I was standing on the upper floor, staring out over the grounds, when the phone rang in my pocket. I checked the caller ID… and almost dropped it to the floor when I realized who was on the line.

Staring at the name for a moment, I accepted the call and lifted the receiver to my ear. “I didn’t expect to hear from you again.”

“I just met Gloria Van Lark,” Riley blurted breathlessly into the phone.

“Oh, did you?” I responded thoughtfully.

“Yeah.” She sounded on edge.

“Well… how did that go?”

“Turns out that she likes me, and apparently wants to represent me in her museum,” Riley responded. “No thanks to my investor!”

“An investor, huh?” I asked, measuring my words carefully. “Didn’t know that you had yourself one of those.”

“Cut the shit, Lex,” she finally snapped. “You tried to pay her off. She came to the museum to tell me I couldn’t buy her!”

“Well it sounds like you worked through that… I knew you would, Riley.” I replied, smirking into the phone.

“Wait a second… You knew? You knew what?”

“Gloria Van Lark is piece of work Riley. She can’t be bought,” I said.

“Then why did you try to buy her?!? Did you seriously give her museum a million freaking dollars?” Riley shouted over the line.

“I did it because I knew that was the only way she would see you personally. I did my research at great personal expense. Gloria likes to hide behind her staff and she never gives anyone a second chance… But she lives for the opportunity to crush someone’s dreams.”

“You manipulated her?” Riley asked, incredulous. “You knew she’d come to tell me off?”

“It was worth a shot,” I commented. “So, what happens now?”

“Now?” Riley sounded pensive. “Like I said, she wants to represent me… but she expects me to move to California with her.”

“I see,” I remarked. “Are you going to do it.”

“I have no idea,” Riley confided. “It’s a dream come true to be offered representation, and I can barely fathom how much she’s considering paying for my art… but it’s a lot to ask of me.”

“Right.”

“You didn’t have to do this, Lex.”

“I know that. But I wanted to just express some… regret over how things happened. I know that you’re moving on, but I wanted you to understand that I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Riley whispered down the line. “I was being selfish… Things were just moving too fast… I should have been there for you. I shouldn’t have… left you. And now you’re gone.”

“I miss you,” I quickly blurted out, unwilling to talk myself out of expressing the sentiment. “I wish you were here.”

Riley remained quiet on the line.

“…Riley?”

Finally, she responded: “Oh god, Lex, I’ve made a huge mistake. I miss you too.”

I closed my eyes and rested my face against the window, holding the phone pressed against my ear. “I want you here, Riley. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we parted ways… and I’ve been a wreck. Losing you devastated me… and I know I can’t have you, but I want you so badly.”

There was another piercing silence over the phone. I feared with every passing second that I would hear the line disconnect.

In fact, I thought it did briefly, but that’s when I noticed Jess trying to dial me on the other line. I ignored her call and continued to hold out for Riley’s response.

“If I don’t go to San Diego… I’m walking away from the opportunity of a lifetime.”

“You never needed Gloria before, and you don’t need her today. If you want to go, you should go. Maybe I can visit next time I’m in the states…”

Another piercing silence… punctuated by the sound of soft crying. Concern clouded my thoughts, and I felt my heart quiver with pain.

“Riley?”

“I love you, Lex.”

It was my turn to be stunned.

“…I love you too, Riley.”

“I can’t do this.”

“What can’t you do?”

“I can’t take her offer. She wants me to forsake any distractions…”

“Why is that a problem?” I asked.

“Because you’re a distraction. You’re a big goddamned distraction!” Riley shouted.

“That was her condition: move to California and give up everything else. Focus only on my artwork. She thinks that I need to work under a different atmosphere and to give up my life in order to produce my best work. She’s only giving me fourteen hours to decide, and then I’m gone…”

The phone buzzed against my ear again.

It was Jess again.

I ignored the call.

“Riley… you have to take this chance,” I insisted. “You’ve worked so hard for this opportunity. All I could do was get her to listen to you. You have your chance. You’ve got to take it.”

“I don’t care about that anymore,” she whispered sadly down the phone. “I never told you this… But… The magic came back.”

“The magic?” I thought aloud. “You mean, your art? You’re satisfied with your painting again?”

“I am,” she told me confidently. “After we met, I painted something… I haven’t shown it to anyone yet. It’s different… It’s better. Being with you made me better.”

She wasn’t the only one… Jess had been right. Riley was the best thing that ever happened to me…

“I don’t need to be in some stuffy San Diego studio… I need to be with you. You bring out my best creative side. You made me so happy, even if I wasn’t willing to admit it to myself… or to you.”

“So, what do you want to do, then?” I asked. The silence was deafening. I could feel the conflict through the line.

“Lex… I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

“I’m coming back Riley. I’ll be on a plane tonight. Whatever decision you make tomorrow, I want to be there…”

This was more than I could have ever hoped for. I practically hurled a victory fist into the sky.

“Gloria Van Lark expects an answer from me around mid-afternoon… can you get here before then?”

“I’ll be there for you,” I reassured her.

“Thank you, Lex…”

I could barely contain myself as I hung up the phone, but before I had a chance to celebrate, it was ringing again.

Jess… Shit…

“I was on the other line,” I explained with a small grin as I answered the call. “I have news for you. Are you ready?”

“You’re not the only one,” she replied, sounding incredibly enthusiastic. “Who is the best fucking publicist in the world?”

