7
Several Years Earlier
Rowan zipped up the fly of his pants and sorted his clothing back into place. Then he sighed and cleared his throat, turning to let himself out of her office once again.
“Alright,” he said, waiting by the door as she walked across the room, her high heels clacking against the floor and sending echoes bouncing across the walls. “Have yourself a great day.”
Ilsa walked to stand by his side, raised her key card to the computerized pad, and then halted mid-air. She eyed him suddenly, seriously, all seduction wiped clean from her face.
“Mr. Davis,” she said seriously. “I would like to take this moment to propose something to you.”
Rowan’s eyebrows shot up his forehead, and he stared at her.
“If that something that you are about to propose is marriage, Ilsa, then please forget about that,” he said, holding his hands up in defense. “That is not at all what this is about, and I am pretty certain you are aware of that.”
Ilsa rolled her eyes, bored by his stuttering, and fixed him with an irritated expression.
“No, Mr. Davis, I am not about to get down on one knee for you, here,” she droned. “And please in future do not be so ridiculous or you might just make me change my mind regarding your suitability for this position.”
Rowan’s face scrunched up in confusion.
“Position?” he repeated. “What position?”
Ilsa nodded curtly.
“Yes, then,” she said, brushing invisible dirt from the front of her figure highlighting dress. “As you may or may not know, I am getting older,” she began.
“No way,” Rowan mocked, running his eyes over her fit form, at last, his gaze settling upon her graying hair. “I would never have guessed.”
Ilsa’s lips tightened, and she rolled her eyes again, continuing onwards in her little speech.
“Soon enough I will be leaving the company and embarking on my life as a full-time retiree,” she stated. “I may be only fifty, but I have made well over enough money to allow me to survive for the rest of my life in a most exquisite and comfortable way. So…” She clutched her hands before her now in a matter of proposition. “I will be heading to a meeting this afternoon during which I shall inform the board of my top choice for a suitor. And I think I know, if he is willing, exactly whom my touch choice should be.” She raised an expectant eyebrow at Rowan.
Rowan’s stomach dropped, and a cold chill overtook his body. He stared at Ilsa, frozen, his face a mask of disbelief.
“You don’t mean,” he began, then stopped, shaking his head in incredulity. “Surely you couldn’t mean….”
Ilsa smiled coldly and nodded.
“I do indeed mean,” she said, her assertive tone edged with humor. “Mr. Rowan Davis, how would you like to be the next CEO of Bond’s Bonds?”
Rowan stared at her, his eyes clouding over, his jaw dropping down to his chin. The room was suddenly swimming before him, Ilsa’s face seemed to waver back and forth, back and forth, and everything began to become bleary.
“Rowan?”
He heard the sound of his name coming from some place that seemed very far off. He blinked rapidly, trying to force the room to come back into focus. It did not. He tried to speak but found his tongue too dry. Ilsa’s eyes remained trained upon him. She did not blink. She stared.
“Mr. Davis.”
It was not a question. It was a statement. Rowan slammed his eyelids shut and took a deep breath through his nose. He let it out, opened his eyes, and opened his mouth.
“Fuck you and fuck your corporation,” he said emotionlessly.
Isla’s mouth dropped open in shock. Rowan took the opportunity to grab her key card, let himself out of the office, walk briskly through the maze of cubicles, cages, and grabbed his belongings. With a curt turn, he walked straight out of the door.
The slick backed haired secretary looked up from her computer as he rushed past.
“A bit early to be leaving, is it not, Mr. Davis,” she said in her nasally voice.
“Fuck off,” Rowan called as he stepped into the elevator. The doors closed, eating him up and whisking him away from the corporate tower in the sky.
The elevator shuttled him downward, and Rowan felt his heart pick up speed, racing with adrenaline. The metal doors dinged open, and Rowan raced out of the building, throwing open the glass entrance way doors and rushing out into the fresh air of the sunlit day. He grinned, stretched out his arms, and spun in a circle, laughing. Then he reached into his pocket and felt the cool pressing of the Harley’s keys against his hand. He smiled, his well-shaped eyebrows dancing with excitement, his eyes glinting with danger. He raced across the parking lot to the place where he had parked his brand new baby, his gleaming black Harley. It stood proud and badass, staring at him as if to say.
“I have been waiting for you.” He straddled the bike and drove the keys into the ignition.
