I Can't, I Won't
Summary: Sequel to Life's Full of Little Surprises. She was the girl that he couldn't forget, he was the man she didn't want to forget. He fell for her on a bus, she fell for him in the rain. After two years apart, they are brought back together. But are they willing to let themselves fall in love again?
Disclaimer- I own nothing but my OC's. It is very sad, but true.
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AznIntegra- Thanks! Yes, Charlie and Teresa are figuring out how they feel about each other and it is super cute. Seriously, the two of them in my head when I'm writing make me want to squee like a fangirl. As for Lex and Jesse, they can't get together because, as they just learned, they don't have those types of feelings for each other. They are more like family than anything and dating a family member… Well that's just icky!
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Thomas Adair had had a long several weeks. First and foremost, his constantly infuriating son was getting closer to Lucian Walsh and Aimee –a feat, Thomas learned quickly, his daughters were helping achieve. While that was only the tip of the iceberg, most of his issues were minuscule and had been quickly dispatched of. That being said, they were still annoying, yet he was glad to be finished with them. His most recent irritant was the minor car accident that his daughters had been in. It had been so overblown by the media that it was ridiculous. A few bumps and scratches was not something to get worried about.
After his terrible weeks, Thomas looked forward to giving himself a vacation, something that he did not do often. But Thomas felt he deserved it so he planned on taking a week for himself and relaxing. The last place he wanted to go was a spa or a beach or something along those lines because he didn't find those kinds of places relaxing. New York sounded nice. Or maybe Los Angeles. Big cities appealed to Thomas because he found relaxing to watch everyone else race around like rats while he didn't have to.
Walking out of his building, Thomas took a deep breath. He wanted to get home and go to sleep. That, unfortunately, wasn't going to happen, "Hello Thomas."
"Lucian," Thomas replied bitterly, "What can I do for you?"
Lucian Walsh strode up to Thomas with a smile on his face, "You could have a little more tact than you've had in the past."
"Meaning?" Thomas asked, bored.
Shaking his head, Lucian replied, "Meaning you know as well as I do how close Aimee and Jeff are getting again. Your obsession with control hurt my daughter once, Thomas. I don't want it to happen again."
Thomas chuckled bitterly, "Trust me, if I had my way, my son would have never tried pursuing your daughter again. In fact, he would have never pursued her in the first place."
"I know." Lucian said, "Because you see me as competition. I'm the rich man's Johnson & Johnson and you are the bigger, better, badder Donald Trump, yet you still see me as competition. I don't care how you perceive me, Thomas. Your son is a good man and if he and Aimee decide to give their relationship another chance," Thomas cringed, "don't do anything about it. It's their choice, not ours."
"Are you finished?" Thomas asked, "I really would like to get home."
Lucian shook his head, "And you wonder why nobody likes you." Lucian turned on his heel and walked away.
Thomas stared after him for a moment, enraged, and was going to continue walking to his car before another voice stopped him, "Yeah, you wonder why nobody likes you yet you pull crap like doing unnecessarily extensive background checks people you don't even know."
Turning towards the voice, Thomas looked over the young man in front of him. Tall, dark hair, athletic build, "Charles Conway."
"Most days." Charlie replied, "I would say that it's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Adair, but it really isn't." Thomas raised his eyebrows. The boy had the gall to talk to him that way without the slightest hint of hesitation. It was impressive.
"Well I can't say that I'm all that excited to meet you, Charles." Thomas almost spat out, "To what do I owe this meeting."
"Confusion." Charlie replied simply, "Massive confusion."
"How so?" Thomas asked, his voice still full of distain.
Sighing heavily, Charlie answered him with a question, "How is it that a man doesn't show the slightest amount of worry when his daughters are in a car crash? You didn't call to see how they were; you didn't do anything. You just went about your day as if nothing were wrong."
"The media over-blew the whole thing."
"The hell it did!" Charlie shot back, "Concussions, broken bones, sprained wrists… How is that over-blowing anything? The guy had twice the legal blood-alcohol level."
"And yet they are fine."
Shaking his head in disbelief, Charlie didn't know what to say. How could anyone be so cold and distant? "You're a class act, Mr. Adair."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"It wasn't meant as one." Charlie replied, "I don't think you realize how the public perceives you. To them, to your customers, you're a tyrant and an all around jack off."
"But they still buy from me." Thomas stated obviously, "I don't care if they like me, Charles. I get their money and they get what they want. If they don't like me, why should I care? It is better to be fear than to be loved."
Chuckling, Charlie replied, "You believe that?" Thomas nodded, "Jeez, there is no hope for people like you." With that, he turned and walked away. Thomas stared after him, baffled and speechless.
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Casey Conway was anxious. She hadn't heard from her son in a while and she didn't like it. Of course he was away at college and therefore more likely to be preoccupied, but she was his mother and she wanted to occasionally speak with him. That, however, wasn't her only problem. For some reason that only God knew, Casey had gotten a call the day before from none other than her first husband, and Charlie's father, Marc Barker. He was in jail –big surprise. What was it with her and marrying men who get incarcerated?- and he wanted to talk with her in person.
For all of Casey's faults, she knew that her biggest one was her curiosity. As much as her gut told her to run in the opposite direction, she was too curious to do so. So while she berated herself for being a complete moron, Casey was on her way to the jail that her first ex-husband was locked up in.
It took mere minutes for Casey to get through security. She sat down in a small space that was enclosed on three sides; one of the sides was a mirror in which she would see Marc. Casey sighed heavily as she sat down. Her gut was still screaming at her to get up and leave, but something wasn't letting her. It wasn't love for her ex-husband, she knew that much. She had loved him once and he had ruined any love that she had felt for him. Her love for him then was not even close to what she felt for Gordon.