“I’m going to guess you,” I replied.

For some reason, something felt amiss.

“I expect more conviction in your voice the next time I ask that question, buddy,” Jess chuckled. “Better put on your best fucking suit because I’m already on my way. I’m going to be there in an hour.”

“What, why? I’m heading out the door. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

“No, you definitely don’t,” she chided me. “Not when you hear this news: Lex Lambert, you’ve officially landed a direct meeting with the Head of Public Relations for the Patrovo Corporation himself. Cancel whatever you were about to do, because no matter what it was… it can wait.”

“…Brett Barker wants to see me?”

“You’re goddamn right he does.”

The phenomenally bad timing clicked in my head, and I groaned as my forehead braced against the window again. My view incorporated the enclosed glass stadium, the various gardens, and a river that ran across the estate… but my eyes focused on the stadium, cruelly mocking me.

“…Lex, are you there?”

“I’m here,” I sighed.

“You sound a lot less enthusiastic about this than you should be. I know that you’re beating yourself up over Riley, but c’mon. You’ve been waiting for this for ages.”

“Why does he want to see me now?”

Jess’s tone grew agitated. “Because it’s the only time I could work you in, unless you planned on waiting a week. By then, the decision would be made.”

“I don’t get it. I thought he was adamantly against offering me the sponsorship?”

“Well… it just so turns out that your little bar brawl was recorded. Joys of living in a time where everybody’s got a cellphone camera. And guess who showed up on camera taunting you?”

“Alistair!”

“It’s all over the tabloids. Alistair tries to get his own teammate arrested in the US. They have the whole thing on video. The guy attacking you, the way you tried to defend yourself, and Alistair acting like a damn fool. Barker won’t touch the guy with a ten-foot pole,” Jess said, laughing.

“That can’t be enough to entertain the thought of offering me the sponsorship.”

Jess grew hesitant. “…I might have gone a little further. There’s some rumors that you defended a young, vulnerable woman from a sexual attack…”

“I told you not to use Riley!” I shouted angrily.

“And I didn’t. The Patrovo Corporation asked me about it. Turns out somebody got their hands on a police report. That’ll be front page news tomorrow. What was I going to do, lie?”

“I told you under absolutely no circumstances were you to exploit Riley’s trauma to benefit me,” I said, my anger still bubbling to the surface.

“And I made that very clear as well, which seemed to impress Brett Barker. Look, you can hate me all you want, but I’ve bought you your shot. He’s willing to overlook the scandals and the attitude if you can convince him that you’re turning over a new leaf… and your single rival has been taken out of the picture. He’s left with you, or picking someone with half your personality and pop culture draw. All you have to do is come with me and meet him yourself.”

“I can’t go,” I told her definitively. “Because–”

“The hell you can’t,” Jess snapped. “I don’t give a bloody sod how mad you might be over this. I get it. You don’t want to exploit the girl’s trauma. Fine. But you’ve been working towards this for months. Everything you’ve done has been to secure this multi-million contract. I am handing it to you on a silver fucking platter. All you have to do is not fuck this up, yeah?”

“Jess.”

“Do not. I’ll be there in under an hour. We can be meeting Brett in two more. Just put on your best fucking suit and–”

“JESS!”

She instantly shut up, pausing to absorb the anger in my voice. While I composed myself briefly, a moment of tension crackled between us. “What?” She finally asked.

“I was on the phone with Riley when you were trying to call me earlier.”

“Yeah, and…?”

Her tone changed. “…Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. Jess, we reconciled. She knows about the donation. Gloria Van Lark decided to take her in, but only if she moved to California and completely committed herself to the craft.”

“Oh! That’s the tits!”

“No, Jess,” I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. “She doesn’t want to do it. She wants to come back here – to England.”

“This girl has it bad for you Lex,” Jess laughed.

“Maybe. Point is, I just got done telling her I’m jumping on a plane. I want to be there before she has to make a decision with Gloria tomorrow…”

“Oh, fuck me sideways,” Jess groaned.

“Exactly.”

“Lex… there’s no way I can reschedule this thing with Brett and Patrovo Corp. It’s now or never. Can’t Riley wait, just a couple of hours? You’re already down a million this week on your little donation, and this is turning down an awful lot more… This is your dream!”

“I don’t care about the fucking money or the goddamn contract anymore, Jess.”

I realized that I’d said the words before I even recognized what they meant. I was stunned at how my heart had overrode my brain, sending a signal to blurt that declaration out… but even as I wondered about this, I knew that it was true.

All that mattered to me was Riley Ricketts.

“You really mean that, don’t you, Lex?”

I didn’t need to give it another second’s thought. “I do, Jess. I really do.”

“Well, I’ll be absolutely damned,” she laughed down the phone. “I thought this little trip might be a good idea upfront… give you some renewed perspective, keep you out of trouble… but you’re a changed man, Alexander Lambert. This woman has really gotten into you.”

“I think she has.”

“Alright then,” she exhaled, the tension leaving her tone. “In that case, fuck the contract. I’ll make the call right after we disconnect. If he can’t wait one more day to hell with the whole damn company. You get yourself to the airport. I’ll call ahead and have a plane ready for you.”

“You’re the best, Jess,” I told her, sighing out in relief. “I can’t possibly thank you enough.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she chuckled. “Go get suited up and head straight for Heathrow. Hit me with a text when you land.”