Thank god for coffee.

She filled the pot for the fifth time in the last two hours and added twenty-four more scoops of Starbucks dark roast coffee to the pot. Now, all she had to do was wait just a couple minutes and she'd have steaming hot coffee.

The worst thing about being on the bottom of the totem pole was knowing how much she was being relied on as the one who knew just about everything about everyone. Sure, she wrote for her column and she loved doing that. Sure, she had firsthand business experience as the manager of a coffee shop for five months before she got this stupid job. Sure, she had graduated from one of the best schools in the country with a degree in writing and journalism and a minor in business. It didn't mean anything and it bothered her because not only was she the one everyone went to for everything but she was also the one with the most experience in the entire firm and all she wanted was a chance to be the editor of all the important things. She wanted to be the one that everyone relied on for the important things, not… whose coffee she was going to have to pour today or who was calling in sick and what could she do about it.

While her brother was off being the best neuro surgeon at the hospital two blocks away from her she was stuck in a pit of paper and brochures and phone calls and…

"Hey, is the coffee done yet?"

"No, Brian, the coffee isn't done yet but I'll let you know when it is."

Brian Wheeler had become somewhat of a best friend of hers in the last two years as a journalist and writer of her own column for the stupid editorial business firm she'd been working at for the last three years.

"Am I wasting time?"

"What do you mean?" Brian looked at her with curious green eyes.

"Am I wasting my time writing my column? There are job interviews in this building for different positions and I keep acting like they don't exist." She said.

"You have the largest following on your column. I think you're doing great but… if you're bored…"

"I'd have to interview for a higher position."

The coffee pot finished brewing and she let out a sigh and poured the steaming hot black liquid into her mug. She added three sugars and just a little cream while Brian refilled his mug.

"You know who'd be doing the interviews? Pierce."

"How do you know that?"

"Because he interviews everyone for the editorial position. He wants to make sure he's picking the right person."

"We applied for our jobs and got called back by HR a week later saying we got the position."

"He looked at our files and probably watched the DVD."

"What DVD?"

Everly leaned back against the counter and looked around at everyone working. People were talking, things were getting done, and copy machines were jamming. Brian was right, she did have avid readers of her column and if she was going to grow some balls, she'd interview for the editorial job and ASK to keep her column because that's what manipulative people did and that's what she learned in business school. The friend of your friend is your enemy or whatever the phrase was.

"When people go in to talk to supervisors about positions, they're taped. I figure it's because that big guy in charge is too busy to actually interview the scrap himself so he gets the hierarchy to do it."

"You think he's that much of an ass?"

"I think he's rich and smart and doesn't care about us lonely hard workers." Brian said.

"You're probably right."

"I should get back to work. Are you coming?"

"Right behind you."

Everly got home around four that night and even still, she had things to do. Her job was full of what she considered busy work. At least she was getting paid. As she shut the front door behind her, she looked around at the house she and her brother had inherited from their parents. She was greeted by the soft footprints of her black and gray striped cat.

"Kade." She smiled, watching as the cat rubbed up against her leg.

He looked up at her with sparkling green eyes and she bent down to pick him up.

"What did you do today?" she asked as she looked back at what was in front of her.

She'd been doing this the last couple of times she'd entered her house. Looking. Just looking.

In front of her was the massive staircase that led up to the second floor where all the bedrooms were. It was her favorite part of the house, right down to the carpeted stairs and the portraits on the walls. Her parents had this… renaissance taste and the entire house had been decorated to resemble that era. This place was definitely her home.

She walked down the hallway and took a left into the kitchen. Were they going to order out? Was her brother going to be home reasonably early tonight? She sat down at the island and put her bag down in front of her and that's when her phone went off. She let Kade jump from her arms and onto one of the island stools while she pulled her phone from her bag.

Interviewing 4 edit pos.

She read the text from Brian and sighed. She needed help deciding what to do with her life and she couldn't imagine asking her brother again. It didn't make sense to keep asking people what they thought she should do.

Sounds interesting.

Take a chance?

And get turned down? Idts.

Everly. You hve to do something big to get somewhere big.

How long are they interviewing?

Tomorrow thr/ Fri. So. You have 6 days.

Fantastic.

She put her phone down on the dark marble next to her bag and put her head in her hands. She was bored. She was bored with her life and her three degrees and she didn't know what she wanted to do next. Hell, maybe she should have gone to medical school like her brother. Would that have made a difference?

"Brian wants me to interview for a better position at work." She told the cat. "What do you think?"

She got up from the stool she was sitting on and walked over to the fridge, tugging it open. Hamburger, salads, an abundance of fruit, a jug of cold coffee, left over Chinese food from the night before, cheese, lots of cheese, some vegetables… She shook her head and walked over to the food pantry. That, was stocked too but nothing seemed to appeal to her.

Eventually, after searching through the cabinets and going back to the pantry, she found the makings for cookies and was going to go for a homemade recipe. Sugar cookies were her absolute favorite and the recipe she had in the family cookbook was one that had been passed down through a couple of generations.

