Chapter 45
CHAPTER 45
SIMON
A ll day long, I worked hard to make sure the event finished well. Karen kept busy with the Fit Gal VIPs and company reps, which kept her out of my hair as I did our actual job. I helped the vendors with whatever they needed, checked up on the ticketing booth, pitched in with the games, and even got to play some soccer.
As I got ready to start closing up, I raked a hand through my hair and watched more of the crowd leaving through the gates. The music had stopped playing and the inflatables had deflated, the games over, and the instructors, vendors, and other Fit Gal partners packing up.
It’d been a massively successful day and I was exhausted, but we still had to attend Abigail and Jeffrey’s ball tonight. An event I was not looking forward to.
Staying away from her all day had been hard enough. Continuing to keep my distance tonight was going to be torture.
I’d done it today, though, and I would do it all over again at the ball. No matter how badly it hurt me. At least my father wasn’t hurting her .
Feeling a presence at my back where I was standing under a tree, I spun around and trepidation rolled through me when I saw Abigail in front of me. She had a look on her face I knew all too well. It was a look that said she was ready to talk, determination shining in her eyes and etched into the hard set of her jaw.
“What do you want?” I asked, even though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer to that question. “I have to make sure everything is cleared out of here before I can head home to get ready for your ball.”
“Did I do something?” she asked instead of responding to what I’d just said. “You’ve been weird ever since you left the airport and the silent treatment is getting a little old.”
“It’s nothing you’ve done,” I said firmly, needing her not to do this right now, but also not to give up on me. “We can talk about it after the events, okay?”
“No.” She folded her arms and shifted back on her heels, her head cocking and those blues burning into my eyes. “I’m a big girl, Simon. I’ve given you time to come to me about it and you haven’t. I’m tired of waiting and I’m tired of being treated like a mushroom.”
“A mushroom?”
“Fed shit and kept in the dark.” She swiped her tongue across her lips and scoffed. The late afternoon sunshine cast a warm glow on her delicate features. There was nothing warm about her posture or her tone, though. Abi was pissed, and for good reason. “Talk to me, Simon. Whatever it is, I can handle it. Just spit it out.”
“It’s really not something we need to get into right now.” I ignored all the activity and the sounds of packing up, the clanging of tent poles as the stretch tent came down and the whirring of drills as equipment was dismantled. Although I knew I had to go help and at least oversee it all, I focused only on her for a moment. “Both of us need to focus on Fit Gal today. Let’s leave it at that.”
“I’m a woman,” she ground out. “I can multitask. You’re only making it worse while you’re wasting my time, so just get to it already.”
“Fine,” I spat, hating myself more than a little bit for what I was about to say. “I just need us to slow down until I get the client. That has to be my priority.”
“Until you get the client,” she repeated slowly, those light brown eyebrows rising slowly as she looked back at me. “It suddenly makes complete sense that Karen nicknamed you Captain Cocky. You do know we’re all going for the same client, right? That’s never been a question. You’re only one of four in the running. It’s not your client to get, but even so, why does it suddenly mean we need to slow things down now?”
“Because getting that account has to be my sole focus. I can’t be distracted.”
“Right.” She frowned, nodding repeatedly. “Right. Of course. No. It has to be your sole focus. Except, why have you been spending so much time with me if taking me down is ostensibly your sole focus ?”
Her head shook, her eyes glazing over with thought as she kept speaking, evidently voicing her concerns and opinions as they raced through her head. “Was all that just to build me up so you could tear me down when you were ready? Were you hoping to draw me in so you could devastate me to give yourself a better chance at getting the account?”
My heart dropped straight into the pit of my stomach, taking up residence right next to the icy pit of dread growing there. Abi was blissfully oblivious to all of that, though. Gaining momentum as she refocused her gaze on mine, she scoffed and pushed her chin a little higher into the air.
“If that’s what you thought was going to happen, you were wrong,” she stated clearly and categorically. “You will never be able to break me the way you did after graduation. I won’t let you and what’s more is that you will never have that kind of power over me again.”
