Chapter 152: Back As They Should Be
Normally after a night of not being able to sleep, Derek was exhausted. Everything hurt, from his head to his pinky toe, and doing day-to-day activities felt as though he was being punished by somebody who had a knack for torture. But the key word here was usually.
That Monday morning Derek did not feel the effects of not sleeping during the night at all. In fact, not only did he not feel them. He was pretty sure that he was more energetic than the people who had gotten the recommended eight hours of sleep, the night before. From the moment that he had picked Emily up from the diner, and driven her to her apartment building, Derek had been thrumming with coiled energy.
But, not wanting to come off as strange in front of her, he had suppressed it all. Doing his best to appear normal and unbothered. He had managed to hold on until the moment that he had watched her step into the building. Then, pulling back into traffic, Derek had done something uncharacteristic of him. He had started to hum, and by the time he had reached his penthouse, he was singing at the top of his lungs. He’d had more than a few stares from people in cars that were opposite his during stops. But he had not cared. He had continued to sing all the way to his penthouse. And even once he had gotten there, the song in him had not died down. In fact, it had gotten stronger. Even though he was no longer vocalizing it, Derek could still hear it as clear as day in his head and he could feel it in his body, throbbing alongside his blood. It carried him through as he got ready for work, pushing him forward as he showered and got into his suit.
Preparations that normally took him around an hour now finished at record breaking speed. For the first time in weeks, Derek was not pushing himself so that he could get to work. Instead he was pushing himself so that he could go and see Emily at work.
And that made all the difference.
Just the fact that she would be present this time gave Derek an energy boost so vast he felt as though it would never diminish. By the time he made it to Haven Group headquarters, there was a smile on Derek’s face that he just could not shake. He was running a bit late but he did not care. In the parking lot he saw Padma.
The head of HR looking like she was about to pass out upon realizing that Derek had caught her coming into work late. But all he did was give her a smile. "Good morning Padma," He said and went about his way. She stared at him as though he had just struck her. But Derek gave her one more smile, this one ending with a laugh and made his way out of the parking lot, whistling a happy tune. He ran into a few more people as he walked through the building. And he made it a point to greet each and every single one of them, from the security guards to some of the PAs.
He might have forgotten their names already, but he still remembered their faces. At his jovial greetings, a lot of them did double takes, as though they could not believe that the words were coming from Derek. Seriously, had he been that bad? Why was everyone acting like him being nice, was something that required being gawked at. Had they never met a happy CEO before?
Deciding to ignore the people and their overreactions, Derek got onto the elevator and shrugged when no one seemed to want to share with him.
He rode to the top floor in silence, glad that he was alone, that there was no one there to notice that his hands were trembling slightly, a clear sign that he was nervous.