cute. A dress - you've got great legs. Are you going to shower?"

"I showered this morning."

"Great!" She grins. I nod at her enthusiasm. "Do your makeup around the eyeliner. Overfill your eyebrows slightly, and straighten your hair. Don't overdo the bronzer or the blush, alright?"

"That was one time," I sigh. The last work party we threw I didn't look so hot, but the electricity at my place had cut out and I'd gotten ready using my phone torch. Nobody has ever let it go.

Noah: I'm outside.

I show her the text and she squeals and shoves all of her belongings back into her bag. She begins rattling off more instructions in the elevator and then starts going through my outfits from memory as we both walk through the lobby.

Her waterfall of words halts when we step through the doors. I look up from the floor to see Noah parked in his usual non-parking spot, right outside the glass door.

His window is down today and his grin is breathtaking as he smiles up at us both.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Chels."

"Girl," she coughs.

"I know." I grit, looking at Noah, now scrolling on his phone as he waits for me.

I know she wants to say everything I've been thinking for the past few days. That this man is three-course meal worthy. That he could eat her off a dinner plate and she'd thank him. She's probably already got something lined up about shagging him in his car.

"Don't dress cute," she states quietly. "Dress killer. Call me when you're getting ready."

"It's a game night," I remind her.

Noah looks towards us both and we quickly turn to look at each other. There's little room to deny it; it's obvious we were staring and talking about him.

"Are you ready?" He asks gently. His voice is soft but the husk of it still rattles me to my core. "I don't want to rush you but I'm starting to think I'm not allowed to park here."

I smile at his joke. Chelsea squeezes my arm before beginning to walk around the building and towards the company car park. Noah's eyes stay on me as I watch her round the corner. I still feel the heat of them when I dip into the passenger seat.