Emily stirred, yawned and stretched. She checked the clock on the wall, it was some minutes after ten immediately, she was completely awake and jumped right out the bed. She started searching for her phone frantically.

“Liam, have you seen my phone?” she shouted until she realized that he wasn’t even in the room. She checked under the bed to see if she had dropped it. Nothing.

Then she stood up and began to think, to retrace where she must have put it. She remembered having picked a call from Joe and that he had said he would call back. That was before she drifted off to sleep and she recalled that she left the phone on the bed. She pulled the blanket from the bed alongside the bed sheet. Nothing.

Just then, Liam came in.

“Baby, please, have you seen my phone?” she asked impatiently.

“Yea, I’m charging it, good morning to you too,” Liam replied. Without responding, Emily rushed to the living room and found her phone plugged in, and worse, it was switched off.

“Why would you switch off, Liam! I didn’t ask you to!” she shouted, turning on the phone hurriedly and finding two missed calls. She shut her eyes in anger, so as to calm herself down. Then she stood up as Liam came in.

“Why did you have to switch off my phone, Liam? Why didn’t you wake me up when Joe was calling? What is wrong with you?”

Liam was speechless and was looking incredibly surprised.

Without waiting for his reply, Emily brushed past him as she dialed Joe’s number, it rang once.

“Hello Joe, I am so sorry. I didn’t…ok, yea, I will be there right now!” She ended the call and quickly ran to the bathroom. She was supposed to submit everything she had worked on that day and Joe was on the verge of anger. She knew she shouldn’t have shouted at Liam like that but, Liam would get over it soon, she thought.

Liam was still standing where she had left him. He knew for sure that she had forgotten his birthday and he was so disappointed. He went to the room to give her a piece of his mind but found her getting dressed.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I have to get to work and submit all these files. That was what Joe wanted to tell me last night.”

“But it’s Sunday and it’s also...”

“I know babe, but this is really important. I’ll come back soon,” she picked up her bag, blew him a kiss and rushed out of the house.

Liam swallowed. He was about to tell her it was his birthday and now she had gone again. She hadn’t even gotten the partnership yet and she was acting like this? He wondered what would happen when… the ringing of his phone interrupted his thoughts, it was Charlotte.

He smiled as he picked it up. “Hey, Charlotte.”

“Hello, birthday boy, where the party at?”

He sighed. “There is no party.”

“What? What do you mean there is no party?”

“Well, exactly what I just said.”

“Well, send me your address and call your friends, I’m bringing the party over,” she said, and ended the call.

Liam gasped at what he just heard. Immediately, his phone rang again. It was Dan.

“Hello, birthday boy, where is the party at?”

He laughed. “Dan, Charlotte just called me, said she is bringing the party over that I should call everyone, I don’t know what to do man!”

“Wait? She called you?”

“Yea.”

“What about your girlfriend?”

“She said she had stuff to do at work,” he replied.

“Wow! Well, then I’ll call everyone. Send your address as well or I will dude!” then he hung up.

Liam sighed. What the hell was he supposed to do?

“I was worried when I noticed your phone was switched off. All the efforts you made would have been nothing if I couldn’t submit today,” Joe said as they both walked to his office.

Emily let out a muffled sigh, “sorry Joe, it was Liam, he didn’t know you might want to call.”

“Do you both share one phone?”

“ Of course not,” she replied.

“So why does he need to tamper with yours?”

“Well, I guess he just wanted me to...”

“I am not tolerating any excuses. I have never forced any job on you, you took this job cos you wanted to and I will expect an on-time delivery”

She nodded quickly. “Yes, sir, no problem.” She handed him the files as he sat down while he began to go through them While he did it, he paused occasionally and smiled.

“Why did you decide to take on more work anyway?” he asked.

“Well...” she began while sitting. “I just thought I need to prepare myself more in case I get the partnership and I know that things like that would be expected of me so I just had to start learning them now,” she replied.

Joe seemed impressed. “Now that’s dedication. We need more people like you in this office. That boyfriend of yours, he’s not like you is he?”

Emily thought for a while. “Well, Liam is hardworking and...”

“Yea yea. Ain’t they all? Anyway, this is a great job you have done here. I think you should go home and...” his phone rang and he picked it.

While he spoke, Emily got a facebook notification. She brought out her phone and began to go through it. She gasped as she realized that Liam’s birthday was today. She felt something churn in her stomach. She felt so horrible. How could she have forgotten that it was May 22?

“Are you okay?” Joe asked as he got off the phone.

“Yes, yes. I am. I just remembered that today… well, can I go home now?” she asked, picking her bag.

Joe looked surprised. “Well, I thought you would be the best person to go deliver this to our headquarters in Washington.”

Emily’s eyes got bigger than they usually were. Her? Chosen to go to Washington. Not many people had the chance to go there and here she was...

“But it’s okay if you want to go home, we’ll find someone to take it, let me call Kate and ....”

“I’ll take it,” Emily said quickly.

“Are you sure? Don’t you have a big plan for the weekend with your boyfriend?”

She shook her head painfully. “I will call him up,” she replied.

“Well, that’s good then. Come on, we need to get you dressed up, we can’t let you to go to Washington like this can we?”

She smiled and followed him out.