by Harper West
She was the love of my life.
The picture was of us at a local pub. Nothing special, but I kept it framed because she looked so beautiful in it. I even remembered how her warm, white sweater felt against my body as I hugged her that night.
Liam walked in as soon as I went to pick it up.
“Ronan! The ol’ ball and chain.” He still did the college handshake, where he pulled his hands back and snapped his fingers.
“Did you forget to do somethin’ today?” I searched his face for a trace of guilt, something that made him think ‘oh crap,’ but of course, it never came. “A board meeting, perhaps?”
“Oh yeah, oops. Whatever. I doubt I missed anything important.” He plopped himself on the couch in my office, then stretched out his long legs and looked up at me. “Besides, some of those old guys don’t like me.”
I leaned against my desk and stared down at him. “Maybe because you don’t take this job seriously, Liam.”
He rolled his eyes and laughed. “Do you realize what I did for our company, Ronan? I pulled off one of the greatest publicity stunts of all time today, and all you can do is drone on and on about some lame-ass board meeting.”
I was getting annoyed at Liam, but then reminded myself that our clients actually liked that about him. He and I were polar opposites, that was for sure. “And what did you do now, Liam?”
“I did a Voiceover on one of our competitor’s commercials, you know McKinnon Media? I hate their stupid ass commercials, where they’re all like ‘We bring you the finest video programming guaranteed!’ Like, can’t they come up with somethin’ better?”
My mouth fell open as I thought about all of the things Liam could have done in that Voiceover ad, and whether or not legal would need to get involved.
“What did you do to it?” My voice boomed so loud that Liam’s face scrunched back.
“Have I ever done a publicity stunt that didn’t go over well with our clients, Ronan?”
I exhaled and sunk back against my desk.
Liam waved his hand in the air. “As I was saying, I recorded an audio, and it’s bout’ to be played.”
He reached for the remote and turned on the tv in my office. Both of us waited for the commercial break, and then Liam’s voice came on.
As the words ‘McKinnon Media’ flashed on the television screen and actors mouthed their lines, I could feel the attack coming. Liam directly attacked them for their poor customer service ratings and lackluster service. He wasn’t exactly wrong, either. McKinnon Media often had spotty service and long hold times.
I still couldn’t help but be irritated that he’d done such a publicity stunt, yet again. When the commercial was over, he turned the television off and smiled at me. “Well, what do ya think?”
“I think you were right, Liam.”
His smile grew more significant, and he jumped up, but I pushed him away before he could give me a hug. “What? No bro hug for your best mate? You just said I was right!”
“You were right in that the older guys on the board don’t like ya, and this is exactly why! Now listen, we have several more meetings this week, and I need to know that you’ll be in on them. I don’t care where ya are, but promise me…Liam…are you listenen’ to me?”
Liam was walking around my office, looking at my knick-knacks and rummaging through my bookcase. He picked up the picture of Erin and me, then looked at me. “Why is this here, Ronan?”
A wave of shame washed over me.
“You know why it’s there,” I said quietly.
“As a reminder that she put you through hell? Christ, Ronan. Did you forget about her cheating on you now?”
I shot him a stern look. “Of course not. I walked in on em’. You know that.”
I walked over and took the picture frame from him, wiping off his fingerprints while trying my best not to think of that night. It was pointless, though. Images of Erin and another man having sex in the coatroom, his body pushed up against her supple breasts while she moaned. Just thinking about it brought back all of those insecurities.
Liam shook his head. “She’s no good for you, man. Get rid of that picture. It only brings you pain, and you know it.”
I placed the picture frame back on the shelf, not yet ready to part with it. I knew that Liam meant well, but it just wasn’t time. “Can we get back to discussing work?”
He let out a sigh and sat back down on the couch.
“Just have legal deal with the commercial I did,” he said.
“They always do, but I was hopin’ this stunt wouldn’t be nearly as bad as your others.” I sighed as I turned back toward him.
He threw my basketball up in the air, catching it in his hands every time it fell down. “How many meetings do we have this week?”
I took a moment to look at my calendar, not wanting to give him the wrong number. “So far, we have nine meetings.”
He caught the ball and gawked at me. “Are you out of your fuckin’ mind, man? Nine? What on earth do we need to discuss nine times?”
I wanted to throw the basketball at his head. “Just promise me that you’ll attend at least half of them. Here, I’ll send the events to your calendar, so there’s no excuse. And for the love of God, please run all publicity stunts through either me or legal going forward. Understand?”
Liam didn’t respond, which wasn’t surprising.
“We haven’t gone out drinkin’ in a while,” he said, always changing the subject.
Drinking with Liam was fun, but I had to be the sober one. I couldn’t remember a night where he wasn’t so drunk that he passed out in some bar or in the backseat of my car.
“Work is hectic right now,” I replied.
“Just one? C’mon, you can get out early, right? Let’s go down to the pub and have some fun.”
I pushed the papers around on my desk. “We have to work tomorrow, Liam. This isn’t college, where you can get drunk at night and somehow still pass your final exam the next day. We’re adults. And don’t you go out drinkin’, either.”
