Two
T he rough draft of Arlen’s statement was done. All they needed to do was get the phrasing right, and Scott hoped it wouldn’t take as much time as the draft.
The door opened and Georgia walked into the office.
He knew better than to have those thoughts and she knew better than to interrupt. Scott didn’t like interruptions when he was on a call unless he was the one requesting the interruption.
She crossed the room and hovered next to his desk. Georgia wasn’t going to just leave. Not until she said whatever she was so intent on sharing.
The reason for Georgia’s hovering had to be important, but clients tended to oversell what they considered important. If something wasn’t on fire or someone wasn’t bleeding out, it could wait. Scott spun the chair until he looked out at the city skyline, giving his back and his answer to Georgia.
Georgia spun him back around, stopping the chair’s spin when he was face-to-face with her.
“Arlen, one second. Georgia’s here.”
“Georgia! Hey, how’s Rupert doing? Did he get that car he was eyeing at the auction?”
How did Arlen know more about Georgia’s husband than Scott?
“He’s doing fine, Arlen, thanks. And yes, he got the car. He paid more than he wanted to spend, but less than his limit. Do you mind if I steal Scott from you? I’ll make sure he calls you back as soon as I’ve finished with him.”
“Sure. You don’t even have to ask.”
“Georgia, whatever it is, it can’t be as important as the conversation I’m having right now.”
“Scott…”
“Tell me what the problem is. I’m never going to get Arlen back today, and we need to get the phrasing locked down.”
“Scott.” She glared at the phone before delivering a scathing look at both the phone and Scott.
“Just tell me already. It’s not like Arlen hasn’t seen all the stupid shit players do.”
“Hey, I did my fair share of stupid shit, too.” Arlen agreed.
Georgia closed her eyes and shook her head, resigned to the fact she wasn’t going to win this particular battle. “Your father died last night, Scott.”
“Oh man, I’m sorry.” Arlen immediately offered his sympathies.
“Scott, you need to go home. Arlen, convince him he needs to go while I make travel arrangements for him.” Georgia left the office as quietly as she entered.
“Scott, why do I need to convince you to go home?”
“My dad and I, we weren’t close.”
“I don’t care if you didn’t talk to the guy for years. He’s your father and you’ll regret not going home. If just to collect the stupid memorabilia from your childhood.”
“Arlen, you played what turned out to be one of the greatest games in your life, the day after your dad died.”
“Yeah, because he would have come back to life and kicked my ass if I didn’t. Trust me on this. It doesn’t matter how bad it was, you’ll regret leaving everything behind for some stranger to go through.”
“I have work.”
“Work can wait. Put it aside for a few days, everyone will understand. And Georgia and the rest of your team can handle whatever can’t be put off.” Arlen’s sigh could be heard through the phone. “Don’t worry about anything anyone else has going on. Worry about you for the next few days. Hell, I’ll give Tobin Carson a call ahead of time if you promise to go home. If just for a few days.”
Scott didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure what to say that would convince Arlen going home wasn’t all that important. Scott stared out the expanse of windows that looked out at Chicago’s skyline. “I should be sad, but I’m not. It wasn’t like he was abusive or anything. He just wasn’t there. I haven’t spoken with him in years. Not since I left Iron Creek and went off to college.”
“Scott, man, none of that matters. You gotta go back.”
“There’s no reason to go back because he wasn’t ever really my dad, just a man who happened to be present for part of my life.”
“Well, if you aren’t going back because of your dad, or to get your childhood mementos, go back to see about the girl. Go home. Get off the phone with me and go back.”
Arlen hung up, and Scott stayed sitting on his chair and staring out the window at the city skyline. The tallest building in Iron Creek was the church with its steeple. Or at least it had been when he drove out of town and headed to university almost fifteen years ago.
“Remind me why you dated Olivia since freshman year?” Trent, one of Scott’s best friends, asked.
“Do you really need to ask?”
“I get that she looks good, but she’s not nice. And it’s not like she’s the only girl in Iron Creek.”
Scott shrugged as his gaze settled on the cute underclassman who’d been shadowing him since they were little kids. He definitely knew Olivia wasn’t the only girl in Iron Creek.
Jake, Scott’s other best friend, followed his gaze and asked. “Why did you never ask her out?”
“By the time I figured out she wasn’t just the daughter of Mom and Dad’s friend, I also figured out that I wasn’t going to stay in Iron Creek. Lauren isn’t the type of girl I’d ask to follow me to the city.”
“And Olivia is?” Trent asked.
“Hell no. Olivia isn’t the type of girl I’d ask anywhere.”
“You’re a coward, Brandonson.” Jake leaned back in the old lawn chair and stretched his feet out in front of him.
Scott shook the memory free of his thoughts. Too bad he couldn’t shake the memory of Lauren from his thoughts. As soon as he came back to the present, a tsunami of memories of Lauren nearly knocked him to the ground.
The times she wanted to play house, but Scott had always refused her.
Or the times she’d show up at the field by the school and beg to play whatever game the boys were playing.
And all the times when he should have broken up with Olivia and asked Lauren out, but never did.
Jake was right. Scott was a coward.
He could have gone back for the holidays that first year away from Iron Creek. School was a few hours away, maybe three at most during the heaviest traffic, but he didn’t bother. At first it was Thanksgiving and using midterms as an excuse. And then, during Christmas, his friends wanted to go to Mexico, so he went with them instead of going back to Iron Creek. From then on, it just became easier to come up with an excuse to not go home. Especially since his mom had left his dad a few weeks after Scott had gone off to college. Without her in Iron Creek, no one was there to force him to come back for a visit.
A few years ago, he could have gone back for his ten-year reunion, but he’d just signed a client who was in the middle of a contract extension. The team had agreed to all the terms before the reunion, and he could have shown last minute. Instead, he found work for himself.
