Promises Forgotten
Chapter 50

Stretching, I leaned back on the couch in my old office. Adrian had taken over the office already and all my stuff had been sent to the office in LA. It had been chaos for the past three days. Projects getting moved and adjusted, debriefing Adrian on all of them. The lack of their CEO didn’t seem to be part of the talk, just the fact that Adrian was now going to all the meetings. My father had noticed it too, but I just shrugged him off.

My phone buzzed and I looked at the caller ID. Brow furrowing, I stood up and walked over to the window, leaning against it. Holding up my phone, I answered the video call.

“Evie?”

“Dad!”

A smile filled my face as I saw the bright look from my son. He seemed like he was in the bathroom, but just sitting on the floor, from the angle of the phone.

“What are you doing with your mom’s phone?”

“She won’t notice. She is talking with Uncle M. I said I was going to read.”

Sighing, I gave him a shake of my head. “It’s not good to lie to your mom and sneak around, Elliot. You know better than that. You should have asked her, I’m sure she would have allowed it.”

His face fell and he nodded sadly. “I have…girl trouble and I need to ask you.”

“Girl trouble?” My eyes widened and I turned away from the door, my shoulder leaning into the window.

“Jan and Hailey are fighting. The other girls say they won’t be friends anymore, but what do I do.”

I rubbed my mouth with my hand, trying not to give away the smile on my face. “Have you spoken to either of them? Or know why they are fighting?”

He shook his head.

“I would start there, kiddo. Figure out if it’s something that is indeed too different to fix. From there, you don’t have to choose a side. You can choose neither, but it’s still a choice and will have consequences. But I would start with gathering as much information from both sides before making a game plan on if you can help fix it or if you have to let it go.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Smiling, I nodded. “Of course, kiddo.” I paused for a moment before swallowing. “How’s your mom?”

His smile fell a little. “I think she is sad. She tries not to show it, but she has this sad face when she doesn’t think I’m looking. I know she was talking about marriage with Uncle M…”

My back stiffened. “Marriage?”

He nodded. “They talked about it before, too. I wouldn’t mind two dads. It might be fun.” Laughing, Elliot had a bright smile on his face

I could see mine falling in the front view of the camera. The two of them were close, but from what I observed it wasn’t romantic. How could she think of marrying him? Of talking about it in front of Elliot. Anger boiled up, but I realized I had no right. Mike had been there for her and I wasn’t. He was her best friend. It was logical. She even said she wanted a male support in Elliot’s life, but I didn’t think that she would think of marrying someone else. My heart hammered in my chest.

“Elliot! What are you doing?” I heard Evie’s voice and I saw the panicked look on Elliot’s face.

“Mom, I…”

There was a silence and I saw the phone being handed over. Her eyes meet mine and they went wide. The call disconnected and I stared at it. One minute, then another passed, and I stared at my phone. It rang and I picked up the phone call.

“I’m so sorry. You were probably in the middle of work. I didn’t think he would do that.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s okay. I did tell him it wasn’t okay to do that. That he needs to ask you in the future.

“Thanks.” She sighed. There was a tiredness in her voice.

My eyes closed and we were quiet for a moment. “Can you do me a favor?”

I heard a laugh. “Depends on the favor.”

“Can you and Elliot come here to New York for a couple days?”

This time, the silence was deafening. Tapping my foot on the floor, I shifted my weight a little. There weren’t any noises coming from the phone and I didn’t know if she had hung up until finally her voice came through.

“Z…”

“Please, Evie. It’s been…a struggle. We can stay in the hotel. Do some tourist stuff and Elliot can go to the museums out here. I…I also have an appointment for something important on Saturday for us. I finalized the house already over video chat and I’ll pick up the keys when we come back. Please…don’t say no…”

My words just spilled out. I hadn’t felt this nervous since middle school when I asked a girl out on a date. It was before my playboy transformation of high school and I was just the little nerd asking the hot girl to have ice cream. The words strung together in a single sentence.