He slapped his hand against the basketball. “Fine. Then what about tomorrow night? Yeah? Have a few pints?”
The last thing I wanted to do was go out drinking. Maybe it was just me getting older, but I’d much rather relax at home then go bar crawling and mingle with complete strangers. Although with Liam, nobody was a complete stranger. He was such a regular that pretty much everyone in town knew him.
“I can’t tomorrow night,” I lied.
I didn’t have any plans, but I also didn’t want to carry him around or wake up with a hangover on Saturday morning.
He gave me a knowing look. “That’s a full load of shite. What if I promise to attend all of the meetings next week? Then will ya go?”
I sat down at my desk and stared at him. “Will ya ever grow up, Liam? These board members, they’re onto ya, you know. And these publicity stunts are gonna have to stop. I shouldn’t have to go out drinkin’ just to get you to do yer job.”
Liam let out a sigh and stood up, clearly defeated. He went over and took the picture frame.
“I’m taking this out of yer office,” he said and put it under his left arm.
I stood up and grabbed it back, then put it in my desk drawer. “I’ll get rid o’it when I’m good and ready, Liam. You know she was the love o’my life. Why are ya so hell-bent on gettin’ me to give ‘er up now? Eh?”
He shrugged his shoulders and left my office. I breathed a sigh of relief as the door shut, mentally preparing myself to tell my secretary that my break was over. Before I did, however, I needed to look at Erin’s picture one last time.
Sweet Erin, I thought while running my hands up and down the glass. I often wondered if I’d ever find another woman like her. Even though she hurt me so badly, I still couldn’t forget all of the good times we had. She was my soul mate; of that I was sure.
I notified my secretary that I was back from my break, but instead of working I turned on the television and de
cided to relax a little bit more. It lasted a whole minute until the same commercial of McKinnon Media came on, blaring Liam’s dubbed voiceover.
“Are ya tired of lackluster service from your media provider? Wouldn’t you love to get a hold of someone right away? Then don’t bother with these guys!”
I turned the television off and chucked the remote on the couch.
Chapter 3
Liam
I sat across from one of our clients, Brian O’Toole. He and I went way back, to the very first days of Killigan-O’Leary Media. Unlike Ronan, he actually got a kick out of my antics and publicity stunts. In fact, it was one of the reasons he invested so much of his money in our company.
“You played well at the golf course,” Brian said to me while sipping his coffee. “But, I’ll get ya next time.”
I’d thought about letting him win, seeing as how he was such a good client, but my ego always got the best of me.
I offered him more coffee, but he declined and sat his mug down on my desk.
“The wife keeps tellin’ me to cut back. Says my blood pressure is too high.” He reached for a muffin and peeled back the wrapper with wide eyes. “Luckily, she doesn’t know about my sugar levels!”
“Then tell her that’s why you need to golf more,” I said as he devoured the blueberry muffin. “Golf has been proven to reduce stress levels.”
Both of us had a good laugh as he polished off his snack.
“Well, I suppose it’s time for me to be headin’ out now.” He stood up, and we shook hands. “Are we still on for Thursday mornin'?”
I looked at my schedule, saw that it had yet another board meeting, but decided to skip it. We simply couldn’t afford to lose him as a client.
“You betcha,” I said as we shook hands.
Ronan would just have to deal with it.
After he left, I went to meet Ronan for lunch at a local deli. It was tucked tightly in next to a small bookshop that had been around for ages. Even though the deli was also small, it was known for its pastrami sandwiches that visitors said were just like eating in New York City.
I couldn’t help but notice how much the town had changed over the years. Miles upon miles of land had grown where profitable businesses used to be. Even though Ireland was known for its breathtaking landscape, we still needed an economy to keep us afloat.
I walked into the deli and immediately spotted Ronan. He was seated way in the back, hunched over, and scrolling through his phone. I knew damn well that he wasn’t on social media, let alone trying to find a woman to have some fun with. Even on his lunch hour, Ronan was busy at work.
“When will ya learn to put that thing away and live in the moment?” I sat down across from him, and he rolled his eyes at me, pressing a few more buttons before putting the phone away. A cute waitress came over and handed me a menu.
“When my partner actually shows up for meetings instead of playing golf,” he said, taking a sip of his brandy.
“Hey, now, that was with a client, and you knew all about it!”
“You were supposed to reschedule for the meeting, remember?”
I shrugged my shoulders and looked over the menu, silently kicking myself for agreeing to play yet another round of golf with the same client that week. Ronan would be mad at me yet again, let alone the elderly board members.
“I can’t get over how empty this town is now,” I said. “Remember the steel plant and all of the mechanics? Now it’s nothing but farmland that needs to be farmed.”
“Well, there’s the O’Dreary farm up the road,” Ronan pointed out.
The waitress brought my usual Guinness over.
“But that’s it,” I said, taking a sip. “Somethin' needs to be done with all of this land. Christ, I’d love to see someone just take a lawnmower to it ya know?”
Ronan laughed. “Or have you buy it.”
I scoffed. “Excuse me?” “I heard it’s owned by a billionaire who doesn’t know what to do with it. Just think about it, man. You got the money, right? Why not invest in it and see what you can do?”
