Chapter 11
It was an odd choice for coffee, especially for a Monday. The lager tasted of bitter regret from the first sip, the yellowish liquid coursing through his body like a virus. Ordering a gin and tonic or scotch on the rocks would have been better options. But he wanted to nurse the drink for the duration of this.
And Jill sitting across the wooden table wasn't making things better.
She had insisted on postponing their catch up to after work and Chuck once again had folded. Of all places, she had chosen a quaint, little Irish pub for their meeting, though not far from Roark Industries.
They were in the outdoor area away from the entrance with a massive plaque of a clover, along with the pub's name, hanging above. While small, the crowd consisted of a diverse range of people aging from young university students to older workers finishing their day.
Jill had been yapping for quite some time now and her voice gradually blended with the ambient noise around him. Barely holding Chuck's attention, he kept switching his focus from one object to another. His drink, the coaster, her hairpin, the large broccoli-like tree behind her. Anything but her.
She didn't seem to notice, however, since was engorged in her own tales of life after college.
"Are you listening to me?"
Taking an extra second to admire the scenery beyond, he settled his eyes back onto Jill's frames, the lenses ready to pop out at any second.
"Yeah, the project that brought you back to LA," he prompted.
Smiling inquisitively, she was about to continue except Chuck cut her off.
"Honestly, it's been great catching up but why'd you break up with me?"
About as subtle as a chair thrown through a glass barrier, or a truck plowing through a brick wall. But it got the job done.
Jill's mortification was comical, hilarious even, but that did not explain the callousness of her dumping him and going to Bryce.
"Chuck, it was stupid of me."
She reached over to lay her palm or his forearm. He managed not to snatch his arm back, vexed by her familiar touch.
"You've always given people the benefit of the doubt," she said, smiling like a saint.
Chuck was not one to be deceived by such an innocent facade, learning from mistakes of the past. While he believed in second chances, there was no conceivable he was going to be more than acquaintances with Jill.
He twisted his wrist a little, still unaccustomed to the weight of the new silver watch around it, fitted with a tiny tracking device in it. The links rattled as it slid down his wrist, leaving already forming tan lines on his skin.
Much like the actual watch enclosed around his arm, it was trapping him in what was turning into an insurmountable situation with Roark and the CIA. He had no exit strategy and no way of going off grid without raising attention. Just dandy.
With a shake of his head and a sip of his beer, he returned his attention once again to Jill, the more immediate issue.
"You still haven't given me a plausible reason," he said with a curt head tilt.
"You were always just so busy with schoolwork, and then when you got thrown out..."
So she dropped him like a desperate investor panic-selling their shares from a company that was about to be liquidated. A far cry from the confidence that people appeared to have in him, or perhaps it was just further dishonesty on their part.
"But look at you now, Chuck. If you'll forgive me, I promise I'll make everything up to you."
More promises, more opportunities to break.
"There's nothing to forgive," he said, trepidation lurking behind his voice.
Jill leaned further over the table, prompting Chuck to pull away. For an agonising moment, he was enticed, instincts tingling.
But he pulled back, spine pushing into his seat. The legs of the chair scraped along the brick-paved ground, making a coarse, ugly noise beneath him.
He was surprised that Jill's short stature could even reach him at that point but there was no sign that she was settling for anything less. Not an optimal situation at all, he thought as he berated himself for his choice of phrasing.
A distraction would have been wonderful, like the bushy tree catching fire, a sudden hailstorm, or Sarah.
And there she was, partially obscured in his field of vision by Jill's encroaching brown hair. But she was standing there, clear as day, hair billowing behind her from the wind, face scrunched up in a sordid frown.
"Chuck!"
He thought it impossible but he had fallen deeper into the ravine. Sarah was now briskly walking up to their bench, heels beating onto the footpath.
Having had enough, he laid his hands on Jill's shoulders and gently pushed back, now with a valid reason.
Sarah was now towering over them, the sun behind her casting a long shadow across the length of the table.
"What are you up to, Sarah?" Chuck asked timidly.
"Carina and I carpooled in this morning and now she's ditched me, probably as a practical joke. So now I'm off to the bus station."
