Chapter 42

I made my way into my office, freshly showered and dressed for work, my black shirt tucked into black pants, the sleeves rolled up to my forearms and the top few buttons undone. I lifted the take out mug to my lips, inhaling the rich scent of fresh coffee and taking a welcome sip, holding a sugared jam doughnut in my other hand, my stomach already eagerly awaiting the moment I would take a bite of it.

"You know I could have won right?" Jamie said, following me through the door, and lingering just inside.

He had been pouty about losing the race all the way up from the lobby. I laughed and rounded my desk, standing the coffee on the surface and biting into the doughnut as I reached over to check my list of messages, and flicked through them.

"Whatever you say J." I replied absentmindedly, licking the stray sugar from my bottom lip and sighing internally as I read the top note. "Looks like I've got to head on over to the Wesbon Street building, Davis needs me to go over some checks before continuing with the new plans."

The Wesbon Street project was a large building across town, I shook my head,irritably. The time it would take to complete those checks, and then get back to the office to start on the rest of my workload was going to definitely set me back a few hours.

"Why don't I come with you? I haven't got too much on, and with both of us, it'll take half the time." Jamie offered taking another mouthful of coffee and shrugging, dusting stray sugar from his white shirt.

I glanced at my planner, practically spilling over with other tasks I had to get on with, there was no way that I was about to turn down any offer to help get this job over with.

"Sure, thanks mate." I took off my jacket and threw it over the back of my chair. I wouldn't need that there.

"No problem. Just gotta shoot off an email, I'll meet you down by your car?"

Nodding, he left, walking along the corridor towards his office. I pulled my car keys from my pocket along with my phone, unlocking my screen, I quickly tapped out a message to Rox, to cancel lunch. There's no way I'd have the time now.

I turned the wheel to the right, pulling up in front of the familiar large building. It's predominantly glass exterior reflected the fluffy white clouds like mirrors, and the sunlight hit the top floors with bold beams of light. Scaffolding was attached at various places and heavy machinery was parked up in the deserted parking lot. Various people in luminous orange, high visibility jackets and hard hats were scurrying around hard at work and moving various materials around the site. I spotted an empty space at the far end of the parking lot, and steered into it. Switching off the engine, myself and Jamie climbed out of the car, and moved to the boot. We each grabbed a high vis jacket and a hard hat, putting them on and gathering the blueprints and planning sheets. I slammed thee boot down and locked the car and we headed towards the front doors, stopping to speak to the site manager on the way in.

The interior of the building was still bare. Instead of desks, chairs, or anything to specify what the building would be used for, there was just ladders, loose cables, unattached wires and piles of wood tied back with ropes. Jamie and I split up, him taking the top floors and working his way down, whilst I took the bottom ones and worked my way up. Blowing out a breath, I stood at a work table and unrolled the plans for the floor, after scanning them for a few moments, I moved around the room, getting to work. The welcome part of this particular job, was that it was something I couldn't afford to be distracted whilst doing. I had no time to think about Kat, no time to ponder the conversation with Jamie in the park this morning. I couldn't let my mind wander from the task in hand. It was a welcome relief to not have my mind racing through all of the thoughts that had sent me for a spin lately. Just me working my way from floor to floor, concentrating solely on what I was doing, ticking the boxes and making the notes. The only sounds around me were the shouts of the workers and the banging and drilling of their tools. The smell of fresh paint grew stronger as I worked up through the floors, clearly the upper floors had got further along the road to completion.

"All done." Jamie's voice rang out, echoing slightly in the near empty room I was in.

"Great, I'm just... about... done." I said, rising back to my feet and noting something down on one of the sheets.

"Perfect."

"Thanks for the hand, I'd have been here til next week at this rate." I half laughed, rounding the corner with Jamie as we began our descent back to the ground floor.

"Don't worry, I'm sure you can pay me back somehow." He smirked.

I rolled my eyes in amusement, I knew there was bound to be a catch of some sort.

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Because you know me?" He replied, with a laugh.

The fresh air was a welcome change as we stepped through the front doors, out into the car park. I inhaled a deep breath, grateful that the overwhelming, sickly paint smell was vanishing from my senses. How anyone could ever work such long hours with paint I would never understand. We'd nearly made it back to my car when a shout came from behind us.

"Mr Daniels?"

"So close." I breathed, squeezing my eyes closed and hearing Jamie snigger beside me.

I turned to see Devon Smith the site manager standing there, a clipboard in hand.

"Sorry, but I was told to show you the exterior plan too?"

"Of course, lead the way."

He turned and began to walk back across the lot, myself and Jamie following after him.