“If I see one hair of your father, I’m murdering him where he stands and you will be a single father when I go to jail.”

I burst out laughing. “As you wish.”

There was a small chuckle on the other end. “When do you want us to fly out?”

“Tomorrow, if you can. I’ll send you the tickets and set you up. Unless you want to take the private jet.”

She sighed. “I don’t want either of those options.”

“You’re coming on my whim and request. Let me pay. At the very least for the flight. I won’t send the jet. Please just use the tickets.”

“Fine. Fine. Send me the info. I’ll…see you then.”

A huge smile was now plastered on my face. “See you.”

The phone disconnected and I felt like I had won a small victory. It was a little petty, since part of it was out of anger and jealousy of Mike, but spending more time with her was better than suffering here for the rest of the week. Turning, I saw Adrian, Stacy, and Jason staring at me. Cocking my head to the side, I matched their gaze.

“Something wrong?”

“No…no. Nothing’s wrong.” Adrian cleared his throat and walked over to his desk.

Sitting back down on the couch, I set my phone down on the desk. For a moment though, I brought it up so I could see the lock screen. It was a photo of Evie and Elliot snuggled together, asleep. I had woken up early that day and saw them together, with the morning sun’s rays shining on them. It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up, now saved as my lock screen background.

Setting my phone back down, I pulled up the project I was currently working on and started to go through the details. Jason hit me on the back of my head and before I could say anything, he walked out of the office. Stacy was smiling at me and just nodded, leaving Adrian and I in the office together.

“I’m a little jealous.”

I looked up at Adrian. It had been a few minutes but we hadn’t moved or spoken.

“What?”

“You and her, you and him. Watching you guys interact. I’m a little jealous.”

My eyebrow raised. “Why? The f****d up situation we are in now is nothing to be jealous of, that’s for damn sure. I would take a quiet and complete love over this pain any day.”

“You’re lying.” Adrian was pouring himself a drink. He took a sip and looked at me, a hard look in his eyes. “You wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

“With Evie, no. I wouldn’t trade it. Do I wish we found a quiet kind of love instead of this hurricane? Maybe. But I don’t think either of us would have given each other a second glance if it was quiet. It was loud and it grabbed you by the throat and refused to let you go, refused to let you breath without the other person. It’s still that way.”

My eyes narrowed, looking at the screen, but not reading any of the words on the page. “Do you remember your puppy phase? Where you just had this dog sense that if there was a dog within a half mile you knew and you were either staring at them or chasing them down to pet them.”

Adrian chuckled. “Damn, I forgot about that. You were always pissed at me for running off.”

“You were fourteen and I was over it. You would just up and leave!” I threw my hands up and leaned back on the couch. “But that feeling of knowing, is like twenty times worse for us. I know where she is at all times. I feel her absence like a lack of air, but when she’s around, I don’t ever have to look for her. I know where she is. I know when she moves, I adjust and she does the same. We can never actually scare each other because we can come up behind and know it’s already us. It’s nearly impossible to fight, that pull towards her. Not even s****l…although…”

Making a gagging noise, Adrian sat across from me and shook his head. “It sounds nuts.”

“It does! It sounds categorically crazy. Like someone is on drugs. It feels insane when I try to explain it to someone else. Like my brain knows whatever is going on is not normal. She has me though, A. She has my heart and my soul and she is my stronger half.”

He hummed but didn’t say anything, a frown on his face. “Elliot sounds like a cute kid.”

“He reminds me a lot of you, when you were still small and cute. Except smarter, way smarter. Not that that’s hard.”

Laughing, Adrian shook his head. “Thanks, a*****e.”

“It makes me glad that I took care of you when we were younger. I’m not sure what I would do if I didn’t have that foundation.”

“You’re welcome,” he mumbled, taking a sip of his drink. “You ready for tonight?”

Shaking my head, I sighed. “Yes and no. I just have to go in and make a splash. Getting disowned isn’t really something one looks forward to.”

“Dad isn’t going to disown you.”

“If he doesn’t, I will.” I grumbled.