by Sienna Blake
I could see the little flickers of worry on everyone's faces. Harry often ducked his head into my office to find me staring out over the mountains past the city instead of editing the bank memo he’d sent two hours ago.
"You okay, Mr O'Sullivan?"
"Never better," I'd say, grinning stupidly at the majestic peaks.
If only he'd known that I was content to simply watch the sun set behind them for the rest of the day. The board in Dublin was wondering if the altitude was getting to me; Caroline had already sent several articles about the importance of staying hydrated in arid environments.
For seemingly the first time in my life, my work was terribly average. There would be no awards, no commendations, no promotions based on what I did that week. And for seemingly the first time in my life, I didn't see what was so great about all that anyway.
Because I had Abbi. And I simply couldn't get enough of her.
During conference calls with Dublin in the boardroom, I always made sure she sat next to me. The voices of old, boring men would fade away as my foot found hers under the table. I'd watch a little grin play at the corner of her sweet, pink lips as she discreetly flipped the page of her report and nodded along with whoever the fuck was talking.
"And you, Mr O'Sullivan?" I heard someone say during a conference call Tuesday morning. "What do you think, Mr O'Sullivan?"
What do I think? I ran my shoe up Abbi’s leg under the table and hid a smile at the blush that spread across her cheek. I thought I'd very much like to excuse myself and Ms Miller and find the nearest supply closet. Or I could lay Ms Miller down right there on the long mahogany table, strip her and kiss across every inch of her. I thought that was far more important than the merging of two international law firms.
Abbi's eyes darted to mine when I'd remained silent for too long, fingers drumming the edge of the table. She sucked in a startled breath at the arousal in my eyes.
"Um, Mr O'Sullivan," she stammered, turning toward the screen at the end of the room. "That time frame works for Mr O'Sullivan, sir."
Afterwards, we'd barricaded ourselves in my office for thirty minutes to make out.
"Um, is that lipstick on your shirt?" Harry had asked me later that day when we met in his office, leaning forward and adjusting his glasses.
I pulled at my collar and found the traces of Abbi's lipstick there on my white shirt.
"Cut myself shaving," I said quickly.
It wasn't the best lie, because I hadn't shaved in days. I just hadn't been able to justify the time when those precious moments could be spent with Abbi or with Zara.
I wasn't playing it smart. I was barely even trying to hide my desire for Abbi. I was being reckless and stupid and wild and I loved it. I was pushing back meetings to sit at the edge of Abbi's desk and just listen to her talk. I was making important industry leaders wait in the lobby so I could personally drive Zara to school. I was cutting calls short every time Abbi walked into my office, because nothing seemed as important as simply telling her “hello”.
I sat in the copy room on the counter next to the big copy machine and chatted with Abbi as she did her work. Instead of having her pick up my salads, we went out to lunch together, often extending the meal with dessert and wine and more dessert. We left at absurdly early hours so we could spend time with Zara and try to help her with her homework (she was sweet enough to pretend she needed it).
I was throwing my whole world upside down, jeopardising the future of my career, destroying a ruthless and cutthroat reputation I'd spent years tirelessly building. I was throwing it all away like a useless penny into a wishing well. I was never going to see it again and it would be foolish to think some silly wish could come true.
But I was a fool.
For that week I was the biggest fool the world had ever seen.
"Any plans for the long weekend, Mr O'Sullivan?" Abbi asked as we stood side by side in front of the elevators Friday afternoon.
I was supposed to be the one who was cool, calm, collected, but it turned out Abbi was the one who could play her part more discreetly than I. I'd become the one who leapt off cliffs, got on buses with no destination, dragged a total stranger to a Celtic festival in the mountains after a drunken night.
"Um, I'm not sure," I said as the doors of the elevator parted and we stepped inside. "Probably just catch up on some work that needs to be done and—"
The doors closed and I grabbed the back of Abbi’s neck and crashed my lips to hers. She stumbled back, pulling me with her, till her shoulders hit the wall of the elevator. As I kissed her, I waved my arm out, hitting as many floor numbers as possible.
Abbi pulled my face away from hers with her hands on my cheeks.
"You know that means the doors are going to open?" she laughed.
"Damn," I said, dragging a hand over my face. "I was trying to make it last longer."
"We can't make out in case someone’s there when the doors open."
I grinned down at her wickedly. "Can't we?"
A matching grin pulled at her lips. "It's like make-out Russian roulette," she said, biting her lower lip.
"Should we play?" I whispered.
Her eyes flashed. "Could be dangerous."
I smiled devilishly. "I do hope so."
Without another word, Abbi wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me tight to her body. My fingers slipped into her hair and we kissed as the elevator dinged. The doors parted and no one stepped inside.
"One chamber's empty," Abbi whispered against my mouth before nipping at my bottom lip.
The danger of my behaviour over the past week seemed to dwarf in comparison to the danger of Abbi's pink lips there in the elevator. The risk of jeopardising my job, my career, my reputation became child's play to our deadly little game. Everything seemed to be on the line, but it wasn't the everything I thought I knew: it wasn't anything I could put a price tag on or put in my portfolio or hang on a wall of accolades.
