Memories
(Darcy)
Liam leaving in the middle of our meal on Friday without saying goodbye was embarrassing in front of my father. Although I covered it by telling my dad that he was treating me so badly in front of Liam, so he got angry and left, instead of causing a scene. That shut him up.
But I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. For the first time in forever, I actually wanted more from a man than for him to leave me alone. I guess I can’t be too upset. After all, the stranger was kind enough to go along with my little boyfriend-girlfriend ruse.
I’ll tell my father we broke up, and that’s why he isn’t coming to Collette’s wedding with me. After the way Liam vanished during the Fat Kok meal, my father will readily believe it. Maybe I’ll even blame my father, telling him he’s the reason Liam didn’t want to get involved with my insane family.
Still, I foolishly thought that Liam and I had a connection. My body reacted differently than it ever has in the past four years. Normally, when I meet a guy, there’s nothing. Each time I looked at Liam, heat shot through my body in a way I’ve never experienced before.
Enough heat that I seriously would’ve let him take me right there in the Fat Kok.
Enough heat that I wore out the battery in my vibrator last night.
What a first date. If you consider dinner with my father at the Fat Kok a first date. Which, come to think of it, I don’t. So I can see him again without breaking my rule. Because the rule allows for sex.
In fact, that’s the whole point of the rule. I don’t want to live like a nun. I just don’t want a relationship. However much my father wants me to have one.
I wish Liam had at least given me his phone number. I wonder what his last name is. There are only two things I know about him, his first name is Liam and he’s some sort of business consultant.
Yesterday, I spent far more time Googling those two scant bits of information than I care to admit. Liam, consultant, New York, events, mergers, businessman, banker, dark hair, attractive, gorgeous, eligible bachelor and on and on. I got nothing. Not even a hint.
Even more shameful, after exhausting Google search terms, I joined a handful of the largest dating sites just to see if he was on them. He wasn’t. I canceled all my memberships, I have no interest in dating anyone. I just want to find Liam again for a proper first date ending in sex, that’s all. I don’t even have any interest in having a second date with him, because that would be breaking my rules. And I’m not about to break my rules.
My Sundays are always spent on non-Knight Global Events stuff. Specifically, the charity I founded and oversee, Young Hearts.
Armed with coffee and a doughnut, I sit on my sofa. I keep a laptop dedicated to the charity under the sofa, and I haul it out and set it on my lap. If I used my regular laptop, I know I would alt-tab into Knight Global Events and get sucked in. So I use this Macbook to keep me focused.
The first thing I do is open YouTube.
I chew my doughnut while half-watching the most recent Carpool Karaoke video, the entire time thinking about Liam. Or more specifically, how amazing it had felt when he kissed me.
I take another bite, and the jelly from the center shoots into my mouth. I let it slide over my tongue before swallowing.
My shoulders heave in a massive sigh. Time to focus. I start my Mega Hits Four playlist and open my email and Office.
Twelve emails from Kirsten. None from anyone else.
I founded the charity, but set it up to run independently of me. Now legally I’m the chair of the board of trustees. My father is also on the board, mostly because I know he doesn’t care about it and won’t have an opinion on any decisions.
My best friend Kirsten is the head of the charity and runs almost everything about it. We’re still on the small side, but she’s doing an amazing job of growing it. We’re helping more and more families every single day. I’m immensely proud of her and all the team around her.
Heart disease is one of the biggest killers of young adults, but people associate heart attacks with old people, not healthy teens and young adults.
Ideally, I’d like to run more awareness campaigns, but for now we’re focusing on directly helping families who are adjusting to having someone they love who’s surviving a heart issue, and those who have lost someone young to heart disease in their life.
I click through Kirsten’s emails one by one. So far they’re all standard emails to keep me in the loop of what’s happening. The last one catches my attention. Our biggest annual donor has slashed their support by eighty percent, saying they intend to focus solely on heart issues in the under sixteens.
My heart sinks. They make up almost a third of all our donations. Without their support we’ll have to postpone any ideas of growing and really think about how we’re going to preserve what support we do have.
Awareness around the age range of the people we help is a constant struggle. People either want to help children or the stereotypical older heart victims. The unique struggles of young adults get lost in between.
We’ll find someone to take the place of the donor. We have to.