The engine jumped to life, purring seductively into his ear. The leather was warm beneath his thighs, heated by the gentle pulsing of the sun against the dark upholstery. He twisted the key, pushed off from the ground, and backed up, ready to leave this parking lot for good. Just as Rowan was turning the bike around, lining it up to exit the parking lot, the front doors of the corporate headquarters flew open, and Ilsa ran out. Her face was a mask of dark rage, her mouth fixed in a deep frown, her eyebrows angled dangerously downward. She raced at him, screaming his name.
“Rowan! Rowan! You get right back here right now, or you are fired, you asshole!”
Rowan waved at her, smiling calmly. He continued to steer the gleaming black motorcycle across the parking lot.
“Rowan!” she shrieked, her voice cracking with the effort, buckling under the rage.
She stamped her high heeled foot like a child, throwing her hands up in the air and screaming. Rowan gunned the motorcycle so that its revving engine drowned out Ilsa’s cries. He grinned and waved at her and then, without another look back, he shot out of the parking lot and down the busy city street.
Ilsa stared after him, the purr of the shiny black bike still echoing in her ears as Rowan wound his way through the heavily trafficked street, carving a dangerous path through supply trucks, SUVs, and corvettes. Horns honked and drivers stuck their heads out of windows to scream at the reckless bike rider. But Rowan did not care, he was finally free, truly free, and he would not let any person or thing get in the way of his current feelings of excitement and bliss. He threw his head back and screamed in joy, savoring the feeling of the wind rushing past his face, tousling his hair, coloring his bare cheeks a ruddy red. He revved the bike and flew forward again, tilting back and forth daringly, experimenting with his new ride’s abilities. He flew forward, not sure of where he was going, not sure of what he intended to do next, only sure that right now, at this moment, he was truly, truly happy.
He rode on like that until night began to tickle the deep blue of the sky. Rowan pulled over to the side of the road and fished his cell phone from his pocket. He checked the time and ran a quick GPS check of his location. He nodded, impressed at himself when he discovered he had traveled over 60 miles already. He conferred with google and discovered a small town center lay not five miles ahead. It seemed as good a place as any to settle down for the night. He hopped back onto the bike, steered it back onto the freeway on which he had been traveling, and sailed back onto the road, flying forward into the falling night.
The world was nearly dipped in darkness by the time Rowan and his Harley rolled up into the small town center he had spied on his GPS. Rowan slid off his bike, his legs aching, his body cool and his lips chapped from the constant exposure to the whipping wind. He rolled his bike to a stop and parked it in the parking lot of a small pub that seemed to function as the town’s center. He shook out his limbs, casting his gaze up towards the darkness of the sky. And his jaw dropped open. There, up in the sky, Rowan could see the magical pin pricks of hundreds, no, thousands, of stars. He stared up at them all, spinning slowly in circles, filling his eyes hungrily, greedily, with the sight of the universe stretched out above him. In the city, atop his condo roof patio, Rowan had often enjoyed a drink and the sight of night draping itself across the city that lay below, but stars? The city in which Rowan lived was too heavily populated, too full of bright, artificial light, all around the clock, to allow for the stars to ever be seen. Now, in this tiny town miles and miles away from the city, Rowan was amazed and filled with wonder to see the stars dancing above him.
“Just imagine,” he found himself saying. “All this time, there was so much happening, and you just couldn’t see it.”
At long last, Rowan dropped his gaze from the stars and walked across the parking lot towards the front doors of the divey pub. The painted sign was chipping, and one of the windows was boxed up with plastic. Yet the sound of lively conversation and badly played guitar drifted through the thin doors, and it comforted Rowan’s soul. He pulled open the door and strode in.
A dingy room with dim light and scuffed tables met Rowan’s eyes. Men poured themselves over pool tables, and scantily clad women bent over them, pouring beers and laughing too loudly at their terrible jokes. A typical small town, divey establishment, this bar was, home to loud talking men puffing on cigars and a group of younger, baseball cap-wearing men who talked animatedly at a table in the corner, their rifles leaning up against the backs of the booth. Rowan walked slowly across the room, allowing the out of tune strumming of a guitar to dance through his ears, letting the stale smoke of the cigars fill his lungs, sniffing at the smell of spilled beer and overdone steak as it wafted from the kitchen.
