"My lover she's waiting for me just across the bar
My seat's been taken by some sunglasses asking about a scar, and
I know I gave it to you months ago
I know you're trying to forget
But between the drinks and subtle things
The holes in my apologies, you know
I'm trying hard to take it back
So if by the time the bar closes
And you feel like falling down, I'll carry you home
Tonight, we are young
So let's set the world on fire
We can burn brighter than the sun"
-"We Are Young," Fun.
Golden hair fanned out across a pillow, brown eyes meeting his from the bottom of a back stairwell, the undeniable and uncontrollable feeling of panic; choking him and leaving him unable to breathe.
The images are the first thing that comes to him, as his eyes adjust to the dim lighting of the alleyway. He's sprawled out across the pavement, pain pulsing at his temples and the sky blurry above him. He can make out that it's gray with either pollution or the threat of rain, but it takes several blinks before his vision is clear enough for him to make out the individual bricks of the buildings that line either side of him.
To his left is the base of a rusting dumpster, which accounts for the smell that lingers in the air and he finds himself gagging, quickly turning over onto his side, as the contents of his stomach splatter the ground next to him.
He wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his suit jacket, before stumbling to his feet, leaning on the dumpster for support. One hand searches his pockets for his phone, but all he finds is a cocktail napkin that bunches as he pulls it out to where he can read it in the dim lighting.
The name printed in ink, is a bar that's an old friend, one who he's made a point not to visit in some time.
His grandfather had been a medical examiner for the Navy. He'd claimed that your body was the only thing that couldn't lie; every scar, every wrinkle, every strand of hair told a story that was irrefutable fact. He'd gotten to watch his grandfather perform an autopsy, once. With careful precision, he had opened the body of a nameless soldier killed in combat and weaved a tale of the man's life like it was a bedtime story.
His hand taps a discordant rhythm against the hardwood of the bar, as he stares at the amber liquid in the glass sitting in front of him. He's not an alcoholic, he's had a drink here and there, but he's pretty sure that when he lies in the middle of an autopsy table, cut open and exposed for the world to see, they won't find any evidence of his drinking.
Your body can show plenty of your sins, but it can't show the lying, or the cheating, or the things he should have done. Then, again, maybe, someday, someone will cut open his heart and discover the truth of what's really in there. Ironically, it might be one of the few things that he's actually been honest about.
At least to himself.
There's faint music in the background that can barely be picked out among the voices, but he makes it a habit to drink alone. He may make a living off of being unable to keep anyone else's secrets, but he carefully guards his own.
He knows she's there from the moment she makes her way through the door; the dark hair and measured walk immediately catching his attention in the mirror that hangs above the bar. For a moment, he considers how long it would take him to duck into the crowd of people and slip out the back entrance, but he knows that he won't actually do it. He'll sit and listen and wake up hating himself in the morning, but that's never been enough to actually stop him.
"I thought I might find you here," she greeted him, slipping into the seat next to him and setting her clutch on the edge of the bar. Her dress is the stereotypical red dress; the kind with a plunging neckline that hugs every curve, before flaring out at the bottom and he's sure that his ex-wife could have easily offered the name of the designer and a ridiculous price that it must have cost.
He'd learned plenty of designers from his wife over the course of their miserable marriage. She'd recite the names with such reverence, as though that somehow justified the thousands of dollars being spent.
"What gave me away?" he questioned, leaning back, as he waited to see what game she was playing.
"You have a Gatsby complex," she informed him, her dark red lips pulling into a smirk, "This is a Speakeasy, I did the math."
"I don't believe you," he informed her, taking a sip of his drink. The liquid burned in his throat, but he quickly swallowed and waited for her answer.
"Would you accept that I know everything?" she suggested, leaning forward as if she were divulging some great secret.
"I'm sure you do," he conceded, deciding that it wasn't worth the argument. She had a brilliant mind, but he had a practical one and a way of knowing something almost as quickly as it happened, "To what do I owe the honor of this visit?"
"The last time we spoke I told you that people like us are the ones who write history," she reminded him, "I have some history in the making for you."
She pried open the clutch and pulled out an envelope, sliding it across the counter to him. The envelope is plain and white, looking entirely unassuming against the contrasting wood. He might have thought that it was nothing, if it weren't for the woman, who had just handed it over to him.
"You're leaking me information?" he asked, incredulously, unable to stop his hands from greedily reaching for the envelope.