Everything became her. And this silly little game suddenly meant the world.
I kissed her softly this time as we fell together. The doors parted again though I barely heard the metallic noise over the blood rushing in my ears. Abbi's pointer finger under my chin nudged my face away from hers.
"Click," she whispered, her hand in the shape of a pistol.
The elevator doors slid shut as our eyes duelled: each daring the other to flinch, each challenging the other to back down, each knowing there was no way in hell that was going to happen.
I grabbed the back of Abbi's neck and pulled her toward me, crashing my lips into hers. Her fingers gripped the sleeves of my suit jacket and I followed the delicious curve of her figure-hugging pencil skirt. The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Abbi instinctively stepped back away from me as a group of three crowded in.
She wiped the back of her hand over her lips and eyed me as she straightened her blouse.
"Guess we lost," she whispered with a small smile.
I turned to face the door like everyone else in the now silent elevator as we descended toward the lobby. But that wasn't right, I thought as I stared at my indistinct refection in the polished silver. When you lose Russian roulette, you don’t go on living. When you lose Russian roulette, you lose your life. The bullet doesn't disappear, it doesn't fall with a slight clatter at your feet. It destroys everything.
I started this game with Abbi. I decided to play. And I was willing to blow up everything. For her.
Without warning, I turned to Abbi, catching her surprised gasp between my lips as I backed her against the wall. I kissed her, because I'd lost.
And I wanted to lose every day of my life with her.
Michael
If someone showed me a picture of the three of us the way were on the couch late that evening a month ago, I wouldn't have believed that it was me. I'd swear it was altered or photoshopped or doctored in some way. I'd insist that the man with the contented, simple smile with his cheek resting on the golden hair of the w
oman next to him as he looked down at the sleeping child in her lap was someone else, admittedly someone who looked a lot like me. But it couldn't have been me. A faded old couch, a greasy pizza box on a second-hand coffee table, a night in watching a silly old movie with the windows open and the moths gathering round the porch light—none of that was a part of the life I knew. It would have been as foreign to me as a Coors Light.
And yet as Abbi and I sat in silence together, doing absolutely nothing but watching the steady rise and fall of Zara's shoulders as she slept and the flutter of her long blonde eyelashes that danced in her dreams like stalks of wheat, I felt completely in place. My arm seemed designed to fit perfectly around Abbi's narrow shoulders. My fingers seemed to be just the right size to wrap around her arm. The side of my body was like a puzzle piece and Abbi's hip and waist were the only match. I breathed when she breathed and there was no need to do anything else at all.
The television across from us in the living room had been frozen at the end of the credits for over twenty minutes, but neither Abbi nor I moved to switch it off or carry Zara to bed.
"Michael?"
Abbi's soft voice stirred me. I lifted my cheek from the top of her head to blink almost sleepily at her. "Hmm?"
Abbi's face was angelic in the warm light of the lamps, her cheeks pink from the warmth, her hair ruffled from the back of the couch.
"I was wondering something," she said.
"What's that?"
Abbi looked away from me to brush a strand of hair from Zara's face. She laid the back of her hand tenderly on her cheek and then glanced up at me through those long eyelashes.
"Why did you stay?"
I resisted the urge to fidget uncomfortably. I'd been gliding across the surface of the clear, cool pool as if on the wings of a dragonfly. But Abbi was calling me deeper. If we were to be anything, I knew I'd have to answer her. I'd have to dive in. I'd have to hold my breath and trust she was waiting for me at the bottom with life-giving air.
Ignoring the jolting of my heart, I told her in a quiet voice, partly to not wake Zara and partly because I didn't trust the strength of my voice to speak any louder, "I remembered my father leaving."
Abbi's face betrayed surprise, but she didn't ask me for more. She was waiting. Waiting in the depths. It was up to me whether to swim, to kick, to fight my way to her.
"He left when I was young," I said next.
Abbi's hazel eyes watched me with a gentle patience. I wondered if she could see how difficult it was for me to speak. I wondered if she could see that it felt like I was relearning how to move my lips, how to form words, how to make sound. I wondered if she could see that this was unnatural for me, uncomfortable, strange, difficult.
I thought maybe she could, because she silently slipped her fingers between mine and traced slow circles with her thumb along the side of my hand.
I sucked in a shuddering breath and dived deeper.
"I didn't want Zara to be left with that memory," I continued, glancing down at my daughter who was still sleeping soundly. "With that hole, with those questions."
When I looked back at Abbi's eyes, she searched mine for meaning. I stared down at her fingers intertwined with mine, intertwined like the handfasting ribbons around our wrists all those years ago.
"We were dirt poor back then," I whispered. "Struggling to make ends meet day after day. I guess my father thought he could do better. I guess he thought he could do better without us. He left with his suit and tie and not a single glance back over his shoulder."
Abbi gave my hand a gentle squeeze as I continued to stare down at my lap.
"You think you'll move on from it, but it's not that simple," I said. "I think I've been asking myself those questions he left me with all my life: why wasn't I enough? What could I do to be enough? Would he love me, would he stay if I was better, if I was just…more?"