Everly laid out all the ingredients on the counter and got to work making sure everything was where she needed it to be. All the dry ingredients went first and then she mixed in the wet ingredients and before she knew it she had nearly forty cookies in the oven. She looked at the clock and was a little surprised she had already been home for close to two hours.

Ten minutes later, the cookies were out of the oven and a half an hour later they were all cooled off and sitting nicely on a plate on the island. She was about to bite into one when…

"Dessert before dinner?"

She turned her head and smiled at her brother as she bit into the cookie in her hand.

"Late night?"

"Could have been later. I had one of the residents take over so that I could come home to you, wonderful sister." He said with a smile on his face. "How was work?"

"Work was insatiable. I can't figure my life out Eric. I don't know why I'm so bored with what I'm doing. I think of you and all I think of is your fabulously satisfying job saving lives and doing amazing surgeries and… Work is work."

"You are so cheerful." He told her.

"I'm serious, Ric. I've been doing the same thing for the last couple of years. I write a column and I write reports that go in the newspaper under the miscellaneous section. I'm not getting anywhere."

"Find another job, nobody said you have to work at the same firm." Her brother told her. "Or you could look through your closet, find an outfit and interview for the editorial position."

Everly bit into another one of the cookies she'd made and twirled a straw around her glass of iced tea.

"Help me."

She was in and out of her closet trying things on while her brother sat in the black arm chair by her dresser. The first outfit was all wrong, right down to the color. It didn't say "job interview" or "professional" so she was onto the next choice.

"I don't want to wear gray, or black, Ric." She said.

"Okay, so wear a dark red… or a blue. A nice blue."

"I have a navy blue skirt."

"Does it have a jacket?"

"It has a jacket." She said.

"Show me."

She grabbed both the skirt and the blazer and held it outside of her closet with one hand while she sifted through the white blouses she owned.

"I don't understand why I got the crap life and yours is amazing."

She heard her brother sigh from inside her closet as she grabbed a white blouse with silver trim. She laid each piece of clothing on top of her dresser and closed her closet doors. Eric stood up and crossed his arms over his chest.

"You don't have a "crap" life, Everly."

"Thank you for helping me pick out my outfit."

Eric pulled his sister into his arms and gave her a tight hug because the last thing he wanted was for her to feel the way she'd been feeling.

"These last five years… have just… been…"

"I know." He said. "But that doesn't mean you can't start living the right way. That ladder is right in front of you and all you have to do is climb it and if they don't like you, you're going to go somewhere else."

Eventually, her brother did get called back into work and unfortunately, the door closing shut on his way out of the house woke her up. Everly turned her head and glanced at the clock on her bedside table. Two A.M. What could she do at two in the morning? Nothing. She rolled onto her side, stretched out in her bed and closed her eyes again only to be stirred once more by the movement of her cat.

An hour later she fell asleep and this time, she didn't wake up until her alarm told her to. Her morning routine was something she'd gotten used to. Walking around the giant house alone, her cat following her as she made herself a cup of coffee and made her way back upstairs to get dressed. Today, she opted out for a pair of tight black jeans, a nice shirt and some heels. She pulled her hair up into a pony tail and curled the ends lightly.

"What do you think? Do I look alright today? Not a total mess?"

Kade blinked at her and jumped up onto her dresser. She ran her hand over his head and down his back. He meowed and she nodded.

"Don't tear up the house today, okay?"

She finished her look with makeup, some jewelry, grabbed her bag and a jacket behind her door just in case. Before she left, she made sure the multiple water bowls around the house were filled and Kade's food dish in the kitchen was stocked with dry food. With the remote on top of the mantel, she turned the radio on. His padded feet made their way down the large staircase. He sat down on the bottom step.

"I'll see you later." She said as she walked over to him.

She bent down to pet him once more and then walked out the front door. She made sure her house was locked before walking down the path to the driveway.

She hit every red light on her way to work and still managed to clock into the building five minutes before she was actually supposed to be there. She snagged a bagel from the lunch room and made her way to her desk which… was the neatest one on the floor. She sat down in her chair and turned around looking out the glass windows that were behind her.

"So, did you decide what you're going to do?"

Everly turned around again and watched as Brian dropped down into his chair. She crossed her arms over her chest and eyed him over her desk. His was in front of hers. It made it easy to assign tasks when there were partners. Often, two journalists did road work together but because Everly had her own column, Brian did most of the investigating and she did most of the writing. They made a good team, so why did he want to change that?

"Ric wants me to do it."

"What are you going to do?" he asked her.

"I don't know." She said.

She turned on her computer and waited for it to boot up. It didn't take too long. Everything in this place was new and expensive. She signed onto the newspaper's website and scrolled through the questions on her gossip board.

"What are you working on today?" she asked as she pinned the question's she'd work on answering.

"I have to go talk to someone on Roy Street about a fire in a department store." He said.

"Sounds like a lot of fun. Feel like helping me when you get back? There's a couple of men on the board today."

Brian crossed his arms over his chest and smiled.

"Sure. Give me two hours."