CAUGHT CHEATING

Owen moved with shaky steps as he approached the truck. The crate in his hands seemed to weigh a thousand tons that would break his back from the terrible weight he was feeling.

"Hey, put your back into it! Or it's gonna fall!" One man who stood at the truck yelled at him.

Owen struggled to keep his hands under the crate even as he approached. He heard the warnings, but his body couldn't obey him anymore.

His hands slipped and the crate crashed on the ground with a loud thud.

"Now you've done it..." The man drew close to Owen in anger.

"I'm sorry..." Owen muttered.

"What's there to be sorry about? You can't even lift something this much. Who put you here?" He asked.

"Boss did." Owen replied as he managed to stand somewhat and wiped the beads of sweat on his forehead.

He sighed with resignation as he looked at his rumpled and dirty clothes and the mess he had made.

His dressing wasn't supposed to be ruined to that extent because lifting things wasn't in his original job description. Owen was merely an office clerk. This work that he was doing should have been done by someone else.

"Well, clearly he made a mistake putting you here. You're lucky this thing doesn't break that easily." The man said as he picked up the crate that Owen had dropped and carried it the rest of the way.

Owen stood bent on the spot as he tried to catch his breath.

"Why do you keep stressing yourself out man?" Another man whose job was to arrange the crates in the truck asked Owen. "You're not supposed to be here. Isn't your job inside the office?"

Owen paused to take some deep breaths and smiled wryly.

"I have no choice. I asked for a raise and the boss said I just have a raise in my work if I want a raise in payment. So this is the new part of the job I have to do." Owen explained.

"You have to do this with your office work?" The man asked. "Why didn't you just refuse and stay in the office?"

"It's not so simple, Fred." Owen replied with a sigh. "I'm not making enough money."

"You've been fine all this time, you could definitely keep managing or find another job." Fred insisted.

"My wife got pregnant." Owen revealed. "She's already two weeks in right now. If I don't start to increase my earning, I won't be able to take care of her and my child when it's born.

That means I would have failed as a father." Owen concluded with a look of determination on his face as though he could see the future.

Fred's eyes widened in realization and then he shook his head with pity.

"Well, congratulations." Fred said in a not so enthusiastic tone. He actually felt pity for Owen. It wasn't easy to be a father with the kind of job that he had.

Owen was a really responsible man. He had been married to his wife, Megan for about a year and yet he had already gone through much struggles.

The office job he was meant to be doing was already difficult and stressful enough. But when Megan had revealed that she was pregnant, he was very happy and had determined to make sure that he would provide everything his wife and future child will need in the future.

But he had to save for it. His current finances were barely enough to feed him and his wife so he had gone to meet his boss for a raise.

His boss had laughed at him and jokingly told him that if he wanted a raise then he would have to add manual labor to the work he was already doing at the office. To his shock however, Owen had agreed on the spot and that was how he ended up in this situation.

He was running two different jobs at the same workplace at the same time. No one was going through more stress than Owen. And the stress was bound to have its toll on his body.

~Cough!~

Owen coughed deeply and it sounded very weird.

"Bless you..."

~Cough! Cough!~

Owen began to cough so hard that Fred moved close to him to support him.

"Hey, you're burning up man! You should go to the clinic." Fred said to Owen.

"No, I'm fine. Let's continue." Owen stubbornly refused and wanted to get back to work. But Fred wasn't going to have it.

"I'm not going to have to faint on my watch!" Fred yelled and dragged Owen with him into the office building.

He took him straight to their manager who gave Owen permission to go home and rest for the remainder of the day. This was only possible because the boss wasn't around.

Under Fred's persistent bugging, Owen finally went to the clinic and got some drugs for treatment. After using the drugs he said he was fine and wanted to go back to the office but Fred didn't have it and pushed him out of the company to go home and rest.

Owen had no choice but to comply. He already knew he was sick but he had been trying to suppress it. And now he couldn't do anything about it.

At this point, he began to head home. Owen felt so tired and weird at the same time.

Since the day he had started working in that company, he had always worked hard. He would normally be the first to get to the office in the morning and the last to leave at night.

To Owen, having to go home in the afternoon made him feel jobless and useless. He was supposed to be working.

Without a car of his own, he took a taxi and headed to his home. As he drew closer, he remembered that he hadn't paid his rent for that year yet. His landlord was already breathing down his neck. Owen could only sigh in defeat.

He alighted from the taxi and noticed there was a car parked in front of his house. It clearly belonged to a rich person.

Upon a closer look, the car looked eerily similar to that of his boss, Mr Martin. Owen suspected that it belonged to his boss. He felt a bit nervous on how he would entertain his boss as he hadn't expected him to visit.

But Mr. Martin had once revealed to Owen that he and his wife Megan were friends from college. This was after Mr Martin had seen the wedding picture of Owen and Megan.

'He's probably here to catch up on old times with her.' Owen thought. But he also remembered that he hadn't actually shared his address with his boss.

Without thinking much of it, Owen entered the house, expecting to meet Mr Martin and Megan chatting away in the living room. But he found no one there.

He cocked his head in puzzlement and tried to understand the situation until he heard some muffled chuckles from somewhere in the house.

Owen furrowed his brows and traced the source of the sound. It was coming from his room!

He quickly ran towards the door and opened it. The sight he saw shocked him to death.

A naked Megan and Mr Martin were cuddling under the sheets in each other's arms!

As they heard the door barge open, they looked and saw Owen staring back at them dumbfoundedly.

Megan's eyes widened in shock...

"What the hell is going on here?!"

They were both on Owen and Megan's matrimonial bed.