Devon lead us around the entire exterior of the building, showing us the drawn out designs that had been given to him, detailing the new layout and pointing out the specific areas needing checking. Stopping near the side entrance, Jamie and Devon stood back making notes, and adjusting the design to amend an oversight. But I walked ahead, something caught my eye along the side of the wall where the new fire exit was supposed to go, and I wanted to check it out. I drew nearer, stepping under a scaffolding platform, where two men were moving wooden planks and piping, what looked like a floor or two up. I stopped just on the other side, I'd barely lifted the sheet of paper, when I heard a thud above me, followed by a bang and a shout.

"Look out!"

I didn't even get a chance to move as I felt like a bus was dropped on me, the sheer weight and force slamming me to the floor. I barely registered my hard hat flying off as I collided with the ground. The pain to my head hit in a flash then died as I registered the other blows to my body, and heard Jamie yelling my name.

I tried to move, but the pressure of everything that was on top of me, was making that impossible. I heard shouts and then Jamie's voice right at my side.

"Ev?! Ev, can you hear me?"

I managed to turn my head slightly, blinking in a daze at the blindingly bright daylight, and seeing a blurry version of Jamie before me. I heard a few thuds as things rolled off of me at my movement.

"Don't move, stay still." He said, holding up a hand.

I nodded, blinking a few times to clear the fogginess. Jamie and Devon, began to slowly pull the fallen objects off of me, the weight lessened until I felt free. I braced my hands against the pavement, feeling the pain shooting through my shoulder blade and my ribs at the movement, and pushed myself up from the ground.

"Whoa! Don't move Ev." Jamie warned, placing his hands on my shoulders, seemingly ready to pin me in place.

"I'm fine." I muttered, ignoring the painful protest of my body at the movement.

I managed to get to my knees, and went to push up from there, but Jamie reached under my arm and helped pull me to my feet, muttering angrily.

"So fucking stubborn."

I groaned a little in pain, my legs buckling slightly as I stood. Jamie looked at me with concern. It was the most worried I'd ever seen him look, it was unnerving.

"There's an ambulance on its way." Devon said, rushing forward.

"Ambulance? No, I don't need an ambulance, I'm fine." I said firmly.

They all looked at me as though I'd grown a second head, clearly unsure what was the right call.

I caught sight of the pile of stuff that had fallen, now all over the ground where it had been thrown off of me. It didn't look like a lot, but fuck had it felt like it. Numerous thick planks of wood, a few broken bricks and several metal poles. I looked up to where they had fallen from, feeling a sharp pain to the back of my neck as I did so. A chunk of the walkway from the platform had fallen through, clearly the cause of the falling materials.

I spotted my hat, now laying under one of the poles a few steps from where I was laying.

"Are you crazy Evan? You just got laid out. You need to go to the hospital."

"It's not that bad, besides I wasn't knocked out or anything." I looked at Devon, a small wave of dizziness causing me to sway ever so slightly. "Please, cancel the ambulance."

"Not a fucking chance." Jamie snapped.

"I'm not hanging around to get carted off and waste people's time. Doctors are busy people. So cancel it."

Jamie looked at me, anger at my stubbornness was clear in his eyes. I felt okay though in general. The pain aside of course. But that was to be expected. I began to walk forward, then realised I wasn't exactly sure where I was going. Jamie looked at me as if trying to read my mind. I shrugged it off, hoping he would just let me get out of here. I didn't want a fuss. I hated fuss. The pain in my head had built from where it had hit the floor, I was bound to have a lovely bruise from that in the morning. I reached up to rub my fingers over it, hoping to soothe some of the pain. I pulled my hand away as I felt the warm wetness against my fingers. My fingertips were bright red, smeared with blood. Ignoring the soreness and the pain now throbbing through my bashed body, I continued to put one foot in front of the other, nearing my car.

"You are not driving." Jamie said sternly.

"Wasn't planning on it." I replied, my voice a little weaker than usual.

I took the keys from my pocket and handed them over, then walked around to the other side of the car and slid into the passenger side.

I didn't really notice how long it took to get back. I still felt pretty dazed from the accident. The pain around my body made sitting comfortably damn near impossible, and I couldn't wait to get into the office, drop off the reports, then get home. The sunlight was painfully bright against my eyes, making them feel like they were under an intense heat lamp. I closed them for a moment, and rubbed my hand over them, ignoring the blood that smeared across my knuckles.

The car slowed to a stop and the engine cut off. Opening my eyes, I saw we'd got back to the office.

"Right, let's drop this off, then I'm taking you home." Jamie said, unbuckling his seatbelt and swinging the door open.

"Yes, mom." I sighed, swinging my door open. I felt Jamie's door close, the car shook slightly from the force. I stepped out of the car, rising to my feet. No sooner had I stood up, than my head thumped and the floor seemed to rise to meet me. It was as if the world had spun upside down, as everything rushed into a spin, I reached out to grab the door for support, but I couldn't reach it in time, instead, I crumbled to the ground and everything went black.