She had yet to acknowledge Jill, who was retreating in irritation back into her seat. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest, one leg perched on top of the other. There seemed to be an invisible barrier separating Chuck and Sarah from Jill.
Chuck reeled himself from his trance on Sarah, reminding himself that she was not out of the woods yet either in matters dear to the heart. But there was an out to this situation that was staring right at him.
"Why don't I save you the trouble and give you a lift home?"
She refused politely, not wanting to disrupt the other two reminiscing over their past history, to which Jill agreed to with a quick nod. Chuck insisted that they were finishing up soon, although his beer indicated anything but.
Inexplicably, Sarah grabbed a nearby vacant chair and placed herself next to Chuck, saying that she would wait for them to wrap up their little rendezvous. She picked up Chuck's pint glass and took a swig of it, before coughing from the bitterness.
"Tastes like cat piss," she spluttered. Chuck couldn't help but echo her thoughts.
After making some small talk for a couple short minutes, Sarah had tired and asked to leave.
With a scowl taped to her face, Jill told Chuck to call her when he wanted to finish their conversation. He had no desire for to take up such an ill-conceived action.
Chuck and Sarah began speed-walking away from the pub, almost at a jogging pace. When they had turned several of corners they stopped, Chuck doubled over with his hands on his knees and panting heavily.
It was immature. It was insensitive. It was exhilarating.
Then they laughed, giddy with excitement from their escapade like they had committed a bank heist. It seemed so natural, even with the rancor he harboured. But even that was fading, feeling more than a half decade younger, lighter.
They had pulled off something similar for one of Sarah's disastrous dates in high school. She had frantically texted Chuck to bail her out while he was at work. During his break, he rushed over to her, who formulated an excuse that she desperately needed some electronic device from the Buy More. They returned and stayed in the cage until his shift was over.
His amusement was short-lived as he knew that this was not the conclusion to the Jill debacle, only a temporary reprieve. And that was not including the corporate espionage, the thought roughly knifing through his brain.
Catching his breath again, Chuck led the two of them to his car, still parked near the Roark building. They swung in but he made no move to ignite the engine.
"How'd you know I was in a sticky situation?"
"Your watch monitors heartbeat, and yours was jacked, even though you weren't moving."
Chuck threw his head lightly into the steering wheel, forehead connecting with the solid leather in a resounding thud. He felt Sarah stroking his back almost out of instinct, an old habit of hers for when he was stressing out over something.
He had forgotten the soothing effect of it, but his muscles relaxed, his heart slowed its pumping and his migraine began disappearing.
Deciding he needed to take his mind off of Jill, he started the car and reversed out of the parking space.
"How goes everything on the Roark front?" Chuck asked.
"Carina's discovered some confidential financial documents. There's a whole division in R&D that takes about a third of the department's budget but hasn't been declared on public files."
As alarming it was, it was also the confirmation to Chuck that Roark was perhaps not the most philanthropic of men, embellishing public annual reports and financial documents. A project hidden so impeccably that even he had no clue it existed. In fact, it was likely that only Roark and the board members knew the full details.
"Chuck, can you hack into the databases and get us that information?"
In for a penny, in for a pound, he supposed. Not that he had the option to decline, no matter how much Sarah spruced it up.
Chuck sighed, agreed and kept driving.
Too soon had they arrived at Sarah's hotel and Chuck bid her goodbye.
Sarah hesitated. A shyness that Chuck had almost never witnessed from her. "Fancy coming up and having a decent drink?"
For the second time that evening, he was on the brink of temptation, this time much greater in intensity, but caught himself shakily. He cautioned himself that she was not to remain there forever and that he had followed this path before to less than stellar results.
"Don't think that's the greatest idea."
"Okay," she paused expectantly but relented, "Bye, Chuck."
She walked towards the glass doors and looked back with a faltering smile that he could not bear to meet.
As he drove home, Chuck determined that there were three certainties in his life.
Death. Taxes. And that he loved her something terrible.
I will only be intermittently posting starting from next week. Before now, I've been on summer holidays (I wanted a new hobby so I decided to start writing) but I'm moving to a new city and starting full-time work in a couple weeks. But please believe me when I say I won't abandon this until it's finished.
Once again, cheers for reading and the feedback given. Please continue to be critical of my work. It gives me food for thought. Enjoy!