My insides shifted, the urge to fall to my knees and beg like a puppy for her forgiveness nearly paralyzing me. I managed to stay on my feet, though my tone warped into something a lot softer and more pleading despite my best efforts to remain cool and collected. “I would never want to hurt you like that again, Abi. I didn’t even want to do it the first time, but that’s not?—”
She looked me dead in the face. “Had this continued on the path we were on, you were setting me up to go through it again. You give, and then you take and keep taking. You’re so safe until you’re not. You change faster than the seasons and you can’t make any decisions for yourself, can you? Don’t think for one second I don’t know your dad has a part in this. He did back then, and he does now. I saw him lurking around like the grim reaper before.”
My dad was here? Good thing I kept my distance from her. That could’ve been a disaster. “It’s not what you think, Abs.”
“Like hell it’s not.” She scoffed loudly, a sneer overtaking her beautiful face as she pointed a finger at my chest. “You’re always going to do his bidding, Simon. Whether you want to or not. Whether it’s right or wrong. You’re going to be his errand boy until the day he dies and maybe even after that. Do me a favor and keep staying away from me.”
Abigail tugged her ponytail a couple times, as if she was thinking something over. Then she shook her head again and turned away from me. She didn’t look back on her way to the exit, not even sending me one last glance over her shoulder.
I watched her walk away, knowing my dad was getting exactly what he wanted right now, but I wasn’t going to let it happen. Tonight at the ball, I would take back what I’d said today, apologize profusely, and explain the situation to Abi.
My friends had been right. Despite my loyalty to Astor and Co, there was nothing stopping me from warning the Walkers that my dad might come after them if he sensed they were a real threat to our chances. None of us knew what he would do or how far he would go, but they’d be able to get their guard up. To prepare.
Determined to set it all right, I went back to helping shut down the event, and at around four p.m., the guys and I could finally leave the park to go and get ready. Since we wouldn’t have enough time for everyone to be dropped off and picked back up, they came over to my place, where my stylist had suits waiting for us all.
I’d had them sent over yesterday and they were all hanging neatly in one of my guest bedrooms. Four suit bags complete with masks, shoes, and socks, and even underwear. The guys and I blew through the place like a hurricane, grabbing showers and getting cleaned up before we headed right back out again.
On the way to the ball, Benny smoothed his tie and sighed in the passenger seat of my car. “Something else happen today?”
“Abigail called me out,” I muttered, my fingers in a white-knuckled grip around the wheel. “Oh, and George was there today. Did any of you see him?”
“Your dad? No, but I’m not surprised he came to check it out.” Benny rubbed the side of his neck. “Did he speak to her? Could that be why she called you out? The man is a shit-stirrer.”
“I don’t know.” As it was, I was having way too many feelings to try to figure that out on top of everything else. “She didn’t mention it and she was pretty scathingly honest, so I think she’d have said something if he’d approached her.”
David cussed under his breath from the backseat, but I heard him in the silence that had fallen in the car. It seemed my friends weren’t immune to this news either, all of us knowing it meant a storm was brewing. Exactly what that was going to look like, I didn’t know just yet, but with my dad, anything was possible.
All three of these guys worked for Astor and Co, which meant their livelihoods might be on the line as well. Josh and David had other clients, but we were their rainmaker, the firm responsible for their lifestyles.
If my father’s company either fell apart or simply dismissed us from its ranks, I would land on my feet and I’d make sure they did too, but it wouldn’t come easy. As I contemplated what my future outside of Astor and Co might look like, I was so pissed off with myself about not fully being able to let go of the need to succeed in all the ways my father considered success. I was angry for folding like a house of wet cards to his wants and I was super fucking pissed that caving was costing me Abigail.
Again.
All I knew for an absolute fact was that I had to stop the inevitable from playing out for the second time. If I lost Abi again, I would never get her back. She would never give me a third chance and it would be damn selfish to even ask for one.
But when I thought of that future outside of my father’s oppressive grasp, Abigail was at the center of it all. I needed her with me. She’d already been bringing me back to life again and George was trying to snuff out that flame.
I honestly didn’t know what Brooks would’ve done in this situation or what he might’ve told me to do, but I did know that he had been happy when he’d died—and not just because he’d been under the influence. My brother had gone out at the top of his game, in his prime, but loving every second of his life.
I refused to live the rest of mine without ever knowing what that felt like.