by Tia Siren
In less than a year, Mason’s company, York Technologies, had skyrocketed. He’d released his first prototype just six months after opening, and it was snatched up by every major cell phone company in the world. He had brought state-of-the-art technology to consumers and priced it to the sellers at a level that would make it affordable for everyone. His profits shot through the roof almost overnight, and he had been named one of Time Magazine’s people of the year. It was insane the career and success he had built for himself in such a short amount of time. He was hands-on at every step, knowing every employee’s name and making sure to be in on every project they covered. The press was all over him as usual, but now it was for positive reasons.
Sure, there were still random tabloid stories trying to drum up drama, but none of it was true, and with all the positive press, it was really easy to ignore. He had been called an “Innovator for The Times,” “The Next Genius in Technology,” and “One of the Best Companies to Work For,” by numerous media outlets. All I could do was sit back and watch him go, though he held my hand every step of the way. I was so excited for him, so proud of everything he had achieved. Our life had turned into what we had wanted it to be before we even had the chance to take a breath.
As soon as his first prototype exploded on the market, he was inundated with contracts from different companies. His business grew so fast, he could hardly keep up. He paid off the original building he started out with and opened a second one in Manhattan, which happened to face his father’s hotel. He gave that office to John and took the other side, not wanting to stare at his father every day during work. The old building was turned into admin offices, and the new building was secured with every piece of technological security you could imagine. The company was enormous, and business leaders all over the world were baffled by his growth and success.
Even through all of that, with everyone wanting his time, praising his work, and putting Mason in the light, he never floated off. His feet always stayed firmly planted on the ground, and he remembered that speech he gave the first day he opened the doors of his company. He had the speech framed, and it hung in our living room as a reminder of the trials and tribulations he had endured to get to where he was now. He never wanted to sit in the past, but he finally realized it was important to remember the lessons he had learned from it. He had created several different nonprofit organizations and donating heavily to others. He was the kind of man I hoped our future children would emulate.
His own father had stayed away, never once contacting him for anything. The only time he saw him was when he had gone with his mother to sign the divorce papers. His father had agreed to every single demand his mother made, and even his lawyer looked baffled that he didn’t fight back. He sold off a large portion of the company, and as Mason’s mother had promised, she gave it to my parents. They didn’t want to accept it at first, but it was theirs, and they knew it. The rest of Mr. York’s company began to fold almost instantly, being unstable from the rush he put on selling off the other parts. It was obvious he wanted to get out of that situation as fast as he could.
He’d immediately stopped his overseas dealings, assuming I had evidence on that as well, which I didn’t. That part was really a bluff. He closed down the resorts in the Cayman Islands and in Jamaica and folded his company to just one standing building, the hotel in New York City. He had taken over the penthouse suite during the divorce, leaving the house to Mason’s mother. Mason thought it was funny that the place where he’d lived when he was trying to make a name for himself ultimately became his father’s home. It was bittersweet for Mason, and I knew somewhere deep down, he still hoped his father would pull himself out.
Mr. York had taken the money from the sales of his other assets and put it into a new hotel line. They had luxury-based condos overlooking different cities. Three were being built and two were already in place, but he decided not to build in New York. From everything I read, his businesses were completely legit this time, and I hoped that meant he’d learned his lesson from the last time around. Of course, I would never be sure of that, and I was more than happy about that fact. He kept to himself while building his second empire, and the condos were already pulling in a considerable profit for him. I wouldn’t begrudge him that. He had started over like the rest of us, and the only thing I focused on at that point was Mason and our future together.
Right then, Mason walked in the door and smiled at me.
“You ready? We have dinner reservations in twenty minutes,” he said, taking my hand. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic was horrendous.”
“It’s all right,” I said, smiling. “I’m just happy to see you. Let’s go.”
I smiled as I walked out onto the street to the car parked out front. We now had our own fleet of cars to chauffeur us wherever we wanted to go. And to think I had given him a hard time about that before. We headed out to my favorite Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, the place he’d taken me on our first real date after settling everything with his father. The place was empty except for the staff, and I looked up at him in confusion.
“I rented out the whole restaurant,” he said.
“Wow. You’re going all-out for nine months.”
“It’s more than that,” he said, walking me over to the table covered in rose petals.
“What do you mean?” I stopped and turned to him.
“Ava,” he said, taking my hands, “you are the most amazing woman I have ever met. You have given me something that no one else ever could have, a sense of my own self. I grew because of you. I changed because of you. Everything I have accomplished is because you were there pushing me every step, even when you didn’t know you were. There is a light inside you that everyone on the outside can see. It draws me to you like a magnet, and it has been that way since we were little kids. We spent so many days apart from each other, and I never want that to happen again.”
“Me either, “I said, gasping as he lowered himself down onto one knee.
“Ava, I don’t want to ever be without you.” He pulled out a little black box. “Will you please make me the happiest man in the world and be my wife?”