"I know how much you love a fallen angel," she answered, slipping off of the stool and straightening the skirt of her dress, "I'll be in touch."
She's gone as quickly as she appeared, leaving only the envelope as a sign that she wasn't some hallucination that was brought on by the alcohol. He smells the faintest trace of her Chloe, Eau De Parfum lingering against the envelope in his hand, as he holds it up to his nose, before slipping it into his pocket.
He stumbles his way out of the alley and into the street, struggling to see clearly through the fog of the memory. He hadn't been able to bring himself to return to the bar since that night, unable to remove the aftertaste of the events that had followed.
The napkin was a message and it felt heavy in his hand, as he made his way passed the shops that had yet to open for the day and in the direction of the nearest Subway station.
"I'm telling you, Zay, something isn't right about this."
"Her blood alcohol level was .12. You've seen how she's been."
"You called me irrelevant, you owe me."
The pounding in his head has become more pronounced by the time he stumbles off the elevator and into his apartment. The entrance is lined in framed magazines; pictures of people who hate him, just as much as they love him, staring judgmentally at him as he shuffles in the direction of the kitchen.
This is what success is supposed to look like; the penthouse apartment with a view of the city skyline, the floor tiles, which were imported from Italy, the Armani suit that was stained from his time spent laying on the floor of an alley.
"Where have you been?" a woman rose from the barstool that she had been seated at. Her white, button-down shirt is untucked from her dress pants and her hair has fallen from its usual bun at the nape of her neck, "We've been trying to get ahold of you all night."
"Would you believe me if I told you I don't remember?" he questioned, shrugging his jacket off and letting it fall into a heap at his feet.
"You smell like a distillery," she wrinkled her nose, grabbing the jacket off the ground and folding it, as she followed him into his bedroom, "I thought you swore off drinking."
"So did I," he made his way into the bathroom and reached over the tub to turn on the shower, before turning around to face her. She wasn't meeting his gaze and her arms were folded tightly across her chest, a pose she took whenever she had bad news.
"Lauren?" he sighed.
"Kendall's flying home, she'll be here soon," Lauren offered, her eyes flickering up to meet his.
"Why is she flying home?" he asked, feeling each beat of his heart from within his chest. Kendall wasn't due back for another six months and they'd hardly left things on good terms. He doubted that there was much that could tear her away from her latest project.
"Riley's in the city," Lauren revealed, biting her lower lip between her teeth. The action makes her look younger than she actually is and it pulls at something in his chest.
"You sure about that? The only place she hates more than here is Washington DC."
"It's Maya," Lauren revealed.
It's one of those moments where he knows exactly what she's going to say before the words leave her mouth. It's an instinctual feeling of realizing that there had been a piece missing inside of himself, before he'd been made consciously aware of it.
His entire world feels as though it's on mute, as Lauren speaks the words, but he still knows exactly what they are as her mouth forms them.
He finds himself closing the door between the two of them, not aware of whether she backed out of her own volition or if he'd forced her into the action, as he removes the rest of his clothing and steps under the water spewing from the showerhead.
Piano music drifted from inside out to the patio and the sun glinted off of the water that stretched out in front of him. White, gauzy curtains floated in and out of the open doorway of the house and he could just make out Maya's figure through them, as she fluttered around the kitchen.
"It's a beautiful view, isn't it?" she questioned, as she rejoined him, settling down in the patio chair next to him and curling her feet under her body.
"A million-dollar view," he replied, leaning back and enjoying the feeling of the fading sun brushing against his face.
"It's funny, isn't it? How money can buy you the ocean outside of every window, the sound of waves beating against the shore, the smell of salt in the air, but it can't buy you true peace," she mused, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
Maya's hair had become something iconic in her adult life. His magazine had run its own article, a handful of issues ago that had offered the secrets to mastering the blonde waves, though the secret was that it was mostly natural.
It hovered between shades of gold or honey, changing hues depending on the lighting. Though, Zay would guess that the captivation was in the untamable quality that she'd complained of in her youth; the curls that refused to straighten and the texture that was more coarse than soft. So, it's strange to see it in the fading sunlight, to be close enough to smell the vanilla that hovers in the air.
"I know that money isn't the source of happiness, but I like to believe that it's a down payment," he offered.
"And, are you?" her eyes traced his face, looking at him with genuine curiosity.
"Happy?" he questioned, waiting for her quick nod, "Sometimes."
"I could almost forgive you," she admitted, the hint of a smile pulling at her mouth.
