That night, James arrived home from work and was in his bedroom changing into more comfortable clothes when he noticed that his identification chain from work was missing.
"It could have fell off when I was stocking that shelf," James mumbled, as he scratched his head, and then looked at his watch. "Let me go see if Ryan is still there."
As James headed down the stairs to head back to the store, the faint voice of his mother in the living room attracted his attention. There seemed to be a subtle hint of anger in her voice. James stood behind the wall by the living room so he could hear what his mother was saying.
Vivian put her hands on her hips as she continued to listen to the rambling on the other end of the phone. "Listen, Bob, I gave them your number and they could care less!"
"Somehow I doubt that, Vivian," Bob sneered. "I'll just call them, myself."
"Don't you dare," Vivian warned him. "I gave both Kevin and James your phone number, and they looked at it and laughed. They don't care where you are!"
"I bet you burned that paper the same day you wrote it down," Bob accused her. "That is, if you even wrote it down."
"I wrote it down," Vivian defended. "Do you want me to mail it to you as proof?" she asked. "Oh, that's right, you're not telling me where you are."
"Just see to it that they call me!" Bob demanded.
"And if they don't call you, what are you going to do, Bob?" Vivian asked. "Hunt them down?"
"Just watch your step, Vivian," Bob warned her. "I gave you that number a year ago and you're not complying."
"You gave it to me no more than a few weeks ago," Vivian reminded him. "You've always been one to exaggerate."
"This conversation is over," Bob said.
"Just like your relationship with Kevin and James," Vivian retorted, slamming the phone down. Vivian pulled the pad out from the bottom drawer and looked at the number again, when an arm came up from behind and grabbed the pad from her grasp. "James!" Vivian gasped, as she turned around.
"Mother," James said in an extremely angry tone.
"How long were you standing there?" Vivian asked.
"Does it matter?" James asked her. "Kevin and I asked you repeatedly if Dad has been in contact and you made it out to look like he doesn't give a damn about us."
"He doesn't!" Vivian yelled.
"Like hell!" James shouted, as he pointed to the pad. "He gave you this number right after he left, and you never showed it to us. You didn't think twice about keeping us in the dark!"
"I was going to tell you this evening," Vivian told him, trying to calm him down.
"Lies," James simply said, shaking his head. "All of it," he said. "How could you do that to us?"
Vivian began to tear up, as she knew there was no way out of this. "I just wanted to protect you."
James shook his head again. "You kept this number from us because you were selfish!" James yelled. "To think, I agreed to stay in this house while you were 'dealing' with this," he muttered in disgust, flipping the pad across the room, before running up the stairs.
"Get back here!" Vivian yelled, sobbing uncontrollably. "Get back here!" She screamed again, walking over to the spot where the pad landed, when the doorbell rang. Vivian walked over and opened the door. "What do you want?" she asked the person standing on the other side.
"Did I come at a bad time?" the person asked.
"Just who are you and what do you want?" Vivian asked, extremely agitated.
"I'm Ryan and I work with James," Ryan explained. "He left his ID chain at work, I just wanted to drop it off."
Vivian grabbed the ID chain. "You served your purpose, Ryan," she said, as she shut the door in his face.
"Goodbye," James walked down the stairs carrying two duffel bags as he eyed his ID chain in his mothers hands. "That's mine, did you plan to hide that from me like everything else?"
"Of course not!" Vivian yelled. "Where are you going?!"
"That doesn't matter," James answered, as he made his way out the door.
"Oh, James," Vivian whispered, as she put her hand on the door, and then turned around to look at her empty surroundings.
At her penthouse, Georgia poured herself a hot cup of coffee as she walked back to the dining room table where she had a stack of papers on it. "I have to fax this report out tomorrow," she said, as she took a piece of paper off the stack and glanced it over before putting her signature on the bottom. She took another paper off the high stack and widened her eyes. "Oh, great... this should have been out today!"
Georgia stood up and was about to call her father back in Saint Paul when the doorbell rang. "Who could this be?" Georgia asked out loud, making sure her knot was securely in place on her silk nightgown as she walked over to the door. "James, it's nearly 10:30," Georgia said, as James walked in.
"I just had to see you before I went over to Kevin's," James began. "I have to spend the night there."
"Why aren't you at Vivian's?" Georgia wanted to know.
"Because she kept something from Kevin and I regarding our father," James angrily said, as he picked up the vase on the table.
"James!" Georgia called out, as she ran over to him. "Take it easy, take it easy," she said in a relaxing tone, taking the vase from his hands and setting it gently down on the table. "Sit down and tell me what happened."
"I can't sit," James told her. "I can't even be here," he said, as he started for the door.
Georgia grabbed his arm and pulled him back. "I don't know what this is about, but I know you didn't come here at 10:30 to destroy my vase!"
James took a deep breath as he made eye contact with Georgia. "My mother said for the longest time that my father has never once been in contact with us, but he gave her his contact number a while ago, and she didn't even tell us. All she did was say that he didn't care about us… and we should just move on."
"Your mother had no right to keep that from you," Georgia replied. "I'm so sorry."
"You are the only thing that's perfect in my life," James told her with a smile.
"I need you to let me in," Georgia said to him. "What are you going to tell Kevin?"
"I don't know yet," James replied. "He's so busy right now with Lalie and Frankie."
"Whatever you decide to tell him will be for the best," Georgia replied. "Perhaps Vivian will get to him first."
"No, she'll probably beg me tomorrow not to tell Kevin," James figured. "I will tell him, just when the time is right."
"Did you bring anything with you?" Georgia asked him.
"Two duffel bags," James replied. "They're outside the door."
"Bring them in," Georgia said to him with a smile. "You can stay here tonight and any night."
James kissed Georgia before heading back into the hall and bringing in his two duffel bags. "Thank you so much for this."
"You don't have to thank me," Georgia smiled suggestively as she kissed James.
James and Georgia fell back onto the dining room table, knocking over the stack of papers that Georgia was working on. "Sorry about that," James said.
"Better them than that vase," Georgia replied as she began to laugh, before kissing James again.
The next morning, Georgia came out of the bathroom with a towel placed on her head as she walked into the living room and noticed James putting his cell phone away. "Talking to someone?"
"That was Kevin," James replied.
"Did you tell him about-" Georgia began.
"No," James cut her off. He knew what she was going to ask him. "He called me, actually. He wanted to ask me if I went to my ten year reunion for some reason."
"Maybe his is coming up," Georgia figured.
"I think he did say something like that," James remembered. "I could hear his voice but I couldn't really process what he was saying... all I could think about was what I had to tell him but I couldn't."
"I think you need to come to terms with it first before you tell Kevin," Georgia advised, as she opened the curtains letting the brilliant rays of sunshine in. "Look down at that city from all the way up here. It's a new day, now."
James walked over to the window, as the sun shone on both of them. "You're right, it is."
Chapter 18
Non-Nsync Fiction
I'll Never Stop {Fiction}
Email Tracia