“Oh my god.” I put my hands up to my face. “Yes. Oh, Mason, yes. Of course I will.”
He opened up the box and pulled out a huge, sparkling diamond ring and slipped it onto my finger. The staff gathered around and clapped as he stood up and pulled me in close to him. He looked deeply into my eyes and brushed the hair off my cheek.
“I love you, Ava,” he said. “I always have, and I always will.”
A tear fell down my cheek as he leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine. It was the happiest I had ever been in my entire life. Mason was the man of my dreams, and now I was going to marry him and one day start a family. It was everything I had ever wanted, even when it was hard for me to see it. He pulled back and smiled, guiding me over to the table and sitting down. He grabbed my hands and beamed at me as the staff poured glasses of champagne and brought out the appetizers.
“Are you happy?” he asked.
“I’m more than happy,” I replied. “And I sure am glad I answered the door in Los Angeles.”
“I’m sure glad you were lying on that mattress that day. I need to send your agent a gift.” He laughed. “We can officially thank your modeling career for bringing us together. If you hadn’t been modeling in that store that day, we would have never crossed paths, or at least not until you unleashed your legal fury on us.”
“I still got to do it, though, and it was worth every penny of my education.”
“We have one more thing to do,” he said, pulling out his cell phone and setting it on the table.
He pressed send and looked up at me and smiled, listening to it as it rang. I sat there sipping my champagne, not really sure what he was doing. Then I heard a familiar voice.
“Hey,” my mother said.
“Mom,” I said, surprised.
“Your father and Mason’s mom are here too,” she said.
“She said yes,” Mason shouted.
Everyone cheered, giving their congratulations, and, of course, there were tears from our mothers. I smiled and laughed, hearing the excitement in their voices. I never thought I would hear that from them, let alone that they would be there drinking celebratory champagne with Mason’s mother. It was a really good feeling knowing we had the support of the people we loved. It made the whole event that much more special.
When we got off the phone with them, we ate dinner and drank champagne, talking about our plans for the wedding. We both wanted to get married somewhere outdoors, somewhere exotic, and make sure all the people we loved the most were there to share in our happiness. I couldn’t help feeling overwhelmed by the love and excitement running through me. I never thought, not in a million years, that this would happen for me. I thought my destiny had been cemented in stone. I learned very quickly that love did really conquer all and that even someone like me could have the happily ever after that dreams were made of.
***
END OF THE FIRST STORY
First Everything
She was my best friend, my first love, my first everything.
And then I let her go.
I won’t make the same mistake twice.
You know what they say.
If you love someone, set them free. If they love you, they’ll always come back to you.
Bailey returned for her father’s funeral.
One look at her gorgeous curves and my whole body trembles with the memory of hers underneath mine.
I’ve only got a few days to convince her to stay.
I’ll kiss her sweet lips.
Touch her secret spots.
Make her moan with the pleasure only I can give her.
She needs me.
I can make her whole.
We should be together.
Forever.
Chapter 1
Darren
The week usually felt long, but once Friday rolled in, it helped make the grind all worth it. When I worked, I worked very hard; and, when I didn’t work, I didn’t work very hard.
I worked at Mel’s Air Conditioning & Heat, one of the top A/C companies in northwestern Georgia. I’d been working there for nearly three years, and business was never slow.
I lived in a small town called Rome. The springs and summers were hot, and fall and winter brought the cold. It didn’t snow as often as it did when I was growing up in Rome, but there was consistently a need for our services. I worked a full forty hours every week, and I was always given major holidays off.
Sometimes there was an emergency, but rarely did it require Mel to call me in. He usually saved the emergency calls for Garrett Newton, my best friend and co-worker.
Garrett started working at Mel’s only a couple of weeks before I did, and he insisted that I join up so that we could work together and hang out. We usually worked the same days and hours, and we generally chilled together on the weekends. We crashed at each other’s places constantly, and we often found trouble together.
On one particular Friday, we were especially eager to go out and do something. I wasn’t sure what Garrett had in mind, but we both agreed we wanted to do something besides hang and play video games.
“It’s almost six,” Garrett mentioned as we unloaded the work truck.
“About damn time,” I replied.
“Some weeks really fly by,” said Garrett. “This wasn’t one of them.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I agree.”
“Friday night,” he said. “We getting fucked up or what?”
“Define ‘fucked up.’”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I was thinking we’d go out for drinks and hopefully meet some girls willing to trade free drinks for sex.”
“Then we probably want to go to Chelsea’s,” I said. Chelsea’s was a local bar that we liked going to on weekends that had incredible drink specials and many beautiful women.
“All right, then. We’re going out for drinks tonight,” said Garrett. “I’ll buy the first round.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Garrett and I took turns driving us to work each morning, and today, it was my turn. We stopped work right at six, got in my ’10 Ford Focus and hit the road.
“You workin’ tomorrow?” Garrett asked.
“Nah, he’s having me work long on Monday,” I answered.
