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Zeke left work early confident that Niamh would cover for him (and would make a substantially better job of it than him anyway) and wondered what to do with himself. With the world opening up to him the way it just had, it was difficult to know what to do next, when he could do absolutely anything he wanted.

He looked at his phone. 3 new messages

Eunice (his sister). "Hey shitface, are you still coming round to ours for dinner tonight?" fuck. he had forgotten about that.

Lillian: "Hi sir, I've been running as much as I can, but I haven't found anyone called Natalie". Shit! Had she been going from nothing to marathons in the park chasing every runner she saw? He should contact her and put some limits on it or she could do herself an injury.

The Bank: "You are now near the limit of your overdraft. Please see messages in your app" - ahhh shit, and there was still a lot of the month left to go.

Zeke decided he couldn't quite face his sister yet, and the bank situation was too anxiety provoking to deal with so he dialed the number he had for Lillian. Although he couldn't see her thought bubble, he could hear she was at full attention and ready to perform anything requested of her.

"Hi Lillian," he said in as warm and friendly a voice as he could muster, turning a corner on the street into a little open air market as he talked.

"Hi Sir. I'm really sorry but I haven't found Natalie yet. I'm going to have to get something to eat so that I can go back out again in a little while."

Ooof! "Don't worry about it Lillian - you did fine. Thanks for looking. You can try again another day, but dont spend more than one hour a day looking, ok?"

"Yes sir. Thank you sir".

Zeke hung up and shook his head. As he did a stunning blonde walked past him at speed. he had to look twice to check, but it definitely was. She looked him straight in the eye as she approached him, recognition there for her too. It was the runner from yesterday morning. It was Natalie!

Zeke instantly spun on his heel to follow her.