From Despair Grows Order: The Broken Billionaire Series Book 3
Page 14
“I love you so much,” I whimpered.
“You have no idea how much I love you in return, Sarah,” he spoke back, a passionate sincerity to his words.
We held each other for a little longer over the tiny table. Then we sat back down and I carried on eating pasta, while he held my free hand the whole time, rubbing his thumb over the top, gazing into my eyes with such a look of genuine affection that I felt our affinity go up another level. This argument had had some kind of cathartic effect on him, had made him realize how much he loved me. And boy did I feel loved in that moment! When I’d finished the meal, we lay in bed, me within his arms, watching silly movies together, the feel of his occasional kisses to my neck sending tingles through me.
That night we melted into sleep and I drifted away along a stream of sumptuous thoughts regarding Josh. I imagined that we were back in the Caribbean, that we were racing along the beach on horses, that we were racing along forever, the white sand transforming into a bright, illuminated path that led up to the moon, the beach now a wide, gigantic moonbeam. Our horses, unimpeded by fatigue, raced upward along the transparent, silver light, the great vastness of space hanging below our horse’s hoofs as they heaved us upward. The moon never seemed to get closer, and we never appeared to get farther from Earth, but I don’t think that was the point. On this glittering moonbeam, we were caught within our dreamy element, joyous smiles on our faces as we raced forever, sometimes he ahead, sometimes me, but always together. Together trapped in this resplendent moment upon our thread of light.
JOSH
I went to work the next night having been a dutiful boyfriend. Even though I was also working now, I still made Sarah her packed lunch for work, just like before. She’d tried to stop me, but my incessant guilt urged me on to be the best. The absolute best. That morning, I’d awoken with her, made coffee and breakfast. Kissed her delicately and lovingly on the doorstep, walked her to her car and waved her all the way down the street. I wanted to show her just how much I loved her. I’d decided that I’d wait a month before my sordid confession. I wasn’t letting myself off, I just wanted to create the conditions that were in my favor, nothing else. That may appear selfish to you, but I was so scared of losing her that I wanted to gain some kind of advantage, however self-centered and undeserving that may sound.
The second I pulled into the yard, I began to feel an itching in my brain, my guts seizing with tension. I heard someone say something once about work not being the best place to take your problems, and it wasn’t until that night that I fully understood. Being with Sarah, I could at least pull myself away from despairing thoughts on my infidelities through devotion to her. It was when alone, however, that they came stampeding back like a tidal wave of recrimination. So far, only in my dreams had I been attacked by my senseless actions. But here, at work, I had nowhere to hide.
I worked that night as though a ghost, only half aware of anything. Several times I got shouted at for almost stepping in front of the forklifts. “Hey, motherfucker,” Leroy shouted at me one time, yanking me out of the path of one. “You got a death wish or somthin’?” For relief, I threw myself into the mundane labor and never felt better than when a container was opened and we got to work inside. Through physical exertion, I had my slight reprieve. It was when things were finished, when we were waiting for the next trailer to back up, or for a problem to be resolved, that we had to sit around and my guilt-itch would tickle away at my brain, pull at my gut and make everything seem hollow. Break times were the worst and I would hear the others’ conversations as if they were in another world and I was only getting half the ghostly signal. Once or twice someone tried to bring me into the general conversation, but each time I’d merely say a few words and leave it at that.
I sensed some great catastrophe was about to happen to me. I felt like a field mouse out in the open who’s heard the caw of a bird of prey but doesn’t know where it is. The mouse immediately runs and continues to hear the caw, unsure whether it will make it back to its hole, always in doubt as it scampers along. I was that mouse, terrified that I would suddenly be plucked up from the ground by sharp talons. I began to doubt my resolve regarding waiting a month to tell Sarah, thinking that it would probably be better to tell her now, get it out of the way.
Throughout the night I worked as hard as I ever have; even Sergei was impressed by my efforts, but that didn't appear to please Stan. He failed to notice any of my graft, and it was only when I accidentally stepped in front of his forklift as he’d rushed out of one of the chillers without looking that he became suddenly aware of my presence. In truth, it was as much his fault as it was mine, but that didn't stop him jumping straight down from the cab, marching up to me and seizing me by the scruff of my overalls.
“You stupid fucking prick,” his bad breath boomed.
“Hey,” I muttered, trying to wrest myself out of his grip.
“You step out in front of me again, I won't push the brake, I’ll push the fucking gas, break your fuckin’ ankles with the forks. I oughta teach you a fuckin’ lesson to keep your eyes open by blackin’ one of them in front of everyone on the floor here.”
Leroy jumped in for me.
“Hey, Stan, man. You can't be treatin’ dudes like that. He got rights.”
“What rights any of you pieces of shit got?” the angry night foreman sneered, still looking into me with his hateful eyes.
He moved his forehead so that it was pressed to mine and spoke into me with his vodka, mint-stained breath, hushing his voice so that only I could hear:
“I looked into you, Josh Kelly,” he snarled in a low tone. “Your father’s Andrew Kelly, rich prick. I don't know why you’re down here and what your purpose is—”
“I’m here to earn a living just like you,” I casually retorted.
