Chapter 18
Zach
I couldn’t shake the feeling like I was on cloud nine and there was nowhere else to go. I was light on my feet, happy, and even the secretary looked at me strangely when I greeted her. I was starting to think people in this office thought of me as a Scrooge. I had finally had sex with Madison, and it was beyond mind-blowing. I couldn’t tell if this feeling was from the sex or from her, but either way, I didn’t want it to end. I had reached the point where I no longer was fighting my head and just let it roam free, thinking of Madison, replaying our hot sensual night together, and looking forward to spending more time with her.
I had sent her a good morning text, but she hadn’t answered back yet. From the looks of her boss the night before, she probably hadn’t gotten off until way late. She was probably snug in her bed, sleeping through the craziness of New York mornings. Her boss was a real piece of work, and I wished I had contacts to help find her a different place to work. There was something not right about the guy, and it made me uncomfortable to have him lurking around Madison alone in the gallery.
I shook the thought from my head, realizing how possessive and protective I had gotten over her. She was a strong independent woman, and I had faith that if anything were to happen, she would easily be able to take care of herself.
I walked through the office and into the lounge where they were brewing coffee. Usually, I had my secretary go pick me up coffee from the corner café, but today, I was in the mood for just black, strong muck that everyone else drank to stay alive in the company. I had over three hundred employees in this building alone, and I started to realize how hard this job is when work wasn’t the only thing in your life. I would say at least seventy-five percent of my employees were married, in a serious relationship, or had children to take care of. Until now, though, I never really paid attention to how hard it was to balance work and life. I grabbed a mug of coffee, snickering at the dancing cat on the front of it, and headed back to my office. As soon as I sat down in my chair, Hudson turned the corner and practically skipped into the seat.
“What’s up, man,” he said, drinking his coffee. “You look tired.”
“Madison and I were up late,” I replied. “I mean, it’s not every day you sleep with your tenth virgin.”
“Yes,” Hudson said, fist bumping me. “Finally. Man, she was tough to crack. But that’s all over now. You can come back to the dark side, and we can continue to pick up chicks.”
“Well,” I said. “That’s not necessarily correct.”
“Wait, did you fall for this girl?” Hudson was excitedly sitting on the edge of his seat.
Part of me wanted to play this completely cool and laugh in his face, while the other part of me knew that he was exactly spot on. I was falling in love with this girl, and I couldn’t stop it. It was like a boulder rolling through my brain, knocking down every wall I had tried so hard to build up. When I first saw Madison, I knew there was something different about her, but I never thought in a million years I would fast forward and be sitting in my office admitting to feelings for a girl after taking her virginity.
“Maybe,” I replied with a wide smile. “I mean, I can’t get this chick off my mind, man.”
“I knew it.” He laughed, reached out, and shook my hand. “That’s actually really awesome. Though now, I don’t know who I am going to be taking out with me.”
“How about Paul in receiving,” I joked.
“Paul with a cul-de-sac hairdo and pocket protector?”
“Yeah, sweaty pit Paul.” I laughed.
“You do realize I’m trying to pull chicks in, not send them screaming into the night, right?”
“Probably a good tactic to have,” I said.
We both sat there laughing for several minutes. It was nice to share this kind of news with Hudson and actually have him support my decision, instead of trying to lead me away. In the end, Hudson was my best friend, and I wasn’t friends with just anyone, so that sentiment meant a lot to me. Just as I was about to spill the juicy details, my phone beeped, and my secretary’s voice came over the line.
“The homeless shelter is on the line,” she said into the intercom.
“Thanks, which line?”
“Line one,” she said, looking over at us from her desk.
I picked up the phone, sticking up one finger toward Hudson, letting him know I needed to listen and not have his banter drown these people’s call. He frowned in my direction, and I chuckled, cover the receiver with my hand.
“This is Mr. Case,” I said in the most professional voice I could muster.
“Hello, Mr. Case,” the woman said on the other end of the line. “I wanted to call to confirm the auction for charity on Saturday.”
“I’m glad you called,” I said. “I was about to call you later. I wanted to see if we couldn’t maybe move the event to next week?”
“Let me see,” she said, flipping through her book, the pages crinkling into the speaker of the phone. “How about a week from Monday?”
