"Ms Loh, Ms Izzy has arrived. Do you want me to bring her to your office or would you like me to send her to the side office?" Tabitha asked her superior for affirmation.
"Just bring her over and also inform Erika so that she can join us here. Can you also prepare a glass of ABC (apple, beet and carrot) for Ms Izzy and Oolong tea for me? The one Victoria brought back from Taiwan. You can ask Erika what she wants" The best part of ARK Corporation's pantry was that it was fully stocked with fruits and vegetable staffs can use to make juices and eat as snacks during their break time.
"Sure, Ms Loh." Tabitha walked out of Hidayah's office and left the glass door open and ushered the guest over. Meanwhile, Hidayah was arranging the documents on her desk and pulling out a folder from her left second drawer for the meeting.
Tok Tok Tok
"Ms Loh…" Hidayah looked up towards her secretary standing by the door and nodded her head as an acknowledgement. "Ms Izzy, please enter."
"Thank you," the woman wearing an orange long flowy Maxi Dress with floral design walked into the room and smiled towards Hidayah. Hidayah walked over to the 1-seater Benjamin Classical Vintage Leather sofas that circled the coffee table in her office. The women each took a seat facing each other after shaking hands and made themselves comfortable.
"Did you have any trouble finding the building earlier?" Hidayah asked the woman.
"Ooh… finding the building was easy but finding the entrance of the underground car park was a challenge!" she answered cheerfully.
"Hahaha… I know what you meant. When I first came here on my own, I had the same problem too… When the building was first bought over, we didn't have many buildings surrounding us. Since we're located in the prime CBD, more office buildings got erected so close to each other that it's quite confusing."
Izzy is a project coordinator from JFL Redevelopment, one of the partners for the Historical Site Preservation project. The women had a small chat while waiting for Erika before they could start discussing the project.
The morning was spent filled with meetings and discussions. Since today was the last day before the long weekend, everyone wanted to finish as much as they can so that they can enjoy the holiday.
General staffs who are not able to be scheduled for off days are compensated with double pay instead. For example, security, mall and retail staffs are required to be rostered for daily operations despite the long weekend.
That day, the group met up at the lobby before driving towards Esplanade for lunch at the Hawker. Hawker is the first domestic fast-food restaurant in Country C which was newly opened. Having a number of food adventurers in the group, they often scour for new eateries.
"We will have one set of Prosperous Sharing Bites, one Chicken Rice Burger, one Satay Chicken burger, one Szechuan Mala Burger, one Prata Deluxe, one Black Pepper Burger and one Chilli Crab Bao, and 6 regular cokes" Daniel ordered over the counter before joining the group at their table.
Hidayah and Erika were busy chattering about where they want to go for shopping and what they wanted to prepare for the campfire night. The guys could only listen to their talks and not interfere since they knew that if they were to interrupt the women, there will be consequences.
"Are you going to share a room with Nazreen or is he going to be staying in his own room when we're there?" Anston asked Hidayah when he thought that the conversation about preparing the food for the campfire was going overboard. Can you imagine? Hidayah proposed a hunt for that day so that they can eat hunter's' stew and when Hidayah mentioned that there was a campfire pit available, they wanted to grill game meat over the campfire???
Nazreen gawked at this cousin-in-law with approval at his question as he had been curious about the sleeping arrangements too…
Hidayah choked on her own saliva when she heard Anston's query. The rest of the group laughed at her funny reaction. It took a while before she could answer the man, "He's sharing a room with Leo. I will be sharing a room with Erika!"
"What!!! Why???" the rest asked with a mixture of disbelief and teasing. Nazreen could only bow his head in hopelessness.
"No way! I wanna be sharing with Leo!" Erika retorted. Now THAT! WAS! NEWS! Hidayah squealed in hysteria when she heard Erika's comment.
"Are you dating him now?" the twin asked at the same time. "Twisters!" both of them tried to poke each other. Daniel, Anston and Nazreen laughed at the two bickering siblings.
"Well… I asked him out and he said yes!" Erika replied in a hushed manner to impede the silly squabble.
Once again Hidayah shriek at Erika's response. She knew both of them like each other and she was excited that it didn't take long for them to be together but at the same time, she was kinda disappointed that neither of them told her about asking the other out!
"You. Owe. Me. An. Explanation. Young Lady!" Hidayah teased the woman. "When did this confession happened? How did this confession happen? Where did this confession happen?" she continued.
"Two Thursdays ago, I told him I like him and asked him out, my apartment building when he sent me home"
"Boo… Come on, tell us the full gossip!" Daniel remarked.
"So kaypoh! That… Is for me to know and for you never to find out!" Erika mocked in response while giving a cheeky face ????