The door to the prisoner holdings opened and guards began filing prisoners in. For several minutes, she didn't see anyone that looked utterly familiar and they, in turn, went on to other places to talk to whomever they have coming to see them. Then she saw him. Marcus Barker. He was still as tall as she remembered, but that was the only thing that hadn't changed. Marc's dark hair was graying and his face looked like it had been stretched way to tight over his cheeks but not tight enough around his jaw. His eyes were dull and had little life in them. For all his changes, though, Casey had no trouble realizing who she was looking at. He sat down in front of Casey and pulled the phone on his right side off of the hook. Casey did the same.
"Hey Case."
"What the hell do you want?"
Marc chuckled, "Still have that fire in you. I always like that about you."
"Cut the crap." Casey replied bitterly, "What do you want? I don't hear from you for fourteen years, not that I'm complaining, and all of the sudden you want to talk?"
Sighing heavily, Marc leaned down and pinched the bridge of his nose between the thumb and middle finger of his left hand. He had known that getting Casey to be calm was going to be harder than getting her to the jail, "Casey, I know I screwed up…"
"Really?" Casey asked sarcastically, "You? No."
"Just listen, Case." Marc said, "Please."
Casey sighed and looked down at her watch, "You've got five minutes." She told him, "I need to get out of here so that I have time to get to class."
"You went back to school?" Marc asked, clearly trying to keep their meeting pleasant. Casey nodded, still hesitant, "Let me guess… Accounting? You always did like working with numbers." Casey stayed quiet, so Marc continued, "Casey, I know I messed up. I've been paying for it for years. I lost my son, you, my life in general. I've been in and out of rehab since Charlie was four... I'm in here now because of possession."
Casey chuckled sourly, "You know what they say. It takes someone really wanting it to kick addictions. I could tell, then, that you never wanted it; that the drugs were more important to you than me or Charlie. Seems to me that nothing has changed."
Marc sighed and said, "Casey, I knew that you would never forgive me for the hell I put you through. That's why I went through the divorce without a fight. I wanted us to stay together, but I knew that I'd finally given you a reason to follow through." Casey scoffed, "I know you aren't going to forgive me, but I was hoping that Charlie would."
"I… Beg your pardon?" Casey asked.
"He's eighteen now, right?" Marc replied, "I'm sure that he is. Every year, when I get a new calendar, I mark his birthday in it. I know I'm not off a year."
Shocked, Casey stumbled through her words, "Yes, he's eighteen, but what does...?"
"He's eighteen and legally an adult. That means, if he wanted to, he could talk to me or see me. I know that gave over all custody to you and that I agreed to no visitation because of the circumstances but now that he's an adult, we could talk. That's why I asked you here." Casey raised her eyebrows in confusion, "I didn't know how he would react to me calling him, particularly because he's in Boston, but I was hoping that you would him that I wanted to see him."
"What…" Casey asked before her train of thought quickly switched, "Wait a minute. How did you know that he's in Boston?"
Shaking his head, Marc replied, "Case, I've been following his entire hockey career. District five, the JGG, Eden Hall. Any time I saw Charlie mentioned in newspapers, I cut out the story. It's a hot story in local sports when two players from the best hockey team in the state continue playing for somewhere like BC. I'm a moron, Casey, I know that, but I love my son. Having all of those stories makes me feel a little bit closer to him." Casey sighed and massaged her temples; Marc was giving her a headache, "Please Case, just tell him that I want to talk with him. But let him know that he doesn't have to, just that I'd like to."
"I don't know…"
Marc breathed heavily, "It's your fiancé, isn't it?"
"What?" Casey asked.
Marc pointed out her engagement ring, "I know an engagement ring, and a damn good one at that, when I see one. Charlie really likes him, then?"
"Loves him." Casey replied, "Charlie tried pushing us together for years but something always got in the way... Until recently."
"Let me guess, you don't think that Charlie will want to see me because of him." He indicated her ring on the last word.
Casey sighed, "He's been like a father to Charlie for years, Marc. More than you ever were."
"It's to be expected." Marc replied, biting his lip, "Can you at least tell Charlie what I want? Please, just let him know. If he doesn't want to then he doesn't have to, but just tell him. Can you stop hating me long enough to do that for me, Casey?"
"I don't know." Casey said honestly, "Marc, I have more people to think about than me and Charlie. I have my fiancé, his kids… Too many people would be affected by this. I… honestly don't want you back in our lives and I don't think that Charlie does either. We left for a reason, Marc, and as much as you may not believe this, Charlie still remembers."
"He was only four." Marc stated.
Shaking her head, Casey replied, "I didn't say he remembers everything. He just remembers the hell that we were living in and how different it is to our lives now. I don't know if he would want to bring that up again."
"He wouldn't, or you wouldn't?"
"Both."
Chuckling resentfully, Marc insisted, "Just tell him what I want, Case. Please. If he doesn't want to open that can of worms, then fine. Just tell him."
Sighing heavily and thinking hard for something to say, Casey finally said, "I'll think about it."
"That's all I can ask."
Without another word, Casey hung up the phone that she had been talking through and stood up. She cast one more glance at Marc before turning and leaving. There had been a reason that her gut told her to stay away and now she knew what it was. It wasn't just a question of relaying her ex-husband's request to her son, but she was also going to have to tell Gordon. She wouldn't be able to call herself a decent fiancée if she didn't. Now she felt sick.