"I don't ask for forgiveness," he replied.
"Because it's a sign of weakness?" she mocked him, as he turned his attention from the ocean fully onto the blonde next to him.
"Because I know that I don't deserve it."
A couple of weeks, shouldn't have been able to change that moment into a memory. In his mind, he can still see the blue of the ocean, reflected in the blue of Maya's eyes. She's breathing, close enough to reach out to touch.
The water burns his skin and stings his eyes, as he stares at the gray tiles of the shower. His entire body is shaking and it takes him a minute to realize that he's sobbing, unable to control the emotion that Lauren's statement had awoken in him.
Maya Hart was one of the few constant things that had remained in his life over the years. He'd hated her just as fiercely as he'd loved her, hated what she reduced him too, but never been able to walk away from her completely. They'd run in circles, playing games that hurt each other, more than it benefited them, but unable to stop or to let go.
"Zay?" Lauren's voice was muffled through the door.
"Yeah," he coughed in an attempt to cover up his loss of control.
"I just got a call that you left your phone and your wallet at the bar at The Four Seasons. Do you want me to run and pick it up?" she questioned, her voice containing a false sense of cheer.
"No, I'll go get it myself. Could you run by my office and retrieve my mail," he suggested, leaning his head against the cold tile of the wall.
"Alright, I'll be back," Lauren promised.
He reached out to turn off the water, before grabbing his towel from the rack just outside of the curtain. He ran it through his hair before wrapping it around his hips and moving to the mirror. He used the palm of his hand to wrap away the condensation and paused as he caught sight of himself.
Maya had been his first love. He'd loved her without thought, without effort. She'd challenged him in a way that no one else had and she'd broken him with the same careless abandon that had drawn him to her in the first place. She'd never been his, but she'd let him pretend.
And what a pretty illusion it had been.
"I don't love you," Maya informed him, pacing recklessly back and forth across the space of the hotel room. Her hair is a mess and her makeup is smeared across her face, but she seems too agitated to care about her appearance.
"I didn't say that you did," he sighed, placing his head in his hands from where he had been sitting at the foot of the bed.
It was their last spring break before they graduated from high school and Maya had been the one to suggest the road trip, insisting they just drive and see where they ended up. Zay suspected that Farkle had some kind of general plan in place, but he was letting them all live under the illusion that their journey was a random series of roads and coastline.
"No, you just said that you loved me," she returned, pausing as the weight of the words seemed to settle on her.
"Maya," he tried to stop her, pressing his index finger and thumb to the bridge of his nose.
"You said you wanted to hold hands, to go to movies together; that was the extent of this arrangement," she reminded him.
"You really think that was all that I wanted, Maya? I've never tried to push you, I've never asked for anything in return, but you had to have known that I expected for us to go somewhere."
"Well, I didn't," Maya bit out, still unable to meet his eyes.
He's not under any grand illusion of what Maya feels for him. He'd declared himself a placeholder, someone to help her keep from being left out, but that didn't mean that he had any intention of staying that way.
Josh was a dream, a romantic fantasy, Zay was real and he had time on his side. He had been sure that given enough of it, she'd start to look at him as something more. Still, he hadn't meant for the words to come out, now. He'd been planning to wait until graduation, when he could leave without looking back if she didn't feel the same.
"Maya," he sighed, just as a knock echoed through the room.
"That's Riley," Maya offered, making no move to go towards the door as her arms wrapped around herself.
"You should go," Zay suggested, staring intently at the carpet. He hadn't thought it was possible to lose his appetite, but it's gone, now, and all he wants to do is dive under the covers and avoid the walls that had been forced up between the two of them.
"I'm never going to be the girl that you want me to be," she informed him, her eyes falling to the floor.
"I've never asked you to be anything, Maya. I've always been willing to take you as you are," he stood up, making his way towards the door. He could feel her eyes on his back, as he yanked the door open to reveal Farkle with his hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie and his eyes downcast. He could probably hear them through the paper-thin walls.
"You ready to go?" Farkle questioned, looking passed Zay to where Maya was standing.
"Of course," Maya's voice was filled with forced enthusiasm and he could feel her cross the room and pause just behind his back.
He'd given four years of his life to her and he knew that they'd finally reached a crossroads. She was going to have to make a choice and he's pretty sure, in the back of his mind, he'd always known what that choice would end up being.
"You guys go, I'm going to wait here," Zay informed them, stepping to the side of the doorway to let Maya out.
