Mister West by R.J. Lewis (animal farm read .TXT) 📕

finally done it. I've squashed that hope in him. It's done.

Please, Ivy, be strong.

The Messenger

Ivy: The weather is shit, isn’t it?

A.W.: Are we really doing this?

Ivy: What?

A.W.: We’re really talking about the weather? Is this what friends do?

Ivy: God, how did it feel when you typed that word? F-r-i-e-n-d-s.

A.W.: It felt unlike me.

Ivy: What would you rather us talk about?

A.W.: What are you wearing?

Ivy: Denim shorts and a grey tee.

A.W.: Show me.

Picture sent.

A.W.: Jesus, Ivy. How am I supposed to concentrate now?

Ivy: What are you wearing?

A.W.: Suit.

Ivy: Show me.

A.W.: Afraid I can’t, beauty. I’m in a meeting.

Ivy: Then you shouldn’t be on your phone.

A.W.: But I’ve got your picture to stare at now. Your eyes are glowing. You’ve just bitten your bottom lip and licked it (you did that a lot when we talked). Your cheeks are red. Are you blushing at our conversation?

Ivy: Yes, I’m blushing.

A.W.: Tell me why.

Ivy: I feel alive when I talk to you. Like I have something to look forward to right now. Is that crazy?

A.W.: No. I feel it too.

Ivy: What do you think it is?

A.W.: You want to fuck me.

Ivy: Aidan…

A.W.: I can’t help it. There’s something about you, Ivy.

Ivy: Endorphins, Aidan. I’m your latest fun.

A.W.: It isn’t that.

One hour later…

A.W.: Would you have kissed me back?

Two hours later…

Ivy: Yes.

Ivy: That’s why I’m counting on you to be the strong one.

Not a minute later…

A.W.: You’re counting on the wrong person, Ivy.

Twelve

Aidan

“You look like you’re going to kill someone,” Steven says, taking a bite out of his breakfast sandwich as he strolls into the office.

“You know better than to come into my office eating that shit,” I retort.

“I’m hungry, man.”

I don’t respond. I’m standing by the window, staring down at the streets. Apathy is creeping in like never before, and there is nothing to keep it at bay.

Unless I talk to a particular woman.

And I don’t want to fucking do that.

“What’s the plan today?” I ask, and my voice is hollow, dead. The motivation to be here is gone. I feel my soul rotting in this fucking place.

Steven takes a seat on the sofa beside the desk. He doesn’t feel it. “Statutory Report for 9am.”

“Thought we did that already.”

“No, Aidan, that was done last month. You’re thinking of the board meeting a few days ago.”

“They’re all the fucking same.”

Steven ignores that. He ignores a lot these days. “After the meeting, we have to issue a statement regarding last week’s privacy breach.”

“What was that about?”

Steven stills. “Aidan, we’ve just been hit with our biggest cyberattack to date. Our entire main database was compromised. Millions of people had to change their passwords. We talked about this. You…you were there when it happened.”

Was I?

I don’t remember shit. Eighty percent of this job consists of meetings. I stopped giving a fuck months ago.

“It didn’t breach the financials, did it?” I wonder. Because I’d have to seriously give a fuck then.

“No evidence of unauthorized credit or financial breach. Those are stored in a separate format and encrypted with –”

“I didn’t ask for your life story, Steven,” I cut in. “Just a no next time will suffice.”

Steven’s face darkens. He clenches his teeth, throwing his sandwich down on the illogically expensive mahogany coffee table. Who the fuck approved that purchase?

“What’s going on with you, man? You’re out of it. One second you’re complacent – which is a healthy change, I’ll admit – and the next you’re breathing down our necks like a fucking dragon.”

What was going on with me?

Where do I start?

I don’t give a fuck about our company anymore. The appeal was gone the second it became a growing international commodity. And when that happened, I immersed myself in the money. In fast cars and beautiful women. But not even that lasted long before I craved another challenge. The obsession to rebuild a company from scratch emerged, and it had me traveling across the continent, listening to pitches, looking over businesses and investments, and still, nothing filled that hole in me.

Now I’m pissed. Because I did find myself a distraction, but it wasn’t a company, or an investment opportunity, or even something quick and easy like a sexy car.

It was a woman.

Not plural, either.

Woman.

It’s maddening. It’s lunacy. It’s exhausted my every thought. My fingers tingle to touch the phone. I need more of her. I need to know what she’s thinking, what she’s doing – anything from her would temporarily satiate this endless appetite I’ve developed, and it’s confusing the shit out of me.

I want to tell Steven, but he’d laugh or give me the long talk about settling down. He’s always been that way, though, since high school. The preachy type. I fucking hate the preachy type. But he’s happier than I am. He’s been with one woman and one woman only, and I’ve never understood that. I never cared to even try. This asshole has had the answer to happiness in life this entire time, and I’ve been too blind and arrogant to see it.

For years, my life’s been about work, about money, about fucking the next pair of long legs. And while a small part of me envies Steven’s settled down life to one woman, I know that isn’t me. I wouldn’t know how to switch off. The idea of being vulnerable, of letting down these walls, scares the living fuck out of me.

The logical part of me understands I’m obsessing over Ivy because I can’t have her. And because she gives zero fucks about my wealth. She didn’t even probe me once about my work. It made me feel more than just the man everyone sees.

Is this what Steven feels?

The deeper part of me feels like there is something about Ivy that fits into me like a puzzle piece I didn’t know I was missing. It’s the deeper part I don’t like to shine a lot of light on, even though it’s always at the back of my mind. I know this