Chapter Seventeen

Cormac

I was clicking through the presentation that Pierce had prepared for our meeting with the Japanese clients. Pierce and I were due to fly to Tokyo in two weeks and make the presentation in person. I had to admit that Pierce had done a good job of it, and pretty much by himself. I’d been practically no use to him the past three days, since that fateful morning when I’d woken up to a knock on the door and it was Olive on the other side.

I had a dull aching throb at the back of my head this morning. I’d had too much to drink the previous night. I’d already been drinking when Olive got on stage, and after we had sex, the only way I believed I could forget her was by drinking some more.

There was a knock on my office door now, and I looked up to find Pierce entering the room. I straightened up and tried to gather myself. I wondered if Olive had told him what had happened between us. I knew I’d been rude to her the previous night, and she had every right to tell her brother the truth.

Pierce wordlessly came up to my desk and sat down across from me. I wasn’t sure how to begin the conversation, or if this was a business visit or a personal one.

“You’ve done a great job of putting the presentation together, man,” I tried, and Pierce smiled faintly and nodded.

“Thanks. Now all you have to do is charm them with your sales pitch in Tokyo,” he said and smoothened the lapels of his suit jacket.

“Hey,” I began, but Pierce had already opened his mouth to speak.

“Look, Cormac, I want to put all this nonsense behind us. We’ve both been acting stupid the past two days, and we need to stop,” he said. I clamped my mouth shut. Clearly Olive hadn’t told him anything, and I was filled with that wave of guilt again.

“I deserved everything you said to me,” I replied, and Pierce shrugged and took in a deep breath.

“I don’t know about that, old boy. I mean, the moment Olive arrived in Brunswick and I saw the two of you together, alarm bells went off in my head. I’ve always been unhealthily protective of her, and I realize now that she doesn’t need it. She doesn’t want it,” Pierce continued, and I had to clench my fists so that I didn’t erupt. This was not the direction I was expecting this conversation to go.

“It doesn’t matter, Pierce. I should have respected your wishes. It’s what I would expect from you too,” I countered, and Pierce leaned on the desk and clasped his hands together.

“I guess what I’m trying to say to you, Cormac, is that I wish I’d handled it better. I wish that I’d trusted you more. In the years that we’ve known each other—well, nobody has ever been a better friend to me. My time at Harvard would have looked a whole lot different if I didn’t have you beside me. You paid for things, you had my back, and now you’ve given me a job. I feel like an ungrateful jerk right about now,” Pierce said, leaning back in his chair again.

I could see that this was difficult for him to say, but he had resolved to say it. I shook my head and glanced down at my desk. The guilt was overtaking my body; I could feel my knees wobbling under the desk now.

“You don’t need to be grateful. You’ve been as good a friend to me, Pierce. You’ve been there to pull me up, to stop me from doing stupid shit that could have gotten me killed. You’ve never let me take it too far, and for that I owe you. And as far as this job goes, Rhett and the others owe me for connecting you to them. I didn’t do it as a favor to you,” I replied. Pierce smiled and nodded.

“Okay. It’s settled, then, old boy. We can forget about the past two days and just move on. And I promise I’ll learn to trust you a little more,” he said with a smile, and I just couldn’t hold back any longer. Not now, knowing that Pierce was blaming himself for his behavior.

“I slept with her, with Olive,” I blurted out, and the smile dropped from my friend’s face pretty fast.

He pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes at me.

“Twice, in fact. I slept with Olive twice, and I swear, man, I tried to stay away from her. I knew what you said was right. I doubted that I could ever make her happy. I didn’t want Olive turning into another one of my one-night stand stories. I couldn’t do that to your sister,” I continued, holding Pierce’s gaze strongly. He was glaring at me, and even though I could see the way his neck had started to turn red, he hadn’t said anything to me yet.

“You slept with my sister?” he clarified in a shaky, threatening voice. I clenched my jaws and gulped as I stared back at him.

“I wanted to tell you the moment it happened, but I couldn’t, and then it happened again,” I replied, and Pierce jerked his head away from me. He didn’t want to look at me anymore.

“Hey, man, I’m telling you now for a reason,” I said.He whipped his face to me again. I was expecting a punch, at least some shouting. Instead, Pierce was doing a good job of controlling his rage.

“What reason might that be, Cormac? To torment me with the info that you’ve scored my sister?” he thundered, and I stood up from my chair.

“It wasn’t like that. I didn’t want to sleep with her as a score, to prove something to you. It just happened,” I countered, and Pierce stood up too.

“So, both times, it just happened, is it?” he asked. I couldn’t reply.

“You fucking weasel. I told you to stay away from her, and this whole time, you’ve been banging her behind my back!” he growled, and I saw him clench his fists.

“I want to do this right. I don’t want this to turn into a short-lived fling. Do you understand what I’m saying, Pierce? I like her—I more than just like her,” I tried to explain, but he was already shaking his head in disgust.

Pierce’s nostrils were flared. His face had turned red with rage.

“It doesn’t matter what you feel right now, Cormac. You will feel differently tomorrow, when you’re bored of her, or when another pretty face comes along. That’s what you do,” he growled, and I ran a hand through my hair.

“Yes, I know where you’re coming from, but there’s a first time for everything, man. And Olive is my first time. She’s my first chance at something real. And I’m telling you all this because I want to give it a shot with her. I want to be with her for real, man,” I argued. Pierce continued shaking his head. He had his teeth gritted and his fists clenched. I could see that he was doing everything he could to not reach out and punch me in the face.

I almost wished that he’d just punch me. That he’d just get it done with and out of the way.

“You’re a fucking delusional jerk. You think you can fool me with your little speech,but I know you. I know what you do to women, and I’m not going to let you do that to my little sister. Fuck you, Cormac. Fuck you!” Pierce spat and whipped around from me.

I didn’t follow him as he approached my office door and threw it open. He looked over his shoulder then.

“It’s over, so you can drop the act. Olive has left Brunswick and gone back to LA already, and I’m going to make sure you never get your hands on her again,” he hissed, and he banged the door shut behind him. The picture frames on my office wall rattled from the force, and I sat down on my chair with a thump.

Olive was gone! I should have expected that, after what I’d told her the previous night. She had to have grown tired of my hot and coldness, my conflicting actions of making love to her and then pushing her away. I wasn’t surprised that she’d run out of patience, and understood that what her brother told her about me was true. I was never going to be able to give her what she deserved.

Now that she was gone, I could finally start moving on, and nothing in my life had seemed more difficult before. Not even jumping off the Macau Tower in China.