He pressed that boney forehead into me even harder and his fist tightened around the neck of my overalls, almost choking me. My blood was boiling and my own fists twisted at my sides. But I held back, let him get on with his display of rabid masculinity. He clearly needed it.
“Then it’s your unlucky day you picked working here, you little prick,” he further growled. “Because I’m gonna make sure you last no longer than another month. Starting with tonight, I’m gonna write you up for dangerous negligence on the loading bay. Written warning. Another two and you’re out.”
With that he let go and threw me back, attempting to knock me off my feet. But as I’ve already said, I’m a pretty strong guy myself, and I kept my balance, not giving the prick the satisfaction. A small crowd had gathered and I hoped they hadn’t overheard Stan refer to my father. As I glanced around them, I was sure that they hadn’t, because they all wore sympathetic faces, having obviously come under the malevolent foreman’s hatred themselves once or twice.
The drunk then stormed off toward the office, and when he was halfway across the loading bay he shouted back at me, “Kelly, get your fucking ass up to the office for a write-up before I beat you into submission and have the others carry you up here.”
“Man, he a real gen-u-ine piece o’ shit,” Leroy remarked, looking back at him as he marched off.
“I don’t think he likes me,” I said.
“He don’t like no one. Not even his ol’ lady apparently. She spent some time in one o’ them women’s refuge places. I know because my sister helps out at the place. When his ol’ lady come in, she gave his name, Stanley Johnson, as the name o’ the hubby, told them he wasn’t to see her. Beat her real bad, my sis say. Eventually, she went back to him though. But she still spend the odd night there when he’s real bad at weekends. I can tell you now: she the only motherfucker that’s happy he spend his week-nights in here with us!”
I looked at the misanthrope, Stan, as he bounded across the loading bay, stopping to shout at someone for leaving a piece of bunting across the floor. I wondered if I’d ever end up that angry. Had this place done it to him, broken old Stan? Or was he always a prick? A bit of both was the best answer I had.
“KELLY!” shouted Stan as he mounted the steps to the offices.
I began jogging that way.
Inside the office, he didn't leave off his vicious assault, but this time it was less threatening in a violent way and more threatening in other ways.
“What’d you think the others’ll think,” he was saying from behind his desk, “when they find out you’re a rich boy?”
“I’m not a rich boy,” I answered from my standing position in front of the desk, the pig not having offered me a seat.
“Oh! So your daddy don’t own half the goddamn country clubs, casinos and golf courses in America then?”
“He owns half the hotels, leisure areas, shopping complexes and luxury apartment buildings too.”
“Don’t smart ass me,” he hurled out. “You might’ve had a top-class education and might think yourself smarter than me, but here, in this place, I am king and you’re nothing but shit. One word from me to them down there and they’ll make your life hell and I won't have to bother with it myself. Now, what’d ya think of that?”
“I think you underestimate those men’s ability to think for themselves. I’ll explain to each and every one of them that I no longer even speak to my father and that I’m as poor, if not poorer, than them.”
He waved his hand and I took this to mean he wanted me to stop.
“Shut the fuck up,” he muttered. “They won’t care about that. All they’ll see is that you’re money—whether you still are won't mean squat to them. Heck, it might even make them madder if they knew your daddy disowned you or you walked away, whichever the reason. They’ll think you’re an even bigger son-of-a-bitch for turning your back on that money, the type of money that they’d kill for. To them you'll always be different, no matter where you’re at now. I might even rip this warning up, let you get away with shit, be real nice to you. Tell them who you are and just let them do my work for me. I can tell you it’ll be even worse the nicer I am to you. They’ll think I’m giving you leeway for being a rich kid and they despise you so much you might not make it back to your car one night.”
All of this was said with such spite and malice that I rolled my hands into balls again, trying my hardest not to scowl at him and show the bastard how much I hated him in that moment. I couldn't lose this job, not yet. I at least had to find something else first, couldn't let Sarah down, had to keep her happy. But with everything buzzing angrily in my head, I found it almost impossible not to dive over that desk, land on top of him and begin smashing his face in with those closed-up fists of mine.
“But fuck it!” he pronounced, his eyes piercing into me the whole time. “I’ll write you up anyway. I can hold off the next two warnings for another six months, so there’s plenty of time for me to have my fun. For now, I’ll give you this warning and send you back to those shit munchers out there to carry on. But I’ll let you live with the axe above your head. Those idiots don't have a clue about who you really are—they call you J—so they’ll never figure it on their own. They’ll only know if I tell them who you are. And, if and when I decide that will be anyone’s guess. But I’m telling you now, rich boy, you’re my fucking pet from now on, you hear me?”
“Loud and clear,” I said through gnashed teeth.
“Then fuck off. I’ll write you up for dangerous negligence. Another two warnings like that and you’re out.”