Rowan pulled up to the bar and sat himself down on a stool. He stood out like a sore thumb, a sharply dressed man in a room full of people who looked slightly sodden, rough, as though they had spent the day tending to crops or working hard, physically demanding labor, and now gathered at the pub to reward themselves and drink away the pain. Rowan fought the urge to hide himself away, to slouch over his perfectly pressed business suit. Instead, he stripped off his suit jacket and dropped it to the floor, suddenly overcome by the confident feeling that he would no longer be needing that article of clothing, not ever again. He unscrewed his silver cuff links and dropped them on the bar and then shoved up the sleeves of his white dress shirt. He yanked the shirt untucked, too, and immediately found that he felt more comfortable, more at ease within his own body. He leaned forward, his elbows on the bar, and peered at the assorted bottles that were scattered about behind the dusty bar. He tucked his dark hair behind his ears and ran a hand over his face.
A woman swaggered over to him, her large breasts popping out from the low cut tank top she wore. She carried a rag and wiped half-heartedly at the bar top as she strutted across the bar back towards Rowan. She ran her eyes over him and then stopped when she noticed the real silver cufflinks lying on the bar. She looked from the cuff links to Rowan, and then back to the cuff links again. Then she pressed her hands against the bar, revealing fake, bright pink pointed nails. She nodded at Rowan.
“Those yours?” she asked, her eyes again darting towards the cuff links.
Rowan nodded.
“How much they cost?” she asked, working her tongue around the rim of her bubble gum pink lips.
“Get me a drink, and I’ll tell you,” Rowan said. The girl eyed him for a moment, then spun around, yanked on a keg tap, and filled a glass with dark brown liquid. She slid the glass to Rowan and watched him as he sipped.
Rowan swallowed and wiped the back of his hand across his lips.
“Alright,” he said. “Not bad. What is that, malted barley?”
“How much they cost?” the girl asked again. Rowan took another sip, taking his time, enjoying his beer. He swallowed and looked at her.
“They cost me about a thousand dollars,” he said coolly, tipping the glass back again, refilling his mouth with booze.
The girl’s eyes widened to big blue saucers, and her lips flopped open.
“One thousand bucks?!” She repeated, her voice pitching higher with shock.
Rowan nodded, took another sip of his beer. He let out a refreshed sigh.
“Yep,” he confirmed, placing the glass on the bar and dragging his finger along the frosted outside, creating little pictures upon the glass. “One thousand bucks. Each.”
The girl looked as if she might pass out. She stared incredulously at the silver cuff links, squinting at them.
“Two thousand bucks for these teeny tiny things?” She asked, jabbing a pink nail at the cuff links.
Rowan nodded.
“Yea, well, they’re real silver, you know. That stuff’s not cheap.”
He sipped at his beer as the girl lowered her face down, just inches away from the cuff links, staring at them, her jaw still hanging open. She then stood up, turned abruptly, and walked away, her ponytail bouncing against the back of her head as she hurried to the table of young men who sat drinking beers, their rifles at rest behind them.
Rowan watched out of the corner of his eye as she spoke in hushed tones to the group of young men, then pointed his way. The men eyed him suspiciously, then ducked their heads back together. They looked at him again, then one of them, a tall, blonde haired man with a buzz cut and well-worked hands, stood up from the table and began to amble across the room towards Rowan.
The man lumbered up to Rowan and stared at him unblinkingly. He shrugged his hefty body onto the bar stool next to Rowan’s and placed his hairy hands upon the dingy counter, never once removing his gaze from Rowan’s eyes. Rowan held his stare as the man cleared his throat and tapped the bar. The busty barmaid with the ponytail scurried over and slid a pint of something that uncannily resembled foggy urine at the burly man. Still staring Rowan straight in his eyes, the young man clutched the beer, yanked it towards his lips, and chugged half the glass down in one sip. He sighed in satisfaction, dragged his hairy wrist across his lips, and slammed the half empty glass back down on the bar. Rowan had had enough of this playing around. He cleared his throat and arched an inky eyebrow at the young, barrel-chested stranger.
“What can I do for you?” Rowan asked, folding his hands upon the bar to match the stranger’s stance.
The man’s lips curled into a snarl, and his unblinking eyes narrowed.
“Oh I’ll tell you what you can do fer me,” he choked, his voice coming out in a smoker’s wheeze.
He coughed and poured the rest of the yellow beer down his gullet, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he gulped the beverage down. Rowan watched him steadily, calmly, not moving or showing any emotion. The man burped and continued.
“Kandi here tells me you gots some money,” the man said, tilting his head roughly towards the ponytailed girl behind the bar. She peeked out at Rowan from behind the keg taps and waved a teeny wave, grinning a small, apologetic smile. Then she scampered away, her long ponytail bobbing as she ran.