I save the spreadsheets onto my computer, update my own spreadsheets and make some notes in Word.
One of the things we’re currently redoing is our website. I open it to see how it’s coming along. It’s a project that will likely have to be shelved for now. We’ve been putting victim and survivor stories right on the homepage in a slide show, and the first victim I see when I open it is a twenty-year-old man named Liam.
Seeing the name makes my heart stop, and for a moment I see Liam’s face on the screen instead of the teenager whose life was so cruelly taken from him.
I close the lid and take a few breaths to gather myself. I drink the rest of my coffee to steady myself. Once I’ve calmed enough, I pick up my phone and call Kirsten.
“Hey. Are doing your Sunday morning ritual of trolling through my emails?”
“You know it. What are we going to do without the support of the Colton Family Legacy Fund?”
“It’s not going to be easy, but we’re busting our asses to find someone to plug the hole.” Kirsten goes on to describe in detail what they’re doing. She’s great.
“You’re doing an amazing job.”
“Thanks, hon. I sense a but coming.”
“Nope. No but, I promise.”
“I sense something else in your voice. Everything all right? Your dad still being an ass at work?” She asks.
I sigh. “Always and forever.”
“You could always quit and come on the charity full time. We could use another fundraiser.”
“Ha, then I’d have to fire you, and I don’t want to kick you out on the street.” We both laugh before I continue. “Besides, I could never do as good a job as you are.”
“Aw, you’re too sweet. For a hard-ass boss that is. So enough of this BS. Spill.”
“You know how my father’s constant nagging me to get a boyfriend?”
“A sentiment I share, yes. It’s the only thing I agree with him about, but dammit, he’s right,” Kirsten says, exasperated.
I roll my eyes and sigh. I knew I should’ve left that part out.
“Anyway,” I start.
“Oh, I’m not finished yet, sugar. I’m serious. You are the charity’s biggest failure. Because if we can’t even heal our founder, what kind of credibility do we have?”
“I don’t need healing, I am fine,” I say, my teeth gritted.
“Whatever.”
“Yeah, whatever. Do you want to hear my crazy story or not?”
“Of course I do. The same way I want to hear you admit you need healing.”
“Not gonna happen, so drop it. And I won’t even bother to tell you about Liam.”
“Liam? Who’s Liam?”
“My pretend boyfriend.”
Once Kirsten stops squealing, I tell her the story of Liam. Leaving out the part about me unsuccessfully Googling him.
Or masturbating to the memory of his face, his touch and his scent.
“Oh my God. That is the most fucked-up story I’ve ever heard. He really just stood up and left?”
“I know, right? I guess he got tired of listening to me and my father arguing.”
“How do you put up with him? You really need to break free. I mean it. Go apply for other jobs. You’d find an even better one in a heartbeat. One without an asshole boss.”
“He’s not an asshole, just my dad.” Why am I defending him? “I could never leave him. It’s our family business. How could I?”
“How could you? You could to save yourself the grief. This is your life. You get one. Why do you want to spend it arguing with him?”
“It’s my duty. You don’t understand.”
“No, but I totally understand why Declan took off to Africa.” Kirsten says.
She has a point. I also totally understand why my brother left. If anything, my father was even harder on him. Actually, that’s what made it easier for me, seeing that I wasn’t the person he treated the worst.
“No kidding.”
“Anyhoo, back to Liam. How are we going to find him?” She asks.
“We’re not.”
“We have to! There must be a way.”
“I might have tried already. He’s not on the internet.”
“You tried? I’m impressed. Maybe you’re healing after all.”
“I wasn’t trying to find him for a relationship, just a date. You know, just the two of us, without my father.”
“Yeah, yeah, baby steps. Let’s think. He was at the Fat Kok, maybe he goes there regularly. We just have to eat there every night until he turns up.”
“That’s ridiculous. Maybe I could put a ‘Liam, please call me’ poster with my photo on it at the door too. And on all the doors of nearby restaurants. He’d be bound to see it.”
“Now you’re talking!”
“Do you hear yourself?”
“So, dinner at the Fat Kok tomorrow night?”
“He’s a fond memory, that’s all.”
And that memory is fading fast, I have to end this phone call and go capture his essence right now.