Lost in Arcadia

Encounters (1)

After arriving nearly an hour late at her office, the first thing Addie did was handle the paperwork for her brother joining the company. He would only be a temp, of course, and the work he’d be doing would depend on what he actually knew how to do. 

She wasn’t expecting much on that end, but if he could pick up some skills along the way, that would be good enough.

Despite still being irked about his behavior yesterday and his insinuations this morning, she was worried about him. In his time overseas, Kade seemed to have developed a habit of keeping things to himself. She wouldn’t have noticed this at all if not for what happened at the breakfast table earlier.

She really never thought the day would come when her brother would want to be financially independent. She thought he’d be one of those deadbeat rich kids who only wanted to mooch off of their families their entire lives.

“I guess miracles do happen…” Addie muttered absently as she completed the necessary forms and sent them off to her assistant. She then asked him to call in a particular employee to see her.

“Yeah, Boss?” said a man in his early twenties as he casually walked into Addie’s office. Lean and tall, with black hair and blue eyes, he wouldn’t look out of place on a runway.

“Don’t ‘yeah, Boss’ me,” Addie replied without much fire, already feeling a headache coming on. She handed him a stack of papers and continued, “You call this a proposal? There is so much missing information, it's like someone shot bullets at it. Dig deeper into the files we have and come up with something better. I need this done by today.”

“But Boss…” the young employee said in a complaining tone. “It’s Friday…”

“Well, why didn’t you think about that before you submitted this shoddy work yesterday? And for heaven’s sake, Nate, do some proofreading before handing in anything. How many times have I told you that?”

The guy called Nate looked away and just stopped short of rolling his eyes. “Got it, Boss. Can I go now so I can start? I want to go home before it gets dark out.”

“Do it right this time and maybe you will,” Addie snapped back in annoyance.

When Nate replied with a dismissive “‘Kaaay,” she held back an angry huff. 

This was what she gets for hiring a young prick of an alpha as a favor to someone. She could almost see her brother behaving the same way once he was here.

‘Damnit, what have I done…’

As Nate was heading out, obviously displeased, Addie ordered him tiredly, “Tell Arden to come in.”

…

On his way back to his desk, Nate passed by Arden and relayed the message, “Boss is calling for you, little man.”

After briefly looking up from his computer, Arden nodded and stood up. Nate, who was still in a bad mood, randomly decided to take things out on him.

“I’d tell you to be careful because she’s being prissy again, but you never have to worry about that, do you?” Nate reached up and, quite condescendingly, patted Arden on the head. “It must be so nice, being the golden employee. Meanwhile, I still get treated like a newbie even though I’m supposed to be your senior.” Nate huffed in disgust and resumed going back to his desk. “Gods, I can’t wait to just quit. Not like I need this job anyway.”

As the man hadn’t bothered to lower his voice, the other employees nearby had heard him. Most of them were betas who felt lucky just to be able to work at an alpha-owned company. But even though they were no fan of this particular coworker, they couldn’t do or say anything about it.

They knew that Nate was only here to “gain experience” before moving on to one of his family’s various businesses. This was for appearance’s sake more than anything. Mostly, what he was actually doing here was just killing time.

Preoccupied with giving the young alpha the side-eye or pretending they didn’t notice a thing, it escaped everyone’s attention that Arden had remained standing over his desk a few seconds after Nate had already gone away.

Then he too acted as if nothing had happened and calmly went to Addie’s office.

“Yes, President?”

At Arden’s polite greeting, Addie was reminded of Kade’s words yesterday. There was always the chance that her brother was only spouting bullsh*t to mess with her, but what if…

“President?” Arden repeated when Addie just stared at him with a frown of worry. “Did you not call for me?”

Addie cleared her throat and nodded self-consciously. “I did, Arden. Please come in.”

Upon closing the door after himself, Arden approached Addie at her desk and remained standing in front of it. She was relieved to see that he could look straight at her again and was more or less back to his usual self.

It was a shame that she would have to bring up the reason there had been any awkwardness in the first place.

“About what happened yesterday…” Addie began. She was now the one who couldn’t quite look Arden in the eyes. “I’m really sorry you got caught up in that. And I didn’t mean to imply that you would have done—cough—anything with my brother. It’s just that Kade… well, he has no compunctions about stuff like that. I was just, um, worried he had found a way to get to you too. It pains me to say it, but it wouldn’t have been the first time.”

As could be expected, Arden indeed felt uncomfortable again at the reminder.

But he replied seriously, “I can assure you, President, Mr. Harker behaved like a gentleman the entire time.” When Addie responded to that with a raised eyebrow full of doubt, Arden amended, “That is… he mostly did. But there wasn’t any inappropriateness like you are worried about.”

“I see…” said Addie, relieved despite herself. “Good. Or rather, good enough. Because I’m sorry to say, Arden—I have another favor to ask you regarding Kade.”

…

Arden was outwardly calm when he returned to his desk sometime later.

In private, however, he was reeling as he recalled his recent experiences with a certain man.

The President had just told him that that man, her brother, would briefly be joining their company. She apologized multiple times as she explained to Arden that there was no one better she could ask to show him the ropes.

She was only being polite, of course. Arden knew exactly why he had been chosen, and it was for the same reason she had tasked him yesterday to pick up the infamous Arcadia Harker.

Simply put, Arden’s plain appearance and bland personality meant that he wouldn’t be targeted sexually. By anyone.

