It was agreed that the staff could use the gym, each given a pass but one night a week it was strictly for the kids. A way of ensuring they got some exercise to keep them healthy and a night out, away from the TV and the games.
“Come on bro, let’s see if you’ve lost your edge,” Travis joked on the day it was completed.
“Trav, I could still knock you into next week,” I replied.
“Yeah, yeah, keep dreaming.”
We changed into some workout gear and warmed up, pounding away at the heavy bag, the speed ball and eventually getting in the ring. Ted and the guys were watching, we had been formidable fighters at one time and we had fun, pounding away at each other. It was a good way to release some stress and tension from the day. I still had this compulsion to hurt people, my way of paying back society for what it had done to me, but I was a much more controlled person now.
“Come on, Mack,” Travis called out.
“Trav, last time I was in a ring, you were still in short pants,” he replied, laughing.
We enjoyed ourselves, we laughed and Travis mocked me about the ‘groupies’ as he called them who had come to test out the gym. Perfectly made up women in the skimpiest of clothing sashayed past us, trying to get noticed. I watched Travis as his eyes followed one, giving me the chance to get a punch to his head.
“No fucking the staff,” I said as he turned his face towards me.
****
Travis and I still dated, him more than me and it soon became awkward. I hated waking up in the mornings and having some half naked female wandering around the apartment or draped over the sofa drinking my coffee, eating my food. As I got older, the more private I became and for good reason.
I still had this fear of anyone knowing what we had done in the past, what I had done and with Travis having girls back all the time, I began to feel exposed. I didn’t want these people in my private space, knowing anything about us. I decided it was time to move out of the apartment.
“Trav, we have to talk about our living arrangements,” I said.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I don’t like bringing girls back here, I don’t like how often you do. We need to have our own private space. We keep the apartment, a fuck pad, but let’s move, get a proper house,” I said.
“Ooh, listen to you, Mr. All Grown Up,” he laughed.
“I’m serious, you’re a messy fucker. I want to build something, outside the city.”
“Okay, but that’s not going to happen overnight, is it?” he replied.
“No, so in the meantime we’re moving into this.”
I showed him the details of a house Vassago had just taken over. It was a large house that the company had already remodelled. There was a spacious kitchen, dining room, four bedrooms with en suite and dressing rooms and two lounge areas. I loved living with Travis, I had since I was eleven and I wanted to share a house, but I also wanted my own space. We were twenty-nine years old, at some point we had to cut that string that bound us.
Travis dated women like they were going extinct, one night it would be the blonde, the next the brunette. His old bedroom in the flat seemed to be getting more action that it had when we lived there. I had been dating Nikki for a little while. She was nice enough and I enjoyed her company. She had a good job, her own place but after a few months she got restless with our relationship, she wanted more. She constantly asked why she was never invited to my home, why I never took her with me to the functions I had began to attend. She wanted the fairy tale ending, to marry the millionaire, the most eligible bachelor in Washington according to some newspaper or another. Occasionally we would be photographed together and she would love it, I would hate it.
It came to a head one day. In her bathroom I found her birth control pills, I noticed that she hadn’t taken any for a while and I was fucking livid. The last pill taken had been on a Sunday according to the packet and five days had passed.
“What’s this?” I asked her as I stormed back into the bedroom, throwing the packet at her.
She looked shocked at my discovery. “I don’t know what you mean?” she stammered.
“You have taken yourself off the pill, haven’t you? Do you think if you fell pregnant I would be pleased about it?”
I calculated we had only had sex twice in that week and I prayed that she wasn’t. I had decided a long time ago I would never father a child. I never wanted to bring a child into this world and I knew I would not be a good dad. To have someone as innocent as a child in my life, terrified me.
“So I may have missed a day or two, it’s no big deal, Robert,” she had replied.
“No big deal, are you kidding me?” I asked, stunned.
“Do you love me? Do you have any feelings for me at all? You spend one or two nights a week here, you don’t take me to your own home or introduce me to your friends. What is this?” she asked, waving her hand between us.
“It is what it is, Nikki. I’ve never lied to you, I’ve never promised you more. I can’t give you what you want,” I said.
“You can’t or you won’t? There is a big difference. Robert, you’re going to end up very lonely, you know that don’t you?”
Her comment pulled me up short. She was right but then I just didn’t know how I could change that. I had my friends, but I did crave a relationship. I wanted to arrive home each evening to a woman I was so desperately in love with. I wanted to sleep the night with someone in my arms, who I would miss each moment we were apart. But somewhere in my brain I felt I didn’t deserve that happiness so I shut down. I wouldn’t let myself love anyone, other than my friends, because I thought, somewhere down the line, they would leave me.
I walked away from her, I would never see her again because I couldn’t trust her. She was willing to get herself pregnant deliberately to trap me into a relationship I didn’t want. That was a problem I found a lot. Women wanted more than I was willing to give, was able to give. I was too damaged, too mistrustful. They all wanted the fairy tale ending but, in my mind, there was no Fairy Godmother and I was definitely no Prince Charming.
