“Of course, Mum,” Desmond said, somehow managing to smile.
He didn’t really want to attend any birthday parties. He didn’t want to be around people at all. But he was forcing himself as a way to stop himself from getting into a rut.
Or so he told himself as he climbed into his car after breakfast for the drive back into London. The boxes with everything from his office still sat on the back seats. He hadn’t had the mental strength to even take them inside his house and unpack them on Monday. He’d gone straight from his formeroffice to his home, packed a bag, and was back in his car within half an hour, heading to Surrey.
Once he was home, with a sigh, he carried the boxes into the house. They couldn’t live in the car forever. But none of them made it farther than the front entrance.
There was another box already waiting in the front entrance for him. It was over a foot tall but didn’t weigh much when he lifted it from the table where the cleaner must have put it when she’d come in a few days before. The box had green printing on it and the name of his favorite garden center.
Puzzled, Desmond left his things in the hall and took the box into the kitchen. He found a pair of scissors to help open it and discovered a small but lovely anthurium inside. Its flowers were barely buds, but the leaves were healthy. The soil needed a bit of water, which Desmond gave it right away, but otherwise it was in perfect condition.
And there was a card.
It was typed, not handwritten, but the words on the tiny scrap of paper shot straight to Desmond’s heart all the same.
“Cariñito, I know you need some time to sort things, so as much as I want to knock down your door and help you deal with things, I won’t. Instead, here’s a new friend for the gang in the sunroom. You can tell him your problems until you’re ready to tell me.”
The note nearly broke Desmond. He slumped against the counter, staring at it until his eyes were too blurry with tears to make out the words anymore.
“I am such an arse,” he whispered, then glanced mournfully at the anthurium yet to bloom.
The problem was, knowing he was an arse and knowing what to do about it were two different things. The man he’d been a month before, the powerful executive who landed one of the most important financial deals his company had seen in adecade, the man who could make decisions, direct employees, and charm clients, felt completely gone. In its place was a man who couldn’t even unpack the boxes that contained all the remnants of the man he’d been.
And he was having a hard time dealing with the stuff he’d brought in from his office as well.
“Let’s find you a good place in the sunroom,” he told the anthurium, grabbing it and pushing away from the counter to introduce it to the rest of the family.
It would have been entirely too easy for Desmond to stay in the sunroom forever, like some sort of eccentric billionaire who had lost his mind and thought his plants were visitors from another galaxy who knew all the secrets of the universe. His sunroom was the only place that felt truly safe at the moment.
It felt safe because it was the scene of so many beautiful weekends with Javier. Once, he’d enjoyed the space because it smelled of dirt and greenery and because of the slight humidity in the air. Now he loved it because it reminded him of Javier’s laughter, of his quick banter and brilliant sense of humor as they’d sat tucked on the love seat together, chatting about everything and nothing for ages. It was filled with the spirit of the version of himself that he liked the most, the version he hadn’t realized existed until Javier had brought him out.
There was nothing for it. With a sigh, he pulled his phone from his pocket and sat on the love seat. He was going to have to come clean to Javier about everything eventually, so why not now?
Except when Desmond dialed his number, it rang and rang, then went to voicemail.
“Hi, you’ve reached Javier Rivera. If you’re calling about Rivera Talent, I’m sorry to inform you that we’ve closed shop and are no longer in business. If you’re a former client or talent, leave a message and I’ll get back to you about finalizing yourcontract as soon as possible. Sorry for any inconvenience this might cause.”
A shrill beep sounded as Desmond flinched, eyes going wide. Javier had shut down his business? The one that had carried all his hopes and dreams?
He almost forgot to speak to leave a message. “Javier, it’s Desmond. I…I don’t really know what to say right now. I would like to see you. I am ready to talk. More than ready. I’m sorry about so many things. I really think we should?—”
The voicemail cut off, sending a wave of dread straight to Desmond’s gut. He had no idea why a voicemail message in the modern era would simply end like that. It felt like a horrible sign.
He thought about calling back and leaving another message. He thought about texting as well. But his emotional paralysis was already bad enough. All he could actually do was sit there in the sunroom as weak sunlight shone down through the clouds that skittered across the London sky, not quite threatening rain, but not giving up and letting everyone have a fully sunny day either.
It was no use sitting where he was, letting worry get the best of him. He pushed himself into motion, leaving the sunroom to head into the hall. He took his bag of dirty clothes upstairs, leaving the boxes from his office in the hall, and emptied everything into his hamper. From there, he showered and put on clean clothes suitable for an avant-garde children’s birthday party, which meant ordinary jeans and a navy-blue button-down shirt. He shared his father’s opinion that the party would probably be ridiculous.
He didn’t know what else to do but get back in his car and head out to Surrey once again to attend, though. All he could do for the time being was go through the motions of being a functional adult, even though he definitely wasn’t.
The party was everything he’d dreaded and more from the second he stepped out into the back garden of his mother’s cousin’s house.
“Desmond!” Geoffrey greeted him, dressed in a sparkly outfit that was either high fashion or some secondary school student’s sewing project gone wrong. “What’s this I hear about you walking away from a corner office and more economic power than the rest of us have put together?” He immediately laughed at his question, then slapped Desmond hard on the back once he’d come to stand next to him.
“Hello, Geoffrey,” Desmond answered him with a long-suffering smile. “Yes, I left Pickering Jones.”
“But why, man?” Geoffrey leaned to close to him, his breath indicating he’d pre-gamed a child’s birthday party. “You had it all. Why let it go?”
Explaining ethics to a man who had hired what looked to be a troupe of actors to dress in bodysuits that appeared to have been designed by Jackson Pollock with headdresses provided by Chihuly so that they could entertain an army of unappreciative ten-year-olds would be a pointless exercise.
