The first thing Madison did when she walked into the restaurant was scan the bar for Jeremy. When she didn’t see him, she looked over at their table in the corner. Bevy sat while a group of the members stood around the table speaking to her or from where Madison stood it looked like they were yelling at her.

Whether it was mad, angry, upset, or concerned, Madison could tell something was wrong. Amy had her arms crossed in front of her while Sarah pointed her finger on the table as she leaned in and spoke to Bevy. The other girls acted like cheerleaders standing behind rooting them on.

On the way over to the table, Madison felt the vicious stares from the other members, and now, she knew something was wrong.

As soon as Bevy saw Madison, she stood from the table. “Where have you been all day?” Bevy asked Madison as she neatly placed the napkin that was on her lap on the table.

“I was up late, so I slept most of the day then went to the spa. What’s going on here?”

“Does she even know what you did?” Amy pointed at Madison as she spoke to Bevy.

“What did you do, Bevy?” Madison stepped closer and lowered her voice so not to make more of a scene.

“She fired Jeremy.” Sarah blurted out.

Madison faltered a bit then moved behind the girls and took a seat. Madison cleared her throat then calmly spoke. “Girls, please leave us.”

“But Madison…” Amy frustrated stomped her foot on the floor beneath her.

“Please Amy, I need to speak to Bevy alone.”

“You know she fired him because of you.” Sarah pointed her finger in Madison’s face. The girls standing behind Sarah and Amy nodded their heads in agreement.

Madison receded but remained calm, “Sarah please go. We’ll work this out. I promise.”

The girls stomped away huffing and puffing and mumbling words as they retreated. Bevy took her seat while Madison stood. “Bevy, we need to go to your office to discuss this matter.”

Bevy stood back up, and with her chin held high, she strutted out of the restaurant passing all the sullen faces as Madison walked closely behind her. From all directions, heads turned watching the two women exit the room and as soon as they were out of sight the angry whispers and gossip began.

Bevy continued strutting to her office until she got to her desk where she collapsed in her chair and let loose a long ass exhale. “Madison, Sarah’s right this is all your fault.”

Madison stood in front of Bevy’s desk. “I don’t even know what’s going on. Did you fire Jeremy?”

“I had to.” Bevy threw her arms up in the air.

“I don’t know what Dante and Pete told you, but Jeremy did nothing wrong.”

Madison sighed and let her shoulders sag, “Madison, that’s not why I fired him.”

“Then why is he not here?”

“Madison, he fell in love with you. We have rules. I know the night we came up with this crazy idea we were pissed drunk but we wrote down pages of rules, and we reviewed them two days after our hangovers subsided, and an Essential falling in love with a member was a BIG no-no.”

Madison sat in the chair, rested her elbows on her knees and buried her face in her hands. “Bevy, I need you not to follow the rules this one time.”

“Madison, if you recall that was another rule we had. Under no circumstance do we make exceptions. We have followed those rules from the beginning, and it’s what kept our business thriving.”

Madison stood from her chair. “Except this one. I know I shouldn’t say this, but I’m going to exert my sixty percent of the business and tell you that Jeremy will continue as an Essential and I hope this doesn’t cause any strife between us.”

Bevy stood and paced behind her desk. She contemplated Madison’s demand. She didn’t feel comfortable giving in, but she knew she’d lose this battle. “Shall you call him or shall I?” Bevy conceded.

“To remain in control in the eyes of everyone here, you should call him and tell him after further investigation and speaking with the members, that you decided to offer him his job back.” Madison walked towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Bevy asked.

“I’m going for a drive.” Madison gripped the doorknob.

“Do you love him?” Bevy asked.

Madison kept her back to Bevy as she answered her. “Yes.”

“If he comes back here as an Essential, he’ll be having sex with other women. How are you going to deal with that if you’re in love with him?”

“Hopefully, better than the way I’ve dealt with it the past year.”

“You’ve loved him that long.”

Madison had taken a deep breath before she answered Bevy. “Yes.”

“I’ll call him tonight.”

“Thank you, Bevy. I’m sorry I put you in this situation, but I need him here.”

“How long do you think you’ll be able to sustain a relationship under the confines of RAW?”

“I don’t have any plan. The only thing I know is that Jeremy loves me and I love him.” Madison opened the door to leave.

“I hope it’s enough,” Was the last thing Bevy had said to Madison before she picked up the phone to call Jeremy.

 

Madison sat in her car staring down at her phone. She tapped on his name and began typing. She needed to see him, but if it weren't tonight, it would have to wait until next weekend because she was leaving for Seattle in the morning. Her billionaire client divorcing his wife gathered all his business lawyers and accountants this week and Madison needed to be available. She finished her text to Jeremy and hit send.