Arden thought that this would at least make his day-to-day life easier. 

Apparently not.

… 

The workday trickled. Around two hours after lunch, those who had finished all their tasks for the week started going home to get an early start on the weekend.

Nate had fully intended to be one of them, but since his boss had called him out and piled more work on him, he now couldn’t leave. His frustration increased as his coworkers excitedly left the office one by one. 

Because of this, he couldn’t even make any progress on what he was working on, and neither could he just make a run for it anyway. Addie was still at her office, after all, waiting for him to finish.

Just as he was reaching the point of saying “F*ck it” and quitting then and there, someone quietly approached him.

“Here,” said Arden as he placed down printouts at the side of Nate’s desk. “Those are the info you’ll need for your proposal.” He then placed down a thicker stack of documents. “You can use this for reference. It’s similar to what the President wants with what you’re working on.”

Without waiting for any response, Arden turned around to leave like the rest of their coworkers.

Nate cooed at Arden’s retreating back, “Wowww. How nice of you, little man.” Against his better judgment, Arden stopped and turned to look back at him. Nate’s expression was far from pleasant as he continued, “But since you already went through all this trouble, why didn’t you just write the damn thing for me?”

Arden’s expression remained carefully blank. “Because that’s not my job,” he replied, then went on his way.

Nate sneered at him before glancing at the papers on his desk. Once he was sure Arden was gone, he resumed angrily typing away on his keyboard, but now, he was also heavily consulting the documents.

“Well done,” Addie praised after she finished skimming through the revised proposal. She then looked at the smug face in front of her and asked point-blank, “Did you have help?”

“Nope,” Nate answered without even hesitating. “I did it all by myself, Boss.”

“Is that right?” Addie’s smile did not reach her eyes. “Keep it up, then. Maybe I’d let slip to your aunt that you’re coming along here swimmingly.”

“Sweet! So can I go home now?”

Addie made a tired shooing motion with her hand and mouthed, “Go.” But once she was alone, she sighed heavily as she opened the soft copy of the proposal in order to revise it further. “At least paraphrase when you’re copying off of someone, you prick.” 

Sighing again, she thought, ‘Just where would we all be without Arden…?’

All of a sudden, the prospect of losing him due to her recent decisions made Addie feel extra anxious. Thus, she took out her phone and sent a voice message to her brother.

“Don’t you dare mess this up!”

***

“…The hell?”

When he played the shouted message, Kade had just finished shopping for office clothes and was now waiting at a salon to get his hair cut and treated. As he wasn’t wearing earphones, the stylists and other patrons also heard it and looked towards him in shock.

“Sorry about that,” he told them at large, showing a charmingly contrite smile. “Looks like someone doesn’t want me to get a mohawk.”

“That’s a shame,” said a cute male stylist who was openly wearing a collar for omegas. “I’m sure it would have suited you, Sir. Please, right this way.”

Kade was led to a shampoo station and the stylist began washing his hair. It was rare to encounter an unbonded omega like him who didn’t try to hide their second gender. During his travels, Kade had mostly had to do guesswork and often got it wrong, but at times, he would go out of his way to volunteer for programs where omegas would eventually turn up.

As an alpha, he didn’t always get accepted to them. Whenever he did, though, there would be no shortage of omegas trying to catch his attention by releasing tiny amounts of pheromones—not enough to make an unbonded alpha go into rut; just enough to test their compatibility with him.

He wasn’t the only one hoping that the next person they encountered was the one meant for them.

And this omega stylist was no different, it seemed.

A moment after he detected faint but sweet-smelling pheromones, Kade opened his eyes and gave the stylist a sad smile. “Sorry,” he told him quietly. “It isn’t me.”

The stylist looked rattled as he swallowed. “So—I’m so sorry, Sir. I just—”

“It’s fine,” Kade cut in, closing his eyes again. “I’ve done my fair share of that. Don’t worry about it.”

But even though it really didn’t bother him as it might another alpha, the stylist still apologized again before getting another stylist to take his place.

The female stylist, who seemed to be a beta, gingerly told Kade, “Please don’t get him into trouble, Sir. He doesn’t always do that kind of thing—it’s only with alphas he has a good feeling about.”

That brought a much brighter smile to Kade’s face. “Then I’ll take that as a great compliment,” he said. “Can you pass on a message to your friend for me?” At the stylist’s nervous nod, Kade continued, “Tell him I wish him the best of luck.”

…

Feeling even better than he did after talking to his father and doing a bit of retail therapy, Kade exited the salon sporting a short and stylish undercut.

It was getting dark outside, and he was hungry. On his way to where he’d parked his car, he gave a call to his sister.

“What?” Addie answered snappishly upon picking up.

“I’m in the city right now. Wanna grab dinner together?”

“Can’t,” Addie replied in a grumbling tone. “I’m not done with work yet.”

“Aww… Poor President…”

“Is that all? I’m hanging up.”

“No, wait—will you be able to get home tonight, at least?”

“Yeah, I think so. Why?”

“‘Cause I’ll be borrowing your kitchen. You’ll have a home-cooked meal waiting for you when you get back. Aren’t you lucky?”

“Whatever,” Addie replied, though there wasn’t as much bite in it. “Do what you want.”

After asking what food items Addie had in stock, Kade headed to a supermarket close to her apartment to buy the rest of the ingredients he’d need.

There, as he leisurely perused the aisles, something tiny crashed into his legs.