“You’ll probably make overtime next week,” he said.
“I should be coming in right at forty,” I said. “I wish I was making overtime. I need to have a savings account again.”
Over the last three years, I’d made some extravagant purchases that emptied out most of my bank accounts. I bought my Focus with cash so I wouldn’t have to pay ungodly amounts of interest over a chunk of my life. Also, I’d loaned a lot of money to Garrett over the past few years for various things. He wasn’t in a rush to repay, and I wasn’t in a rush to collect. And, I bought a house making a significant down payment. Even though I was taking home good paychecks and getting full-time hours, my bank accounts told the world that I was struggling and in trouble.
There was never much traffic in Rome, but there was some kind of holdup on one of the main train tracks in town. While we waited, I turned on the radio, and Garrett smoked a cigarette.
“I have to get some tonight, man,” said Garrett. “It’s been far too long.”
I laughed. “It’s been three weeks. You can’t function without sex for only a few weeks?”
“You’re one to talk,” he said. “You were bitching and complaining just last week about how you needed some pussy.”
“It’s been three months since I’ve gotten laid. I have the right to complain.”
“Whose fault is it that?” he asked.
“Hey. Believe it or not, I do have some standards, okay? Some of these girls around here have slept with damn near every man in Georgia. You have to be careful.”
As we continued our drive quietly, eventually the radio broke our silence.
“WCHR in Atlanta,” said the radio DJ. “I’ve been playing this song on repeat lately. It’s a good one. She’s a new name in the mainstream, but she’s quite familiar throughout our neck of the woods! This is Bailey Wright, and this is her latest song. It’s called ‘Where Are You Now.’”
My heart dropped at the sound of her name, and I was unable to listen to her song. Before she could sing the first lyric, I changed the station.
Garrett gave me a knowing smirk. “Not in the mood to hear Bailey’s new song?”
“Not even a little,” I said.
I expected him to continue with some snide quips, but he left it alone. He knew just how familiar I was with Bailey Wright and didn’t want to upset me.
Bailey was a rising star, but I knew her before she started becoming famous. Once she left Rome for Memphis, I made it a mission to forget all about her. Even after six years, it was still a regular challenge.
Once Garrett and I arrived at Chelsea’s, we quickly found our usual seats. Gina, the bartender, gave us our usual drinks with an additional free shot of whiskey.
Before I could drink my whiskey, a man walked into the bar and sat a few seats away from us. He didn’t notice me when he entered, otherwise, he would have sat right beside me. This man was Wayne Wright: Bailey’s father.
Garrett laughed upon recognizing Wayne. “Get the hell outta here. Darren, you see who that is?”
I stared down at my drink, frowning. “Of course, I do. What are the odds of me running into Bailey’s father right after one of Bailey’s songs starts playin’ on the radio?”
“Pretty good, actually,” said Garrett. “Rome ain’t that big.”
I downed my shot, trying to avoid looking in Wayne’s direction. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to speak to him, and I wasn’t harboring any negativity toward him. But I knew he would bring up his daughter, and simply hearing her name over the radio was enough to floor me.
But, Wayne eventually noti
ced me. We both looked at each other for a few seconds before he stood up from his seat, beaming.
“Darren Holt!” Wayne said.
“Mr. Wright,” I said as I stood up from my seat to shake his hand.
“How’ve you been, son?”
“Can’t complain,” I replied. “You remember Garrett Newton?”
“Sure, I do!” said Wayne as he shook Garrett’s hand.
“Nice to see you again, Mr. Wright,” Garrett said.
“Please, you’re not boys anymore. Call me Wayne.”
Wayne sat down beside me with his tall glass of beer.
“I haven’t seen you around here in months,” Wayne said. “What have you guys been up to lately?”
“Working,” I answered. “It’s been a busy year.”
“I believe that,” said Wayne. “The summers are gettin’ hotter, and the winters are gettin’ colder. I’ve been meaning to have my heat looked at for years. Once I really need it, it’s damned near useless.”
“I’ll check it out for you sometime if you’d like,” I said.
“That’d be great,” he said. “Which one of you’s the better A/C man?”
“Me,” said Garrett quickly.
“I’ll let him think that,” I retorted.
Wayne laughed, ushering over Gina. “I’d like another for me, and why don’t you get these boys whatever they want.”
“Wayne, that’s not necessary,” I told him.
“Nonsense,” he dismissed. “You’ve always been such a good kid. Don’t think anything about it.”
“Thanks, Mr. Wright,” said Garrett. “Er—I mean, Wayne.”
Wayne looked at Garrett. “I can’t remember, did you go to school with Darren and Bradley?”
“We went to the same school, but I graduated a couple years before they did,” he answered.
Gina brought Wayne over another beer and Garrett and me another shot of whiskey.
We all sat quietly and drank our booze, casually watching the game that was on. It was like we were all wondering who would bring Bailey up first.