"Zay," she breathed his name and he watched the emotions flicker through her eyes. Whatever pretenses she had put up, she did care, and, at least, that was something.
He reclaimed the door, pulling it halfway closed to assure the two that he was serious about his decision and Maya closed her eyes for half-a-second before she linked her arm through Farkle's and started guiding him away from the room.
He watched the fading sunlight hit the two of them for a moment, lighting Maya up in a heavenly glow as it highlighted the strands of gold in her hair and he found himself, once again, just a part of their shadows.
He'd learned from an early age that the best mask to hide behind was a smile. Maya had pretended that nothing could touch her, by hiding behind a façade of carelessness. But he'd managed with jokes and laughter. If people underestimated him, he always had the upper hand.
He's not sure when his jokes had all gone flat, but there's little that amuses him anymore.
He dresses mechanically, doing the buttons on the cuffs of his dress-shirt sleeves, with the confidence of someone who could do it blindfolded in the dark. He matches his pants to the corresponding suit jacket that hangs in his closet, before pausing as he surveyed the occupants of his closet.
It's all supposed to mean something.
Fatherhood isn't all he hoped it would be. It's two more mouths to feed, a new set of expectations, a new mold to fit into. He's not sure if he would have liked it better if it had been planned or if he's someone who just wasn't built to care for another human being.
His own father, certainly, hadn't set much of an example for him to follow. But, he hadn't been prepared to feel as out of his league as he does, now. He'd thought that some kind of primitive instinct would take over and all that would matter were his kids.
That, maybe, he'd love their mother, his wife, the way that he was supposed to love someone that had just given birth to his children. That those tiny humans would feel like they belonged to him and make all of the sacrifices he had been forced to make worth it.
"What's it like?" Lucas questioned, from where he was absently picking at the fries in his basket.
It's two in the morning and Lucas had been the one to suggest that they go out to eat, probably in celebration of Zay's new status, though it felt more like a much-needed break after sixteen hours of labor.
"It's like your drowning, barely able to keep yourself above the water, and then someone hands you twins and a wife," Zay explained, setting his hamburger back down on the plate.
"Riley wants a baby," Lucas revealed, not looking up from his food, "She's only mentioned it once, but she gets this look in her eyes whenever we see one on the street."
"It would be different for you and Riley," Zay assured him, knowing that there was no need to elaborate.
"Would it, though? You and I, grew up the same, we had the same expectations, the same limitations. I don't know the first thing about being someone's father, except for that I would never want to put anyone through what I went through with my own," Lucas pointed out.
"You chose Riley; you love her and she loves you. You'll get your moment to ride off into the sunset together and it will be rainbows and bunnies," Zay offered, trying to keep the bitterness out of his tone.
"I thought you said that things were getting better with Vanessa," Lucas changed the subject, looking up for the first time.
"They are better, they just aren't what they should be," Zay admitted, taking another bite of his burger.
"It would be worse doing this on your own. Maya," Lucas abruptly cut off, as he realized that he'd mentioned the name that he wasn't supposed to talk about.
"Maya's lucky that she doesn't have anyone to look at her with disappointment when she does something wrong. I'll have Vanessa to tell me every time I don't live up to her expectations," Zay pointed out, making it a point not to show any emotion when it came to Maya's name.
"Maya's mother is pretty judgmental about things," Lucas continued, wiping his mouth with a napkin, as he pushed his empty plate to the side.
He doesn't hear a lot about Maya, just bits and pieces that are accidentally let slip or mentioned in passing. Though, it doesn't surprise him that Katy is upset with the direction that her daughter's life has taken.
His own mother hadn't been thrilled when he'd had to inform her that he'd impregnated his childhood fling in a one-night stand, though she'd calmed down, somewhat, since he'd agreed to marry her. He tries not think about the significant amount of money his grandfather had given him in exchange for legitimizing the deal.
"Riley's one of the good ones, Luke. Don't mess it up," Zay advised, placing his tip on the table, as he stood up and brushed off his hands on his jeans.
"When you settle into things, it will get better," Lucas offered, his voice betraying his own doubts.
"You're probably right," Zay forced a smile, clapping Lucas on the back, as they headed out into the night.
Without really thinking about it, he's pulling the clothes off of hangers and letting them flutter to the ground around him. They're made of cotton, lined in silk, created to hide the failings of the person under them.