I turned like a soldier dismissed and marched out of there, trying my hardest not to give in to the urge to slam the door shut behind me. With all my will, I closed it real nice and said very little to the others when I rejoined them. For now, they were on my side, a camaraderie having developed between us from my run-in with their hateful boss. The rest of the night, I worked just as hard and tried to avoid Stan as though he were the Grim Reaper himself, shooting around the bay half-drunk in his forklift, his scythe hung over his shoulder.
As though a prayer had been answered, we emptied the last two trucks real quick and were two hours ahead of schedule, with no other loads expected in. Stan, in some paroxysm of generosity, said we could go home early. With no pay, of course, but still, we could go home early, and that was the main point. Thankful for this mercy, I got to the locker room and began undressing from my overalls, Leroy still complaining in my ear about Stan and how much he hated the ‘motherfucker.’ I merely answered in monosyllables and agreed with most of what he said. This was enough for him, as I think Leroy only ever needed ears for his ranting, rather than an equal partner in conversation.
It was when I switched my phone back on that a wave of terror went through me. Alongside my messages of love and support from Sarah were several vaguely threatening ones from Amy. I need to see you x, read one. Please, call me back. Or should I call you? ran another. I can still feel you inside me xxx, was still worse. I felt nauseous scrolling through them and instantly erased the messages once I’d seen them all. Having done so, I finished changing and left work feeling worse than I had when I’d pulled up eight hours earlier.
Getting home to Sarah, I came in silently and sat by the table watching her from across the room as she slept soundly, my chin rested on my hands, the sight of her sweet, blissful face breaking every bone in my heart. “What’ve you done, you idiot?” I whispered to myself as she snoozed away peacefully, completely unaware of the awfulness that spied on her from the other side of the room.
SARAH
That week Josh was the sweetest and tenderest I’d ever known him. In the mornings, I’d awake to find him holding onto me in bed. The moment I would rise, so would he and he’d insist on making breakfast, claiming that he loved to do it for me. I merely let him get on with it and we’d eat together, though his appetite appeared not to be what it was. I worried that this was an after-effect of the argument, and I did my best to reassure him that I fully forgave him. But something appeared to eat away at Josh from the inside, some thought perhaps, and I hoped that I wasn’t the cause of it.
Still, except for this faint shadow cast across us, I basked in the love and tenderness that he showed me in that week. Even his grumpiness, a symptom of his employment, remained hidden around me, and I wondered if this could have been the source of the shadow. He certainly didn’t complain about the warehouse anymore, and, when I asked, he never mentioned any problems, just what sort of things they unloaded and some of the more innocent stories that he overheard from his colleagues. “They sound like such characters,” I would say to him as he’d tell me about them.
“Oh, they are,” would be his usual response, a wink of the eye to illustrate his point.
Having felt so close to losing him, I felt so good now. It was as though our argument had been worth it, his criminal act of cheating the casino serving a purpose. In that week, I felt happier than I can ever remember. At home, I had the wonder of Josh looking after me, and at work my relationship with Karl was improving. The Miller case was moving slowly. The City’s Department of Buildings was obviously being paid off by Langley (or Andrew Kelly to be more accurate). They were dragging their heels, refusing to issue their paperwork on the building, citing certain by-laws that prevented them from having to do so. It meant that we couldn't pick apart their clearance of the building. We needed that paperwork to prove that a thorough examination of the property was never taken out and that the certificate of fitness for the building was, indeed, fraudulent. But every request we made was batted away by the Department of Buildings on some minor technicality.
All depositions had been giv
en, and the Department of Buildings’ Official Inspector had given a rather good performance on the stand, saying that he believed the building was sound and not a health risk. But without his paperwork, we only had his word. You wouldn't believe how many people swear on the Bible one second and then commit the worst types of perjury with their very next breath. You’d think they may as well have sworn on a copy of Dr. Seuss! Other people were brought in for the defense. Namely, scientists who’d apparently inspected the building themselves and countered the evidence of our own scientists. This had also led to a surprise. One of our main guys, who’d taken countless tests in the building and found it to be full of spores, was pulled apart on the witness stand when the defense began questioning him over a conviction for marijuana possession twenty-five years ago. Apparently, he’d been stripped of his license for twenty years. This, they stated when Karl had objected, meant that he had only been practicing professionally for five years and not the twenty-five he’d originally stated. They took him apart on the stand and made it look like his evidence was useless. Karl seethed with indignation that our guy hadn’t told him of the earlier conviction.
However, I still believed in justice, and with the weight of so many innocent people behind us—i.e. the tenants of the building—I truly believed that God would deliver us the correct final verdict. It would just take time. We first needed to get a look at those city papers, and the case was now caught in a never-ending merry-go-round of trying to obtain the legal right to view them.
Myself, my father and Karl were in my office going over certain parts of what we did have, trying to build a case for getting to those darn papers. It was getting late and, with a heavy heart, I realized that I’d be missing Josh before he went off to work, so I called him up to warn him that I wouldn't be home for dinner.
“I’ll leave your dinner in the oven,” he said over the phone.