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When I wasn’t driving back and forth across Buckley Heath, I was running around after Theodore in the office. Given how busy we were, we’d decided to go half-business, half-casual for our office work wardrobe. For me, that was slippers, leggings instead of pencil skirts or real trousers, and t-shirts that could either be smart or casual.
For Theodore, his business-casual was a shirt and tie on top and sweatpants on the bottom. If it weren’t already a weird combination, I’d discovered what was perhaps his one true vice: patterned socks.
And I wasn’t talking about spots or stripes, either.
I was talking hot dogs. Seashells. Pizza. Cats. Footballs and other various sports paraphernalia. One pair was even covered with mini faces of the Grinch.
Never had anything been as baffling as seeing him yell at someone for their incompetence over a video chat while wearing socks covered with little cat faces.
I knew I’d seen several sides of him that I hadn’t known existed until now, but the socks were a bit jarring.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to them. Not onhisfeet, anyway.
Which was why when Thursday came around and I’d returned from spending most of my afternoon at the Adair Travel store, I handled whatever he needed in the office and left him and his stupid-arse hot dog socks to his video call with his dad.
Nobody would ever take him seriously if they saw his socks.
I said that, but there was something strangely endearing about him being a collector of crazy socks.
At least I knew what to get him for Christmas this year.
Huh.
Christmas.
Right. It didn’t matter.
He wasn’t the boss I’d be buying a Christmas present for this year.
Why did that make my chest hurt a little bit?
I shook off those feelings and rolled out my yoga mat on the living room floor. There was no time to contemplate such matters when I had so little of it as it was.
I had a love-hate relationship with yoga. I loved the quiet peace I found while doing it, but I hated that I pushed myself so hard every time. That said, it was definitely preferable to cardio, so there was no way I would stop doing it.
It was one of the few true enjoyments I had to escape into in my life.
Yoga and Korean food.
If I could have those, I was a happy Chloe.
I adjusted my right earbud until it was properly wedged in place and hit play on the lo-fi playlist I had set aside for my workouts. My ears were filled with the calming music as I played the workout video on the TV and got started. I wouldn’t normally do yoga with earbuds in, but since Theodore was on a call with his father, I didn’t want to accidentally interrupt it with my music. Even the workout video itself was muted with subtitles on, although I didn’t need them. I’d done this one so many times I could do it with my eyes closed, but it was nice to feel as though there was someone else in the room with me.
I moved through the positions one by one, only slightly off from the timing of the video. Even with all the furniture moved back I didn’t have a perfect view of the TV, but it was no big deal.
I needed this time before the chaos of the letting office opening tomorrow.
I opened my eyes as I moved into the plank position and found myself right in front of a pair of socked feet. I gritted my teeth as those feet moved and Theodore bent down, barely in my line of sight, saying something.
I had no idea what he was saying. I only knew he was talking because I could see his mouth moving.
What kind of idiot talked to someone torturing themself in the plank position? Didn’t he know I was already dying? What made him think I could reply right now?
“Okay,” I said, hoping it was the right answer to whatever it was he’d said.
I couldn’t hear a thing.
I used noise-cancelling buds for a reason.
