The Loser
I snorted but as the weight of his words sunk in, my knees felt weak. Sitting onto my bed, the card in my lap, I thought about the whole crazy situation and tried to decide if I wanted to come to terms with his actions.
Waking up curled up to my pillow, I stretched, my hand landing on something that crinkled. That was when I remember the card and the scent of flowers assaulted my nostrils again. I sighed and pulled out my cell.
"Hey Lilli," he picked up on the third ring.
"I need a phone number," I mumbled out.
"Oh you do?" Great he knew and he was fucking with me. Big jerk!
"Dixon," I warned.
"Who’s number would that be, dear Lilli?" I heard him stifle his chuckle.
"Give me his damn number," I groaned.
He laughed. "I’ll text it to you. Oh hey…"
"Yeah?"
"Don’t take it easy on him and if you hit him, try to match his left cheek where I hit him," he laughed and my mouth fell open.
"You…you hit him?"
"Damn straight. No one messes with my little sister." I was waiting to hear him pound on his chest.
"Thanks Dixon," Although he was barbaric, he was my big brother in all sense of the words.
"No problem. You’ll get my text shortly. Later, Lilli," I said good bye as he hung up.
My phone beeped two minutes later. I stared at the number and did a mental pep-talk. In the end, I dialed the number and prayed that it would go to voicemail, no such luck.
"Hello?" I could hear the confusion in his voice at the unknown number.
"Aidan?" he said nothing. "Hello?"
"L-Lilli?" he stuttered and I smirked. He was worried and nervous. Good!
"Yep."
"Um…" he cleared his throat quietly, "Hi."
"T-Thank you for the flowers. You really shouldn’t have…"
"I should have done more than flowers," he interrupted. "Actually, I shouldn’t have put myself in the position to have to do any of this, but, hey, I’m a jerk."
"Loser," I corrected.
"Ahh, yes, loser," he chuckled.
"Well, thank you and if you want to try to explain then I will listen, but, so help me God, if you make me feel like—"
"I won't!" He blurted out. "At least I will seriously try not to."
"Ok."
"Can I, uh, stop by later?"
"I have to leave for work in two hours, so maybe we should just talk over the…" he cut me off again.
"What if I head over now?"
"Aren’t you at work?"
"Yeah, but I really don’t want to do this over the phone," he mumbled.
"Fine," I shrugged to myself. We said goodbye and I went to get a bowl of cereal before I got showered and dressed for work. Thirty minutes later, having eaten, showered and slipped on some shorts and t-shirt, I was drying my hair when there was a knock at the door.
"That was quick." I opened the door, motioning him in.
"Traffic wasn’t bad," he answered with a shrug.
"Do you want anything?" I walked toward the kitchen.
He shook his head.
After grabbing a bottle of water from the refrigerator, I sat across from Aidan in the living room.
He swallowed hard before speaking.
"I am sincerely sorry about the way that I came off to you. I don’t feel like you—"
"I get it." With a shrug of one shoulder, I took a sip of my water before continuing. "Is that all you came to say?"
"N-no." He was really nervous. I almost started to laugh at him but bit the side of my cheek. He cleared his throat and continued.
I listened as he explained the conditions of his inheritance again. Then, I listened as he talked about the pressure he is under to comply with them; his family, the company, his grandfather and the employees. I was actually impressed at how distraught he seemed to be over the possibility that his employees could possibly suffer if he didn’t comply with his grandfather’s wishes.
As he started to discuss it in further detail and open up more, I began to understand where his frame of mind was when this all went down between us. He was completely stressed, confused and petrified. I felt for him. When he finished, he commenced with his reasons for approaching me.
We sat in silence for a little while before I broke it.
"I forgive you," his head snapped up quickly trying to read my face to see if I was serious.
"Really?" I saw the hint of a smile on his lips and relief in his eyes.
I nodded.
"It doesn’t mean that I’ll forget it any time soon but I can at least understand what you were going through at the time. I mean, I can get an idea of what you are going through."
"Now comes the hard part," he sighed and I looked at him confused. "Would you please consider this arrangement? Just think about it and consider it, that’s all I ask." He looked me dead in the eye. "I have over 5000 employees, most with families and I have to try to do anything that I can to ensure that they are not a victim to my mistakes."