He'd never found the right designer, the right piece of jewelry, to make Vanessa happy. He'd never found the right suit to make himself feel like he deserved anything that he had.
He pauses as he finds himself face-to-face with a Navy uniform and he finds his hands running over the material, pausing at the buttons. It's the last item left in his closet and he leaves it hanging.
The television has been left on in the living room, turned to mute, and he can't help pausing to stare at the images across the screen. It's one of Maya's old DUI photos and it isn't flattering. Her mascara is smeared under her eyes and her hair looks greasy, though that could just be a trick of the lighting.
It's followed with a clip of Riley coming down the steps of a plane. She's moving mechanically, like it's all she can do to put one foot in front of the other and her face is towards the ground, leaving only her hair fluttering behind her in the wind.
Their friendship had baffled the media. Riley was the politically active, moral compass and Maya was the model living off of sex-appeal and bad behavior. There had never been an article that had gotten anywhere near the truth of their friendship and it was the one story that he had chosen not to tell.
Whether that was because people's imaginations could do the story better justice than reality could or because he had chosen to leave one thing sacred, was another thing better left untouched.
He finds himself sinking down in front of the television, hooked to the images flying across the screen. They're pictures of strangers, whose faces he knows by heart and he can't bring himself to look away, though he can't bring himself to turn on the volume and find out what they're saying, either.
"What does she have, that I don't?" Maya asked him, halfway through a bottle of wine that had a name he would slaughter trying to pronounce.
"Riley?" Zay clarified, looking at her in surprise, as he glanced up from the pile of papers that were fanned out in front of him.
He's not entirely sure why the blonde had chosen to show up at the office she had assured him would never receive the grace of her presence, again, in this lifetime. Or how she had known that he would still be there this late at night on a weekend, but she'd come in as though it was a natural occurrence and set herself up across from him.
"I mean, I get it," she slurred, setting her glass aside in a grand gesture that nearly had both the wine and the glass toppling to the floor, "She's smart, she's pretty, she had the perfect marriage. But, now, she doesn't. Now, she's a drunk, who dates princes and people still love her. How does she do it?"
"People love you, Maya," Zay assured her, meeting her gaze, so that she would know that he was being sincere.
"They love to hate me, your articles made sure of that," she reminded him, leaning back and curling her bare feet under her in the seat.
"Riley is the girl next door. She's not a traditional beauty, which makes her less intimidating to other women. But, she's smart and educated, she gives a passionate speech, and she comes off as approachable. People believe that they actually know Riley. You're untouchable, no one would ever call you ugly, and if I saw you on the street, I would probably run in the opposite direction," Zay explained, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
"You know, Josh has never seen me drunk?" Maya leaned forward again, her arms pushing some of his papers onto the floor.
"The entire world has seen you drunk," Zay reminded her and she let out a harsh laugh that echoed through his office.
"But I mean, in-person," she corrected him, sobering mid-laugh, "He looks at me and I want to be the person that he's seeing."
"Don't do that to him. You did that to me. All I wanted was you, but you thought that I had some kind of great expectations out of what you were. You're a good person, Maya, you're beautiful, anyone would be lucky to be with you, but you have to let them love you."
"And what if I don't live up to their great expectations?" Maya questioned, her voice nonchalant, despite the insecurities lingering in her eyes.
"Then they're the person who's lacking," Zay returned, watching the emotions flickering through her eyes.
She leaned back again, finishing off the rest of her drink, before setting it aside. Zay returned to his paperwork, pausing as he came across a picture of Riley laughing, as she leaned into the side of her boyfriend at the opening of an exhibit at a museum.
"You know what I realized?" Maya asked, her voice dull, as she pulled him back to his office, "You build people up and tear them back down for a living, but your real success come from your insight into Riley and me. When you're gone, people are going to remember the pictures you published of us and the way your articles painted us. We're you're great legacy. And to hate me the way you did, you had to have loved me, once. So, to paint Riley the way you do…."
Zay paused, his hands frozen on the picture, before he managed to recover from her hypothesis.
"I think you've had too much to drink," Zay suggested, grabbing the wine bottle and leaning back in his own seat.
"You ever wonder….?" Maya trailed off, again, her eyes distant, as she got lost in a memory that he couldn't see.
"We wouldn't have gotten our children," Zay reminded her, taking a drink from the bottle.
"Do we have them, now?" Maya pointed out, gesturing around the empty office.