“Hi, Rob, are you hungry?” Evelyn asked when I returned home. She came over, as she had always done, every day to make sure we had a meal and to look after the house.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, seeing the anger in my face.
“Fucking Nikki, that’s what’s wrong,” I told her what had happened. Along with Travis, she was the only person I spoke about my private life to.
“Rob, what do you expect? She loves you, she wants a proper relationship, it’s not so terrible you know,” she said.
“Ev, you and Travis, you don’t get it. I don’t want that. I don’t want people to know who I really am, what I was, and look at me Ev, what kind of father would I make,” I said.
“A good one, if you ever let yourself,” she replied. “You are not responsible for your past, only your future. And that future can only be what you make it.”
I shook my head. “You don’t understand. Other than for you and Travis, I don’t feel anything, for anyone. What would happen, Ev, if she had got pregnant, I held that baby in my arms and didn’t feel anything for it?”
Evelyn came towards me, placing a hand on my cheek.
“You can’t know what you would feel, Rob. However, it would help if you loved the mother so this Nikki isn’t the one. Who knows what’s round the corner for you. Just try not to close yourself off from love,” she said.
I shook my head. I knew both her and Travis worried about me, they tried really hard to make me have some kind of normal life but having lived the way I had, done the things I had done, that was impossible. That fear of my past catching up with me, the fear of rejection, kept me alone.
****
I was alerted by Paul to a piece of land in Great Falls, a wooded, rural area, named after its waterfalls and outside of Washington. He knew I was looking for somewhere to build my house and we took a drive out to view it. It was perfect, a six acre plot
surrounded by woodland. Just the right amount of privacy for me but with only a half hour drive back into the city. The plot had a few small stone buildings and a chapel. At first I had wanted the chapel torn down, it was not a place I was comfortable having around. That was until I walked in. The door was broken and it took a few pulls to gain access but once I did, staring straight at me was a cracked and dirty, stained glass window.
That window sent a shiver up my spine and it stopped me in my tracks. Paul and Travis had walked in behind me and silently we all looked at the angel, God above, casting her away. The angel was a replica of the tattoo I had on my back, yet that tattoo had been done years before, and I had been the one to draw the design. She had the same long black hair, the sad face and her arms outstretched.
“Leave this building standing, Paul,” I said quietly, as I made my way out.
“Do you want anything done with it?” he asked.
“No, just fix the door so no one can get in.”
It was not just the window that had disturbed me, it was the sense that the building would mean something to me one day. It had a purpose that I was yet to grasp. I just knew that in the future, that building would be important. I took a walk around, studying the inscriptions on the headstones to the side. Young men, women and children who had died centuries ago lay to rest under my feet. No, there was no way I would disturb that place.
I had one of our architects draw up plans. I wanted the living space on the top floor with glass walls, I still had to have that connection with the outside, and no blinds at the windows. I wanted it open plan, to have a feeling of space not confinement. I wanted it modern, not too much furniture and I also wanted somewhere for Travis and Evelyn to live.
It was time for Travis to live on his own. I was going to have to force the issue a little, as much as he wanted me to have a normal life, I wanted the same for him. By living on his own, he might feel he was able to do that but I still wanted him close.
A garage complex with two large apartments above, next to the house, would give us all the separation I thought we needed. But the thought that we were just a short walk away from each other suited us all.
Evelyn had already started to talk about selling the house, the one she’d inherited from Joe. It was too large for her, she was finding it a struggle to manage the house, the kids’ home and looking after us and I wanted to start to make life a little easier for her. She never wanted for anything, she was a wealthy woman in her own right, she had the money Joe had left and I made sure she had whatever else she needed.
So I sat them down and outlined my plans.
“Trav, it’s about time you had your own place, you can keep it as messy as you like and it won’t stress me,” I said.
“This looks great, Rob. When does the building start?” Travis asked, running his eye over the drawings on the kitchen table.
“The sale of the land should go through in a week or so. Then we can get started.”
I had thought about building a couple of houses, but knowing Travis, he was comfortable in an apartment, he didn’t want to rattle around a house. To soften the blow somewhat I had bought Travis and I a present, something I had taken a lot time to organise and had shipped to the US.
Travis was a speed freak, he was the one who always wanted to drive, he hated to be a passenger and I was happy to be driven. Just occasionally I got the buzz, the need to let rip and drive as fast as I could and I had found the perfect machines for that.
“Come on, I want to show you something,” I said.
We headed outside to the garages. Opening them, standing in the middle, gleaming and brand new were two identical black Ducati motorbikes. Fast, powerful, sleek, a perfect representation of us, I thought.
