56 Mia

Surfing her company's website, she made calls to the administrators when she found bugs in the system and then made some additional calls to some groups she was in connection with.

RING RING

Gradis looked at her phone, immediately groaning when she realized who was calling. Reluctantly she picked up the call and strategically placed it a few inches away from her ears.

"YOU MISSED WORK TODAY, GRADIS!" the voice yelled, scolding Gradis.

"Sighh…" Gradis groaned under her breath.

"...SIGH?!" the voice growled, "YOU HAVE THE AUDACITY TO SIGH AT ME RIGHT NOW?!"

The voice huffed and took a break from talking and Gradis knew the person on the other end was currently running their hand through their hair, a habit they did to let off steam.

"May I remind you that you are the CEO Gradis?" The voice sighed, "There's no time for games, no time for going M.I.A, and DEFINITELY no time for skipping work."

"Look, director," Gradis teased, empathizing on the 'director,' "If you'd spend more time on the company site instead of yelling at me, then maybe the number of bugs I spotted in an hour alone wouldn't be there."

"Bugs?" the voice muttered, their voice trailing off as they went deep into thought, "isn't Jason supposed to be working on that?"

"Yes, Mia," Gradis groaned, rolling her eyes, "so lift those dragon flames of yours off me and go hunt down Jason."

"No," Mia refused, "It doesn't change the fact that you haven't been doing your work these days. What are you running around doing? We couldn't even track you down and that new person you brought in has been handling your work in place of you."

"If he has I wouldn't be seeing this mess," Gradis refuted, her bouncing off the keys of her keyboard as she drank coffee with her left hand. "And you don't even know what I was running around doing. If you're going to keep a tracker on me, do it properly so I don't have to be getting preachings like this since you'd already know what I was doing."

"Gradis…" Mia began, taking a few seconds to gather her thoughts before continuing, "You're right, I don't know what's going on, but the reason why I track you is because you don't tell us what you are up to. How are we supposed to follow a leader who won't stop showing us her back."

"If you want my trust, then stop making me have to revise work that some department was supposed to do and stop producing inadequate products, it puts my efforts to waste," Gradis spat, placing down her coffee cup.

"You're impossible to talk to, you know?" Mia sighed.

"Yea, thanks for the compliment," Gradis retorted.

"Look… I didn't mean to push your buttons but..."

"Nice you know, my day was stressful enough, adding this is just overkill,"

"...turns out that the CEO position wasn't as easier as you made it out to be,"

Mia let out a cloud of air sadly, "I messed up now…" she sighed, running her fingers into her long, hazel locks, "sorry."

"It's ok," Gradis chuckled slightly, "I'm weak for becoming hurt once again even though it's been years."

"No seriously.." Mia began.

"I sent you the papers needed for Friday's meeting, if there are any questions that are asked in the meeting that this paper can't answer, tell it to the boy I brought in," Gradis instructed, "it'll get to me and I'll do a paper answering it."

"Are you not planning to come into work this week?" Mia asked worriedly.

"Hmm, I'll be doing all my work from home so don't worry," Gradis chuckled, "it'll be like I'm right there...stuck in that chair he was once in."

"Isn't that a big risk?"

"Chill… I'm just the CEO of one of his many companies anyways, it's not like I'm in the big chair at the center of everything," Gradis smiled, "but I will be soon...if I'm chosen."

Mia bit the end of her nail nervously, 'did I pick a nerve?' she thought. "About that…" she began again.

"Don't ask," Gradis interrupted, "you'll see the results of what I'm doing in a bit more than a month. Be patient."

"Ah...ok" Mia answered reluctantly. 'I picked a nerve…' she thought, slapping her lips, 'stupid mouth...why did you mention that.'

"I'mma go now… have work to do and a few more cups of coffee to go through," Gradis laughed weakly, "bye."

"...bye."

She ended the call and silenced her phone, throwing it unto the couch, "finally," she puffed out a sigh of relief, "a bit of acting and she shut up. They must think I'm pitiful and crying over something from years ago," then began typing furiously to finish up her work.