"It's late," Zay pointed out, standing up from his chair and shrugging on his jacket. Maya watched him introspectively, as he grabbed what he needed from his desk and rounded it, holding out an arm to help her up.
"You're a true Southern Gentleman," Maya informed him, tucking her head into his side, as he leads her out the door, turning the lights off behind him.
They made it to the elevator and he hit the button, waiting patiently as the floor numbers changed directly above the bronze doors.
"I do wonder, sometimes," Zay admitted, keeping his voice low enough that he's not sure if she'll even hear.
"Me too."
He expects a rush of memories to come back to him, as he steps into the lobby of the hotel, but all he really feels is sick. There's something morose in the atmosphere and the phone is ringing off the hook at the front desk as a frazzled woman, whose nerves look completely shot, attempts to keep up.
"We don't open until noon," a man cleaning glasses behind the counter informed him, as Zay stepped into the dimly lit bar.
"I'm not here for a drink. I received a call this morning that you had my wallet and phone," he explained, pausing as he reached the counter top.
"Isaiah Babineaux?" the man checked, setting aside the glass and turning to look at him.
"That's what it says on my driver's license," Zay agreed, watching as the man compared his face to the picture on his ID before handing over a black leather wallet and an IPhone that was missing Zay's usual blue case, "Just out of curiosity, how much did I have to drink last night?"
The man looked at him curiously, but kept his questions to himself, as he moved over to a computer and started typing.
"We don't have a record of you purchasing anything here, but it was kind of a crazy night. I'm sure that you heard that Maya Hart overdosed upstairs," he explained, turning back to look at Zay.
Golden hair fanned out across a pillow, brown eyes meeting his from the bottom of a back stairwell, the undeniable and uncontrollable feeling of panic; choking him and leaving him unable to breathe.
"Right," Zay agreed, the pieces coming together in his head. He kept his pace even, as he shoved his belongings into his pocket and forced himself to keep an even pace, as he moved in the direction of the front door.
He waited until he was in the car to open his wallet and flip through all of his credit cards, though he already knew that wasn't what he was really looking for. The room key was tucked behind his Black Centurion and he already knew what room it had to go to.
"Do you have a cell phone?" Zay leaned forward to speak to the driver, his heart beating loud enough that he could hear it echoing inside of his ears.
The driver glanced back at him, a look of uncertainty on his face and Zay closed his eyes as he struggled to compose himself.
"I have to make a phone call and it can't be traced back to my own phone," Zay explained, "I'm willing to pay you double what this trip would have cost me."
"I don't want any trouble, Mr. Babineaux," the driver informed him.
"I'm just going to call my girlfriend," Zay promised, unsure whether it was the sincerity in his voice of the desperation that led the man to handing over a nondescript phone.
The phone went straight to voicemail and he groaned, as he listened to her voice telling him to leave a message, "Ken, it's me. I'm guessing your plane hasn't landed, yet. You know that project that I've been working on, the one I couldn't tell you about. It turns out that I was actually onto something, so I need you to listen to me carefully. Don't come to my place, don't call my phone. There were two people, besides those that were responsible, who knew what happened in the accident, and, now, one of them is dead. So, you need to stop your interview and you need to get as far away from this situation as you possibly can."
He hung up the phone, handing it back to the driver, as he settled back into his seat with the weight of a condemned man. He'd made a deal with the devil, tried to play both sides, and now he was going to pay for it.
He's not sure that he entirely understood beauty until the day that he met Maya Hart. On the outside, she was stunning; with her delicate features, wild blonde hair, and the big blue eyes. However, his attraction to her was in the vulnerability that was always lurking in their deep, blue depths. It was a direct contrast to her entire demeanor, which was one big, "Do not disturb," sign.
She was untouchable and somewhere along the way she became immortal, which might be why he was so quick to jump on her fall from grace. Because the only thing people loved more than gazing up at an angel, was watching as they hit the pavement.
"That was cold, even for you," a dark-haired woman greeted him, setting the magazine that she had been carrying into his lap, as she slipped passed him and into the plane seat next to him.
"Shouldn't you be on Air Force One?" he returned, as she settled into her seat and shoved her Ralph Lauren, orange, tote under the seat in front of her.
"It is called Air Force Two, when the vice president is on it and, if you must know, this is a personal trip."
"And I'm supposed to believe that it's a coincidence that you're sitting in the seat next to me?" he pressed, wishing, not for the first time, that this airline's first class for a national flight, didn't resemble business class for an international one.