The door opened and closed behind him, but Scott didn’t have to turn around to know Georgia had returned. She sat down in the chair on the other side of the desk and for all of one minute, she let him continue sitting in silence.
“Your mom called. I told her you were busy and would call her back later. She said you didn’t need to call right away. Whenever you were ready or wanted to talk.”
“She sound OK?”
“Well, that depends on your definition of OK.” Georgia looked down at the Post-it in her hand. “She said, ‘he’s not going to want to go back, and I don’t blame him, but that means I’ll have to go back and if I do, I’m going to burn the house down. Then Scott’ll have to go back because he’ll need to bail me out of jail and defend me against arson charges, so let’s just skip the step where I commit a felony.’”
“I’m not a criminal defense attorney.”
“You have your JD and passed the bar. In her mind, you’re more than capable of defending her in court.”
“Other than Mom becoming an arson, she sound alright?”
“She was humming Ding Dong the Witch is Dead when she hung up, so yeah, I’d say she’s doing alright.”
Scott wanted to be angry with his mom, but he couldn’t. As horrible as having an absentee father was for him, it was twice as bad for his mom to have a husband that didn’t care about her at all. As soon as she left his father, she was noticeably happier. They both were. Even if they didn’t have big family holidays, they spent Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Mother’s Day together. And they were the best holiday celebrations of his life.
“So, I have you on the first flight tomorrow morning.”
Scott nodded. He still hadn’t decided whether he was going to head back to Iron Creek or not, but he wasn’t about ready to tell her that. The nod was just an acknowledgment of her words. Or at least that’s what he told himself.
“I sent an intern to your condo to pack a bag for you. He should be gone by the time you get there. Dinner will be waiting for you when you get home. I am going to call you and wake you up in the morning. And a car is going to pick you up then to take you to the airport. All you need to do now is get in the car waiting take you to your condo, eat the dinner, and go to bed.”
Scott continued watching the clouds move across the sky behind the skyscrapers that did their best to block the view of the massive lake.
“When you get to Iron Creek, I have a suite reserved for you at The Lakes. I figured you wouldn’t want to sleep in your father’s home.”
“Sure.” He stood and looked down at the papers and files littering his desk.
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll clean it up for you.”
“Yeah, sure.” He skipped his routine of packing up his work for the week and taking it home with him each night. Scott walked away from the papers on his desk, as though they weren’t even there.
Georgia followed behind him and walked with him to the elevator. She handed him his briefcase. “There’s a car downstairs to take you home. Leave yours in the garage and I’ll have someone drive it home for you.”
“OK, good.”
Except it wasn’t good. Nothing good had happened since Georgia’s interruption.
The elevator doors slid open, and Scott stepped inside. Just before they closed again, Georgia reached out and pressed her hand against the doors, keeping them open.
“You’re going to be fine, Scott. I’d go with you, but you need someone here to run the office. Though, don’t forget I’m just a phone call away.”
For the first time since Georgia told him his father had died, the words she spoke registered with him. He wasn’t sure how, but he smiled at the woman. Without her, he’d be lost. “Thank you, Georgia.”
“I know.” She offered him a sad smile and dropped her hand, letting the elevator doors slide close.
The ride down to the lobby of the building and the drive home sped by in a blur. It wasn’t until the driver pulled the car up to the front of his building and the doorman opened the car door for him that Scott came back to earth. No one around him knew any of the details of his life at that moment, so it was simple to slip back into the normalcy of regular life. Thanking the driver and the doorman, whose name he knew, but couldn’t recall at the moment, happened without him thinking about it. As did the ride in the elevator up to his condo. It was only after he got inside that he had to think about what he was doing.
Scott was still standing in the front hallway, staring at the packed suitcase sitting by the door, when someone knocked. The sound was enough to shake him out of his thoughts about the girl he left behind, and he answered the door.
The doorman stood with a box of food in his hands. Dinner. Scott had not only forgotten about eating dinner, but also that Georgia had ordered it for him.
“Thanks, Jeremy.” Scott reached for the box, grateful he remembered the doorman’s name.
“Anytime, Mr. Brandonson. Have a good night.” The man turned and walked away, not expecting or even wanting to have a conversation. Another thing to be grateful for.
Scott closed the door and brought his food into the kitchen. He opened a bottle of wine and poured himself a glass, then opened the containers holding his food. Pasta. Nothing special, but it would fill him up and hopefully absorb some of the wine he’d more than likely continue drinking before sleep finally rammed into him.
hours and one bottle of wine later, Scott had finished his dinner and was getting ready for bed. The morning would come much too soon for his liking. If he was asleep, he wouldn’t have to think about anything or anyone waiting for him in Iron Creek. Except once he got into bed, sleep evaded him. He debated calling Jake, one of his best friends from high school. But he couldn’t, because he hadn’t called Jake since leaving Iron Creek.
Without his mom there, he didn’t have a reason to visit the town. Dan Brandonson had never seen his wife and child as more than accessories to fulfill the image of the happy family he presented to the rest of the town. He wasn’t a cruel man. He never hurt Scott or his mom. At least not physically. But being ignored until it was time to put on a show for everyone else eroded a relationship until it no longer existed as a relationship. Leaving his father behind wasn’t a tough decision, but it came with a side effect. Leaving his friends behind, too.
If Scott called Jake now, what would he say to his friend and what would his friend say to him? Plus, it was better if he didn’t know what happened to Lauren. He’d find an emergency to delay his trip if he learned she was happily married. Facing his father’s empty house was one thing. Facing the biggest regret in his life was another, and one he wasn’t brave enough to meet head on.
He was still debating the pros and cons of calling his friend before showing up in Iron Creek when sleep came.