“Oh, yeah?” Rowan countered calmly. He placed his hands very close to the silver cuff links that still lay upon the bar, forcing the man’s gaze to fall upon the expensive items. Rowan caught the burly stranger swallowing, his cheeks ruddy with alcohol, his eyes wide with greed.
“Mmhm mmhm that’s right, my brother,” the man said, suddenly favoring Rowan with a friendlier tone. He slammed his hand back down on the bar, signaling Kandi for another round. “And I, being a gentlemanly fellow, thought, hey, maybe I best be talking to him, this money man, seeing as he has something I want,” the man leaned forward, his breath rancid and dry as it hit Rowan’s face. “And I gots something he wants.”
Rowan looked at the man curiously. He tipped the rest of his dark beer down past his lips and sucked the remaining droplets of the alcohol out of his beard. Then he placed his glass down on the bar and turned to the man.
“Do you now?” Rowan asked patiently. “And what might that be?”
“Oh just wait til you hear about this,” the stranger grinned, showing off a mouth of yellowed teeth. “Ohhhh you best be holding onto your seat right now, buddy,” he laughed. “Because here I is right this now offering you the deal of a lifetime. Are you ready?”
“It sounds like I should be ready,” Rowan said curtly.
“Alrighhhhhtttt then, my friend, my man. Here’s the situation we is looking at here.” The man spread his hairy arms wide, setting up the picture for Rowan. “So. I gots this land, you see. But it ain’t no ordinary land. Because it is out in the middle of nowhere, ok? Like miles and miles and miles away from the civilized places, ok? But here’s the thing: it’s all yours if you want it. Middle of a forest. Ample room for gardening. Little shack on there already and whatnot. Acres n’ acres… like that? Would normally go for a million. But for you, my friend.” Here, the man clapped a hairy, yellow nailed hand upon Rowan’s shoulder. “For you, tell ya what… I like you, fellow, you’re a man I can really get with, a man I really understand. So for you, you just gimme them two silver bits of cuff holders right there, and I sign over the property to you. And that’s a deal.” The man leaned back, his eyes widening in a display of his sincerity. “Cross my heart.” He traced an X across his heart, his yellowed, dirty nails bouncing across his chest.
Rowan stared at him, completely caught off guard, but entirely unwilling to show it. He blinked several times, swallowed, and tried to force moisture back into his mouth. Kandi skipped into view and slid a beer at the man and Rowan waved his hand at her, signaling another round for him as well. She slipped him an extra tall pour of the dark liquid he had sipped before, and without a moment’s pause he chugged it down, suddenly impossibly thirsty. The burly man watched in awe as Rowan proceeded to down the entire beverage in one shot, then slapped the empty glass back down onto the chipping linoleum of the bar. Rowan waved his hand again for another round. Kandi slid another beer across the slippery linoleum, and Rowan caught in his hand, lifted it to his lips, and began to sip at it blindly. He stared ahead, his eyes bleary, his mind playing out different scenarios, different possibilities, across the slate of his imagination.
Should I really do this? He heard his consciousness speaking to him. Fuck, Rowan, this is everything you have ever wanted, to get away from it all. A big ol’ hearty fuck you to the establishment, to run from all of the SHIT that most people fucking wade through every day, day in and day out, until they die, and it has just been handed to you on a silver platter. For the price of what? Mother fucking cuff links? That you have never thought twice about? That, if anything, you fuckin’ hated because they were stupid bits of over excessiveness that always just served to remind you of how much of a shit hole of a world you had got yourself in?
He chugged the beer and slammed it back down on the bar, his eyes still staring straight ahead. He ran his tattooed fingers through his hair and laughed soundlessly.
Fuck, man, look at you, all these inky tattoos crawling up and down your body. You might be able to fake it, you might be able to make that six digit figure a year, but holy fuck you are NOT a corporate pawn. You are not here on this planet to serve corporations and make money. You are here to live. And this guy right here, this guy right here, he has just served you the chance of a lifetime. So what are you gonna do? What the fuck are you going to do, Rowan Davis?
The burly twenty-something eyed Rowan, his brow crinkling with the anxiety that waiting for the well-dressed man’s answer brought upon him.
“Well?” he asked. Rowan said nothing and enjoyed how the man slammed his fists upon the bar, wiggled his knees, looked as if he might explode with curiosity. “WELL?!”