“That would actually be perfect,” I responded, realizing that Mondays were Madison’s days off, and I could easily get out of work on a Monday.
“Wonderful, I have you scheduled for a week from Monday then,” the woman replied. “You have a great day, and don’t hesitate to call us.”
I hung up the phone and leaned back in my chair, satisfied by the fact that Madison would finally get to see a side of me that I knew she would appreciate. It was easy to impress women with money, but after a while, those dollars no longer meant anything, and you were left with an empty relationship. I wanted Madison to know everything about me, the good and the bad part of me. Showing her my charity work was an excellent way to do that.
Helping the homeless had been something that I had done since the company first started, but I didn’t broadcast it to the world. I truly felt that you do things for others without expecting any recognition. Too many people did good deeds just to brag about it and get that pat on the back. I already had enough people patting me on the back for owning a company. This was purely out of the goodness of my heart.
“So, why did you change the date of the auction?” Hudson was really going to give me a hard time.
“Madison has an art show that Saturday,” I said nonchalantly.
“And?”
“And I want her to be able to see the charity work we do,” I replied. “So, I changed the date to when we could both make it.”
“Wait, you’re telling me you rearranged an entire event so that Madison could come to it?” He laughed and leaned forward. “You my friend have got it bad.”
“Why is it wrong to want to show people the good we do?”
“First of all, this is your thing,” he said. “Secondly, you have always preached about not shoving it in the public’s face that we are doing charity work. You didn’t want people to think we did it for publicity. Which I don’t get, because we could use that kind of positive feedback.”
“Well, I just want Madison to see my work is more than just crunching numbers and having meetings to sell shady people fingerprint cases for God only knows what reason,” I said with irritation. “Besides, how does it affect you? You never even come to them.”
“You’re right, man,” he said, putting his hands up. “I mean, if you want to be whipped into submission, that is on you.”
“Don’t you have work to do?” I looked up over my file at Hudson, who had a shit-eating grin on his face. He really loved to give me a hard time and keep pushing the buttons far beyond what anyone else could get away with. I knew I was going to take flak for Madison. I just didn’t realize it would piss me off so bad.
“Hiss,” he said, making a cat gesture at me. “I thought getting laid made you happy, not grumpy.”
I watched as he walked from the room, feeling relieved that I didn’t have to take anymore heckling. In reality, I wasn’t grumpy at all. I just knew if I acted that way, it would get him out of my hair. This charity event was important to me, and we had put it together at the last minute so it wouldn’t take much to move it. We had donations from all over the city, and it was bound to get the homeless shelter a lot of funding, which was good since they would need it for the winter.
I had hooked up with this cause when I was right out of college. It was the big blackout in New York, and I found myself stuck in the subway, sitting with George, a homeless man that traveled the subways in the winter to stay warm. With nowhere to go and stuck in the system, we talked for hours, sharing my take-out meal and discussing life.
George had come from a good, hard-working family, and had a wife and a child before everything happened. Then, one day, it was gone in the blink of an eye. His wife and daughter were killed in a car accident, and it sent him spiraling out of control. He fell into a deep depression, lost his job, and found himself completely lost in life.
He found it easier to travel around from place to place, sleeping in subways, than to face the life he once had. When it was all said and done, George knew he had a friend in me, and I knew I needed to help him and other people like him. Sadly, two years later, I found out he had died during one of the major blizzards, since the city had started kicking the homeless off the trains. I was more than angry, but politics wasn’t my thing, so I did what I knew best and started raising money so that shelters like the one holding the auction could afford to feed and house more people during the harsh weather of New York.
People in my world never really understood why I would go through so much trouble, especially since none of them could seem to see past their own prejudices. Now that Madison was in my life, and she had a heart of gold, I knew she would be the perfect person to show my charity work to. I wasn’t looking for praise from her, but I was looking for someone that could see the good in what I did and not put me down for it. Either way, I had moved the event for her, and I was more than excited to take her with me as my date and really start to show her who I was on the inside. I had held back this entire time, keeping my walls up, and not letting her totally in. After the previous night, and her giving me her virginity, I knew it was only fair that I start to open up to her. Hopefully, she liked who I was on the inside, as much as she liked who I was on the outside.