Omega In The Office - Aria Grace Page 0,32

going to start some food,” he says abruptly, jumping to his feet. “There’s no point in all of us starving to death while we figure this stuff out.”

13

Leon

I swallow the lump in my throat as I look down at the plate of food on the table before me. Lucius is great at making breakfast, but I just can’t bring myself to eat any of it. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this terrible before.

Poor Candor.

We’ve been awful toward him. The worst part is, I didn’t even realize how he was feeling. Of course he’d feel left out around us. Lucius and I have never been great at working with others. When Lucius was in college, I was a solo act. From what he’s told me, it was the same for him.

“The way I see it, our problems are three-fold.” Lucius finally takes his seat at the table. We’re all sitting on different sides so we can see one another clearly. “The first is that Leon and I have been really shitty mates for you, Candor.”

“Honestly, that’s probably the biggest one.” I’m not able to look at Candor. After all my declarations of caring for him, wanting to be with him, and the whole fated mates thing last night...I feel like a bit of a fraud.

“I never wanted to make you guys feel like you have to apologize for anything,” Candor says. “I understand the reason it happened. I’m not angry about it. I just want to find a way to spend more time with each of you. I want to achieve the same unbreakable bond with you guys that you have with each other. I want to help, to be involved, but I don’t know how.”

Lucius nods in agreement but then continues. “The second problem is that the apartment complex is sinking, fast. We’re deep in debt and adding more money will just kick the problem down the road for a little while. Which brings us to the third issue, we’ve got no renters and no way to bring them in efficiently. At least, not the quality of renters we’ve been looking for so far.”

“So, let’s walk through it then,” Candor suggests. “What have you been doing to advertise your vacancies?”

“Um, well...” I look up slowly. “I’ve mostly been posting on some of those rental apps and a few classified websites. Oh, and I’ve put up fliers around town.”

Candor blinks at me a few times as if he didn’t hear or didn’t understand.

“Candor?” Lucius tilts his head. “Is everything okay?”

“Y-yeah.” Candor clears his throat. “Just got lost in thought for a moment.” He pulls out his cell phone. “What’s your website address?”

My gaze flicks to Lucius.

Candor notices our exchange. “Are you guys serious right now?” Candor rolls his eyes as he sets his phone on the table. “Lucius, I thought you went to business school? How can you not have a website for this place?”

“Well, I mean, you found us and you lived in another state.” Lucius folds his hands on the table in front of him. “Clearly, we’ve done some things right.”

Candor pinches the bridge of his nose and groans. “I didn’t find a listing for Glass Bay Apartments. I was looking at a map online of the area near the nursing home. I saw the old apartment complex listed on the map and looked up the address. Then I found the local article about the complex being sold to a new developer. That article lead me to your listing on one of those rental websites, and that’s how I got in touch with you. Most people are going to give up long before they find you. But since I absolutely needed this location, I stuck with it.”

“So you’re saying that people just aren’t finding us?” I ask. “I’ve tried really hard to get our information out there as much as possible.”

“I know, but there’s a lot of stuff that’s working against you.” Candor picks up his phone and starts flipping through it. “Just right off the bat, you’ve got no social media. Searching for Glass Bay Apartments doesn’t even list you on the first page...I don’t even see any mention of you in the first two pages...and if we check one of the biggest rental apps...” He stares expectantly at his phone as the app opens. “If we just do a quick search, this place doesn’t even show up when you first start looking.”

“Wait, what?” I jump to my feet and circle the table. The one thing I