Travis and I had learned to ride bikes years ago. It was when he had smashed up the latest of many cars because of his reckless driving and as a punishment, Joe had made us ride a bike. I think he thought we would be scared but the total opposite happened. We loved it. The excitement of racing a bike through the city, weaving in and out of the traffic, to open up the engine on a long stretch of road with no helmets and the wind stinging our faces was pure heaven to me, and total freedom. Just man and machine.
“Oh fuck, Rob, where did you get them?” he asked.
“Rome believe it or not. Remember Luca, Massimo’s son? He has a contact. Come on, let’s go see what these beauties can do.”
“Boys, helmets please,” Evelyn said.
Donning two black helmets we sat astride the bikes, pushed the button for the engine to start and revved. The noise was immense, a growl that echoed around the garage. Wheel spinning out and kicking up dust and stones, we headed off into the night to test out the bikes. We raced each other and had fun, something I hadn’t done for a very long time.
We flew through the night like bats out of hell, scaring the shit out of anyone we came across, enjoying the ride.
“Fuck me, that was amazing,” Travis said as we pulled into a roadside café.
“They’re something else, aren’t they?” I replied.
Taking a table outside, Travis and I sat for a coffee.
“You okay about this move?” I asked him.
“Sure. I guess it’s time to grow up a little,” he laughed.
“Seriously bro, I’m looking forward to it. People will talk if we continue to live together,” he added with a wink.
****
The house took just under a year to build, it was to be my first real home, one I designed and knew I would live in for many years. I hated moving about, I wanted something steady, something constant and my own home was going to be it.
The plans would change frequently, especially if Travis was involved, but eventually it got done. The whole place was fixed up with the latest security measures with cameras inside and outside the house. Each car was fitted with a sensor allowing it to pass through the gates and the whole security system was linked to the one at the office so it could be monitored twenty-four hours a day. I had an intercom fitted, we could communicate between us and I wanted the wooded area around the grounds to be left as they were. A perfect shield but also one of the places I always felt most comfortable in. Walking around the woods one day, after a site visit, I took out my keys and carved two initials in a tree, C and R. A replica of a carving from years past and a reminder of how far I had come.
Travis’s suggestion was a shooting range. We had licensed guns, everyone did, and he wanted somewhere we could practice. We did this in the woods near one of the little stone buildings that still stood, a perfect gun room.
The day we moved in was probably one of the best I’d had. It was nice to be able to walk around in my own space with none of Travis’s mess. I stood at the window as the night drew in, a glass of wine in my hand marvelling at how far I had come. Just turned thirty-two, more money than I could ever spend in my lifetime and a wonderful home. Not a house, for the first time in my life, I had a home.
That first night I slept so well. I had thought I might not, this being the first time I’d slept in a house alone but I loved the quiet. I loved the fact that I could lie in bed and watch the sun rise, no blinds at the windows and no one could see in but I still had that connection to the outside.
No one would visit, I didn’t want that. I wanted total separation from my work life, my, although not wanted, public life and my private life. Only here I could be me. Listening to music was what I did most. I’d never really watched TV, although I had one installed in its own room, but to sit and listen and think and not have to talk was my idea of bliss. I was more than comfortable with my own company, unlike Travis who, at first, struggled living on his own.
He would often pop over, help himself to a beer and flop on the sofa. As much as I still enjoyed his company the fact that he quickly grew bored listening to music meant he left earlier and earlier to watch the crap he was addicted to on TV.
“There’s a game on,” he would say.
“So go watch it the
n,” I replied with a smile.
“You got old quick,” he would grumble as he left, flipping me the finger when I laughed.
“No, bro, I grew up, big difference,” I called out to his retreating back.
For the next couple of years I became more settled, the business was doing well. There was talk of a possible recession, America was finding itself up against its banks. So I decided to invest some of the company’s wealth in gold, then at a low but with predictions for an increase in value. Not that I was too concerned, but much of the company’s wealth was in property and we were starting to see a fall in value. Most of what we owned was leased out so a fall in value was not going to hit us as hard, but I would need to keep an eye on the development side. Again, I thanked my good instinct.
As the price of gold soared and property values fell, the company became wealthier than it had before. More and more people were looking to rent instead of buying and we found ourselves in a situation with prospective tenants waiting for a vacancy. Building costs lowered and we took advantage of that. As the recession deepened, we became stronger, more profitable and we were able to give something back. We were able to invest, to give loans to companies. It was slightly ironic that we, in a small way, headed back in the direction we had come from.
Chapter Six
I took a call from my PA, Gina, as I was looking through some papers.
“Mr. Stone, I’ve just been told that Miranda is on her way up. Are you free to see her or shall I tell her you’re busy?” she asked.
I rolled my eyes. I had got to know Miranda after getting involved with a fund raiser at the Smithsonian Museum a few months back. We had been out for meals, I’d taken her back to the apartment after and, as usual, she was getting pushy, wanting more.
“Fine, send her in,” I sighed.
The problem I had was that Miranda was Gina’s friend. It was at a business function that Gina had first introduced us.
“Robert, it’s good to see you,” she purred as she walked into my office.
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