I glanced up at Abbi and smiled a little sadly.
"I used to imagine running into him one day, on the street maybe or in a restaurant or at a bar." I sighed and laughed a little at myself while I dragged a hand over my face. "No, it's so fucking stupid."
"Tell me," Abbi prodded gently.
I felt my cheeks warming, but the warmth in her eyes seemed to tell me without a word that there was nothing to be embarrassed about. And I believed her.
After a moment of gathering up some courage, I admitted to her, "It's dumb, but I used to imagine him seeing me in one of my expensive suits, getting out of one of my high-end cars, footing the bill for a table of wealthy industry leaders at a Michelin star restaurant. I used to play how it'd go in his head. Sometimes he'd recognise me and smile and just nod and that would be enough. Sometimes he'd have a drink with me and I would see that he was proud, that I was finally enough. Sometimes I'd dare to imagine him as a part of my life, the thing I'd wanted ever since he walked out that door."
I let out a shaky sigh and smiled. "Stupid, huh?"
Abbi shook her head. "No," she whispered. "That's not stupid at all."
She nestled in again close to my side, and I pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. It was more comfort than any words ever could be—the warmth of her body, the strength of her steadily beating heart.
"He must be doing alright for himself out there," I said. "Good enough not to come back, at least."
"You haven't heard from him?" Abbi asked, palm resting flat against my chest.
Her hand rose and fell as I laughed.
"It's funny, actually," I told her while playing with her hair. "Last I heard he was in Albuquerque. I almost considered flying over there before heading to Denver for the merger, but then I decided that was ridiculous."
Abbi squirmed out of my arm and nearly awoke Zara, leaning away from me to get a full look at me face. Her eyes were wide and bright. "We should go."
I was startled by the force of her words. "What? Go where?"
"To Albuquerque."
I laughed, almost relieved. “You’re cute.”
"I'm not joking."
Her words cut my laughter off like a guillotine.
"What?" I finally managed. I looked desperately around the room as if there was an explanation for her sudden bout of madness or a television crew from some '90s prank show hiding behind the bookshelf. "You're kidding."
Abbi was obviously trying hard to keep her voice quiet for Zara's sake as she loudly whispered, "Why not? We have the time. We have a car. Zara can see the parks for her big school project."
"But we didn't plan anything…" I protested lamely. "And it's already half past ten."
"So?"
I almost threw my hands up in the air in disbelief. I'd almost forgotten how stubborn Abbi could be.
"Abbi, we don't even know how long it takes to get to any of these places!"
"We'll figure it out on the road."
Abbi's eyes sparkled as I stared at her with eyebrows halfway up my forehead.
"Figure it out on the road? Abbi, that's—that's—"
I shook my head as my words came out in nothing but confused stammers. How was I supposed to explain to her that I just didn't do things like this? How was I going to tell her that I only lived my life in an ordered, scheduled, controlled way—a way I'd spent the better part of two decades telling myself was the best way to live? How was I expected to politely tell her that she was throwing a grenade into the deep, dark heart of everything I'd held tight?
And how was I to reconcile the fact that this both terrified me and exhilarated me at the same time? It was as if she was offering her hand out to me, but to reach it I had to step out from the ledge into a bottomless ravine.
In the end there was no other word for what Abbi was making me feel, simply no other word.
So I grabbed each side of her face with my hands and felt the radiating heat of that wildfire burning through my palms.
"Abbi, this is crazy," I whispered.
The grin that tugged up the corner of Abbi's sweet pink lips was mischievous and rec
kless, calling for me like a siren. She moved her face even closer to mine so I could practically see the embers leaping in her irises.
"Exactly."
Abbi
Before Michael could argue with me or find some rational, logical, practical reason why it really was crazy to leave for a long weekend road trip with no planning at all, I gently shook Zara’s shoulders. She blinked blearily and squinted up at Michael and me.
"Hey," I whispered excitedly, "what do you think about doing a little research for your national parks project?"
I watched the confusion on Zara's face as she looked to the inky night sky outside the open windows and then the clock on the wall above the television.
"Now?"
I nodded.
"But the library is closed," she said, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hands.
I couldn't help the grin that played at my lips.
"Well, I think you need a little more hands-on research than just what you can find in a book," I said. "Don't you?"
Zara's brows knitted together just the way Michael's did when he was faced with an equation he couldn't find the solution to right away.
"Hands-on?"
She looked to Michael, who in turn looked to me. I saw the excitement he was holding back. He was like a bird waiting at an open cage door to fly; there was no reason why he shouldn't. And yet he waited, body practically sparking with energy about to burst forth.
"Are we doing this?" he asked me, a grin already playing at his lips. "Are we really doing this?"
I wanted to see Michael fly, to soar high, to realise he was the only thing keeping himself from the freedom of the wide, bright blue sky.
"Fuck, yes!"
I immediately clasped a hand over my mouth at remembering that Zara was there.
"I mean, fudge yes," I said, trying to hold back a giddy giggle. "We’re doing this!"
Zara sat up grumpily and crossed her arms over her chest with a disapproving grunt.
"Doing what?" she complained. "You two aren't saying anything."