She drove back to the Mansion and went straight to her room. She got ready for bed and kept her phone next to her all night. By morning Jeremy still hadn’t responded. She couldn’t wake Bevy to ask her if she spoke to Jeremy, so she boarded the plane to Seattle in limbo.

~~~~~

“You want a short vacation?” Bevy wasn’t sure he heard him correctly.

“That’s what I said. My brother and sister-in-law are expecting their first child sometime in the next week, and I’d like to be around for the birth.” Jeremy explained.

“But you will come back?”

“Yes, I’ll be back on the following Saturday.”

“So I can tell all the girls, and you won’t change your mind?” Bevy felt vulnerable for some unexplained reason. Maybe, she remembered the fury in the ladies faces when they heard that Bevy fired Jeremy.

“Yes, Bevy, I promise I’m coming back.”

“Did you speak to Madison?”

There was silence on Jeremy’s end.

“Jeremy, did you hear me?”

“Yes, she sent me a text, but she’s in Seattle this whole week. I’ll talk to her when I get back.”

“Okay, Jeremy, let me know if you need anything and text me when the baby’s born.”

“I will Bevy and thank you.”

“I should be thanking you. The girls threatened to leave RAW if I didn’t hire you back.”

“That’s sweet of them. Say hello to the ladies for me. Tell them I miss every one of them.”

“I will. The girls will be thrilled. I’ll see you next Saturday.”

Jeremy waited for Bevy to mention at least one time that Madison wanted him back but it always came back to the girls wanting him back. Madison sent a generic text message stating that they needed to talk but she was out of town for a week. He replied saying he’d be in touch.

Going by his past experiences with Madison, she most likely regretted what happened that night and wanted to push him back behind that line of employee/employer, member/essential and what ever other excuses she used in the past.

Jeremy requested the time off not just for the birth of his nephew but to get his head together. He needed to be prepared to see her again, and worse see her with other men. Bevy called to offer him his job back. That meant things would be status quo and status quo equaled the same bullshit he faced the past year.

He loved his job at Raw. His friends were there, the compensation made it possible to pay down his debt, another year and he would have eliminated his debt and saved enough money to dabble in something else, and it was where the woman he loved resided.

He had to go back, but he prepared himself for anything.

 

~~~~~

Madison’s week flew by as she met with her client’s business lawyers and accountants. This was a high profile love affair that was ending in a brutal divorce. Madison’s client was a young billionaire who realized too late that he jumped into his marriage too quickly.

Early on high-profile cases terrified Madison. She wondered how she’d be able to handle all the public speaking that they required, but she found out during her first time speaking to the press that as a lawyer discussing someone else’s life, it came easy. It was when she had to be herself, and the attention was on her, and her life, did she go blank.

It was during a live interview when the reporter asked Madison about her decision to pursue the law that Madison went blank. Physically her mouth went dry, and she couldn’t speak, then it felt like someone shut off all the lights. Madison couldn’t gather a rational thought. Everyone’s voice sounded somewhere off in the far distance, and she was unable to focus on anyone’s face.

The producer escorted her off the stage and Madison hibernated for a year. She still worked, but she hired a spokesperson to handle communications. It wasn’t until during one of her high-profile cases when a reporter with a cameraman unexpectedly caught her coming out of a restaurant asking her a question about the case that Madison realized what triggered her social anxiety. Madison spoke freely with no fear to the reporter. It was at that point she realized it was when things got personal that her anxiety soared.

Madison grew up with a controlling father. His desire for perfection destroyed Madison. Madison’s father placed such high demands on her and failure was not an option. The stress showed itself during times when Madison had to perform. A simple meet and greet dinner became too much for her. She felt she could never be good enough, or witty enough, or smart enough and fear set in every time she had to be herself.

Thankfully, she found a way to cope with her anxiety though she knew it would never go away completely. There was a scale she rated ever moment. Level one was tolerable, but a Level ten made her feel like the world went black. And the exhaustion that settled in after a Level ten situation was worse. It knocked her down for days.

Walking through the restaurant at RAW was a level one sometimes a two. As long as she made a beeline for her table, she was fine. The Gala registered anywhere between seven and ten. Madison could not control how the evening played out, so the range varied.

Madison’s dating life was difficult at first but working with a therapist she was able to move past much of the anxiety that first dates caused her. Jeremy was the first man she felt at ease with right from the start. When he asked her to join him in the viewing room, Madison waited for her body to turn on her but she felt calm, and that’s why she agreed to go in with him.

When she fell in the shower, humiliation should have settled in when Jeremy walked into the bathroom while she sat there naked on the floor. Madison waited, once again, for that feeling she knew so well when anxiety surfaced, but nothing happened.

Even her date with Alan shifted when she walked into the restaurant and saw Jeremy. Though she controlled her panic on her way over to meet Alan, it still lingered, but as soon as she saw Jeremy, all fear left her.

She wouldn’t question why and though she knew she’d always feel abnormal in certain situations, it was nice to feel instant comfort with another human being. In the beginning stages of RAW, Madison lived there but was not an active member. It took her two years before she invited any men back to her room. Bevy gave her a hard time, and when she finally built up the courage, it was a huge letdown. She could never get comfortable enough with a man to experience everything sex had to offer until Jeremy.

She continued to push him away because when you live a life where your father reminds you every day that you’re not good enough you believe it. You learn to accept that you’re not worthy of love, and you believe you need to be something more, something better to be loved.

Madison knew she had a long road ahead of her, but she decided the night she confessed her love to Jeremy that she’d never push him away again.

~~~~~

Madison walked through the restaurant searching for his face. Bevy sat at their usual table with a glass of wine in front of her. As Madison got closer, she examined Bevy’s expression. “Why do you look like someone died?”

“I don’t mean to, but I’ve had a stressful day,” Bevy said.

Madison sat down and looked around the room, “You did call him, right?”

“Who?”

“Where is Jeremy?” Madison asked as the thought of Jeremy refusing to come back surfaced.

Bevy pinched the bridge of her nose, “Yes, he’s coming back next Saturday. His brother and sister-in-law are expecting their first child any day. Jeremy requested to stay until the baby arrives.”

Madison exhaled. “He hasn’t called me at all.”

“Don’t read into it.”

“Should I call him?” Madison didn’t know how to react in this situation since she’d never experienced anything like this.

“I’d give him space. He’ll be here in a week, and I’m sure the first thing he’s going to want to do is to see you.”

“I hope so because I can’t wait to see him.” Madison stared at the bar where Jeremy always sat surrounded by women. An ache gripped at her chest as she thought about going another week without him.