"The flight was a coincidence, the seats were a bribe," she informed him, crossing her legs and smoothing her pencil-skirt across her knee.
"Why?"
"Because I recognize that, while you might be a deplorable person, Isaiah Babineaux, you are, also, a very powerful one. And I just bought an hour and a half of your undivided attention."
"And what could the Vice-President's Chief of Staff, possibly want with me?" he asked, wondering if her gaze had always been that cold and calculating, or if it had been something she'd picked up over the years.
"We have something in common. People like Riley, Lucas, Maya," she paused to gesture to the magazine that he was still holding in his lap, "Will have books written about them, documentaries made, and kids writing essays about their accomplishments. They are the people that the world is looking at. But, while, they might be remembered by history, we are the ones who will have written it."
Charlie Gardner wasn't in the habit of bending protocol and it had been made very clear to him that it was in everyone's best interest if Maya Hart's case was all tied up with a pretty little bow and tucked away to the back of all of their minds.
The problem was, that the names were all familiar, and not just because they all seemed to be high profile. He'd followed Maya's exploits, the same as everyone else, bragging about how he'd known her in middle school, to his friends at parties and religiously following the drama that had surrounded Riley's divorce. There was something satisfying in knowing that Lucas hadn't lived up to all of the expectations that she'd had for him.
And, there was, also, the things that he felt had been overlooked. There really were quite a few questions that hadn't been answered entirely to his liking. Riley had just given him a decent excuse to cross his t's and dot his i's.
"Hey, Gardner," Bryant Jensen greeted him, sinking down on the edge of Charlie's desk, "I have something for you."
"Is it the lab results that I asked for?" Charlie questioned, trying not to show any eagerness towards the topic. It was better that no one think he had any vested interest.
"No, it's the phone records you requested. I figured out why it's been so difficult to get them," Jensen informed him, handing over a manila folder.
"Why is that?" Charlie questioned, refusing to look away from his computer, though he wasn't even seeing what was on the screen.
"Because Maya Hart's last call was made right before her overdose and it was to The White House."
Story Information:
You know those crazy author's that tell you their characters talk to them and you're just like, "Right..." and back away slowly. I'm not having conversations with them, out loud...yet, but these characters are not sticking to the plotline that I have for them and they keep on surprising me, in the moment I'm writing.
This chapter was written, at least, four times and it looks nothing like it's original. I had two different ideas for Zay's story and as I started writing, he, kind of, took on a mind of his own. I know he might seem the most OOC of anyone that I've written. Zay is one of my favorite characters from the show, but I had no idea how to fit him into a story that has this serious tone. In the end, I went with the idea that the people who seem the happiest and are cracking jokes on the outside, are the ones that have the darkest things going on inside. And, there's obviously a lot more that's happened to him, then what was shown in this chapter to make him the way he is.
The other thing to know about this chapter is that, while I've tried to mark the flashbacks as clearly as I can, without removing some of the suspense, they are not all in chronological order. Zay's mind is all over the place and I tried to be as clear as possible, while being able to represent that. I have no idea if it worked.
Someone asked me what kind of a role Savannah is going to play in this and because I'm behind on pretty much everything, I don't know if I got the chance to respond, so I'm going to answer here: I've gone back and forth on what I'm going to do with Savannah. Originally, she was a device I was going to use to tell all of my backstory, but, doing this story linearly wasn't working for me, so, then, I thought I would have her stick with Riley and be someone that could anchor Riley to her previous life. Then I found out who her father was (You read that right, the story told me, not the other way around) and it's not Zay, but there are suddenly a lot of ways that this could play out. Savannah's going to be a main character and Riley's her legal guardian (For the time being), so she's sticking around. I'm open to suggestions, here, on what people want to see with Savannah.
Author's Note:
Thank you to everyone that is still here and for the support that you've given me throughout my writing. It's been hard to get back into the mindset of writing for these characters, so I don't know when to tell you updates for my other stories will be up, although I am working on them. It's been a lot of writing a paragraph, realizing that it doesn't fit, rewriting it, editing what I already have, and collapsing in exhaustion. So, it's going, albeit very, very slow.
As for the news about the show: I'm still here, still writing, hoping people are still reading. Did anyone else expect the writers to give us some actual plots for what season four would have looked like? I feel like they're being just as vague, now that they're cancelled, as they would be if they were still going.
Thanks again and please review! You really don't know how much your reviews motivate me to keep going!