Rowan scratched at his beard, pretending to be thinking very hard about this proposition. Then he reached into his pocket and snatched his cell phone from the depths of the gray material.
“Hmm,” he said, putting on his best professional asshole face. “I’ll have to make a few calls.”
The bearded man stared at him, then raised his hairy hands upward.
“No, no, no, of course, of course,” he said, waving his fingers in the air. “I know it’s all a shitton to think about, dude, but I feel your energy, and I’m just feeling like you really gotta, uh, want this, yea so… yea, you make those calls.” The man turned away quickly and smashed the beer down his thick, meaty throat.
Rowan allowed himself a small, private grin, his long black locks of hair concealing his face from view. He quickly dialed his go-to real estate’s number and pressed the phone to his ear.
“Hey, Quinton?” he said. “Yes, it’s me. Yes, I know it is late. My apologies. I just wanted to ask you if you could please sell the property.” A moment passed as Rowan listened to the voice on the other end leap and jump with shock and rage. “No, I know, and you are correct, it is a ridiculous request. Ah haha! No, Quint, I have not been drinking,” Rowan said, reaching behind him to tap the bar for another round. “Look, I just know that this is right at this moment in my life. So please, Quinton, do not make me ask again.” The barmaid slipped Rowan another glass of deep amber liquid, and he nodded his thanks. He shouldered the phone to his other ear and swiveled around on the bar stool so that he could look directly at the burly, hairy man. The man stared back, his shoulders raised in a questioning motion. Rowan nodded several times, said several “mmhm. mmhms” , and then nodded again, more firmly and absolutely this time. “7.5 million. That’s decent. Alright. Yes. First thing. Thank you, Quinton. Thanks.” He slipped the phone away from his ear, punched the end call button, and dropped it back in his pocket. Then he turned his attention towards the fresh beer, wrapping his fingers fondly around the frosted glass, staring deeply into the foamy top head of the liquid.
The burly man leaned forward, eyebrows raised, eyes wide, not wanting to say anything, but desperately desiring an answer from the well-dressed man he had propositioned. Rowan took a small sip, then another. He dunked his finger into the foamy head of the beer, pulled it out, licked it. The stranger could take no more. He jumped up and took a step towards Rowan.
“Well?” he asked, his voice jumping up several octaves, excitement piquing his bassy vocals to new never before explored heights. “Well? Whaddaya think old buddy, old pal, my guy, good sport? Twenty-seven whopping acres in the middle of fucking nowhere, uh, central to everything. Whaddaya think? Sounds like paradise, huh?”
The man stared at Rowan intently, biting down nervously on his bottom lip. Rowan still sipped his beer. The man glanced back at his friends, still seated with their rifles at the booth in the back. The men all leaned forward in their seats, staring at their buddy. They nodded encouragingly, gripping their beers nervously.
“Well?!” the burly man asked again, hopping from foot to foot.
Rowan finished the beer and placed it neatly back on top of the counter. He smoothed out one of the bits of peeling linoleum. He cleared his throat. He turned towards the impressively hairy young man.
“Well,” he said. “Well, you hairy, unfortunate man, my answer is… I am interested, yes. And I would very much like to take you up on your proposition.”
The man stared at Rowan, frozen to the spot, and Rowan suddenly realized he was not certain that the stranger had understood what he had just said. To be emphatically clear, Rowan plucked the two shiny, silver cuff links from off the scuffed counter and slapped them into the stranger’s hairy hand. The man stared down at his hand for a moment, visibly overwhelmed by the fact that he now clutched two thousand dollars in his sweaty palm. Then he looked up at Rowan, grinned a broken toothed smile, and pumped the man’s hand up and down enthusiastically.
“Alright, my man, ALRIGHT!” he bellowed, laughing and shaking Rowan’s hand so hard Rowan worried his arm might become accidentally dislocated.
Then the man turned to his friends and raised his hands high into the air, balling the hairy digits into triumphant fists. The men leaped from the booth and belly thumped each other, screaming and yelping in joy. Rowan watched, absolutely amazed at what was happening before his eyes. And suddenly he found that he, too, was laughing, belly thumping with the hairy, burly stranger, wrapping a muscular arm around the man’s rounded back and thumping him warmly on the shoulder, thanking him for this opportunity. And then he was signing a document, and then he was shaking hands again, pouring scotch down his throat, kissing Kandi on her plump, bubble gum painted lips, slapping hands in stinging high fives with the other young men from the back booth, buying shots for the entire bar.