“Because that’s just it, ya mad man. What can I do with all of this land? Sit here at the deli every day, sipping my brandy and watching you flirt with anything that has a set of tits?”
The waitress returned, and my eyes immediately went to her luscious chest, proving Ronan’s point that I did have a thing for tits.
“I rest my case,” he said when she left.
We sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Maybe you could invest in a farm,” I said.
“And what do I know about farmin’?”
“Nothing, that’s why you have a farmer work the land. You’re just the landlord. Don’t you see it, man? You could charge him rent and make a huge profit. You’d be a fool not to do it.”
Ronan sat back and put his hand to his chin, and I could tell that he was at least thinking about it. “I’d need more than a farm to get me to buy it."
“Well, we could eat here for free and then read at the bookstore. Plus, there are already multiple shops on this strip payin' rent.”
He burst out laughing.
“Aye, so I’m buying the land so you can fill up on all the pastrami your cheap ass can eat? Is that it?”
I shook my head while laughing with him.
He nodded toward the door. “And how long has that bookstore even been around?”
I chuckled. “I’d say a good 40, maybe even 50 years. A long time.”
“I give it a year before yer so fat you can’t even walk into that little bookstore,” he said as we continued to laugh.
The waitress brought him another brandy, and I could tell that he was starting to really feel good.
“Just think about it,” I said. “It’d do ya good to venture outside of our business, ya know. And who knows? Maybe we’ll start another business right here on this land.”
Ronan
As I made my way back to the office, I kept thinking about what Liam had said. The man was nuts. Even though I had the money, I certainly didn’t want to just own a big piece of land.
My shoulder brushed into someone else. “Oh, excuse me. I’m so sorry.”
I didn’t get a good look at who I bumped into, my mind was all over the place. Between the brandy and Liam, I was having a hard time thinking straight. I put a breath mint into my mouth before walking into the office.
“You have a call on hold,” my secretary said as soon as I walked inside. “They wouldn’t say their name, sorry.”
I got comfortable in my chair and picked up the phone, curious as to who it might be.
“Ronan,” a female voice whispered, and my heart immediately sank.
It was Erin, my ex-girlfriend. The one I almost married. “What-I mean, um, Erin?”
She spent no time getting to the point. It was probably a wise decision since my first reaction was to slam the phone down and yank the cord from the wall. “I’m sorry to call after all this time, but I can’t stop thinking about you. And look, I am so, so sorry for what I put you through Ronan.”
At first, it tore me apart, but then I remembered all of the nights that I’d cried just as hard.
“You had sex with another man, and you have the audacity to call me at my job?” I said it quietly but firmly.
“I was wrong, and it’ll never happen again. Please. Don’t you ever think of me, too?”
I looked at the picture of us on my bookcase. We were so happy and in love. Even though I wanted to take her back, Liam's’ words kept echoing in my head.
She cheated on you, man. You saw it with your own eyes.
“Erin, I can’t unsee the image of you two together. Do you know how much you broke my heart that night? And why would you think after all this time you could call me up and put this on me?”
“I know, it’s just that every night I go to bed thinking of you and-“
“No,” I said. “You don’t get to do this, Erin. You don’t get to just come back into my life,
crying into the phone and expecting everything to work out. I could never trust you again. Ever.”
She continued crying while trying to catch her breath. I could hear the pain in her voice, and it tore me up inside because I so desperately had wanted things to work out between us.
“It’s not a matter of whether or not I love you, because we both know that I do. Do me a favor?” There was a long pause before she replied.
“Anything, Ronan. I’d do anything for you.”
“The next guy you go out with, don’t have sex with one of his competitors.” I slammed the phone down.
I was proud of myself for letting her have it.
She deserved it.
Yet deep down inside, I was falling apart. Erin and I were supposed to get married, have children, and grow old together.
Even though it had been a painful conversation, it reminded me as to why I’d stayed single for so long. Once you get cheated on, especially where you walk in on the person doing it, a large wall goes up around your heart, and you learn to be happy on your own.
Between the brandy and Erin, I decided to call it a day and head home.
“If anyone needs me, tell them to call my cell. And if that woman ever calls here again,” I said to my secretary, “tell her that I said to never call again. In fact, why don’t you contact our information technology department and have them block the number she called on.”
My secretary looked a bit taken aback, but nodded and immediately picked up her phone.
I rode home in silence, my mind too clouded to strike up a conversation with my driver like I usually did. As soon as I got home to my condominium, I put on some classical music and poured myself another brandy. I absolutely loved my condo, with its dark wood and expensive furniture. It had come with a hefty price tag, but nothing that I couldn’t afford. It was worth every penny, too, especially since the walls were soundproof.
It gloriously meant that I couldn’t hear any of my neighbors.
I changed into a pair of black satin pajamas, slid into my Versace slippers, and sat down on my Desmond Wingback armchair that faced my floor-to-ceiling windows.
I thought about my life up until that point. Everything Liam and I had been through, my relationship with Erin, and even the conversation at the deli. The thought of owning a small hub of old shops and enormous, sprawling land titillated my curiosity, but only for a second.