Commitment Collection 2- Ignition; Turbo Charged; Pole Position, page 26
part #4 of Commitment Series
The doorbell chimes.
Fuck!
I run to the door, turn around, check my appearance in the mirror, and run back to the door, my heart clanging around in my chest at every sharp turn. At the last minute, I close the door to the kitchen seating area and decide we will sit in the office. It’s the smallest room in the house and should have the least chance of making him feel inadequate.
“Hi, Axel. Come on in.” I grin. It’s false but he won’t know. I do have to stop myself from making a little bow as he crosses the threshold, such is my state of consternation and nerves. I’m behaving like a complete schmuck.
“If you just want to go in there.” I open the door to our bland home office with two desks, which sit on opposite white walls, each with space for a laptop. A printer sits on a bank of drawers. Ushering him in, I congratulate myself. ‘Smart move. He will be sure to think his trip is all business now. Of course, this is the perfect location.’
“Would you like a drink while we go over the papers?” ‘Hope he doesn’t want to see them, but why am I still pretending?’ “I’ve just made one.’
“Yup, coffee please.”
‘Thank goodness I put the pot on.’ “Sugar?”
“Nah, thanks.”
“OK, well take a seat.” I’m over polite. This kid is not stupid, so surely he smells something is going on, other than the coffee.
I spill the thick dark liquid on our new quartz work surface. We had to wait for this to be imported from Canada. It was six weeks late and had we not had the hold up with our finances, this would have delayed us moving in any way. Today though, I don’t notice how the silver leaf glitters under the lights specifically installed to show it off. I simply take a cloth and wipe away the puddle and then do the same again when I splosh the contents of the mug over the rim while stirring the two sugars. ‘Shit, did he want sugar? He didn’t, did he? Or did he say one? I have no clue.’
In the end, for fear of starting on the wrong foot over not remembering the smallest detail about how he drinks his coffee, I pour another cup of black and take the appendages along with my simple mug of tea in to my office on a tray like a cocking butler.
I stammer over trying to explain why I’ve gone to so much trouble for a kid who is here to collect a file. “I thought it would be easier to make your own.” ‘Now it looks like I can’t be bothered to even make his drink. And this room is all wrong. We’re here to talk about the most personal of matters, and here we are in this shitty formal office.’
And it’s turning humid. I stand and open the door. “Shall we just go into the kitchen? It’s a bit cooler in there.”
Consternation flutters behind his eyes. I’m sure he’s thinking, ‘Why the hell does it matter if it’s hot? I’m only here to collect a file and drink a polite cup of coffee.’ But, to give him his due, he says, “Sure, that would be great. I’ve been intrigued by your house, having watched it being built from a distance, and it will be nice to see a bit more of it.”
“Oh really?” I’m surprised. I thought he would resent any display of my wealth. That’s why he’s tried to destroy everything so far. But, perhaps he wants to see more so he can access something else to use against me.
This is ridiculous. I lead the way into the kitchen. If I can’t have my God damned son in my kitchen without fear that he will use the fact I have made a pot of coffee for him against me in the press, then the world really is a very sad place.
As he takes his high stool at our breakfast bar, he comments, in a manner that is laid back and natural. “This is nice. I like your style.”
There doesn’t seem to be a catch there. “Ah, well, Kyle did most of the design. I just said I wanted everything white and he created this.” I swing my arm around.
He sips his coffee, looking around.
“Listen, Axel. I wanted to have a chat with you while you’re up here.” My voice is shaking. I can hear it myself, and I’m under no illusion that he will too.
He doesn’t let on. “Oh?”
“Yeah. This is a bit difficult, but I uh...” ‘Oh, crap, here we go.’ He’s staring at me; he knows what’s coming. “You see...” I stop again and take a lung-full of air. “Listen, I’m just gonna come clean. I wondered what the hell was going on with the business with all the leaks that were going on. I had you investigated as all the trails led back to you, and well, it turns out you’re my son. But, you already know that, right?” That’s it. I said it. And I managed to do what I’d planned, explain in one rapid-fire sentence that I’m not to blame for him being abandoned because I had no clue I even had a kid.
He takes a spoon and piles on sugar, plopping it in his coffee, stirring it well. Pretty much over-stirring it to the point where I’m worried for the state of my cup. I have an overwhelming need to grab his hand and stop the motion grinding against the porcelain, but instead I concentrate on inhaling. And exhaling.
My phone rings from where it is on the counter. I forgot to switch it to silent. I glance over to see who it is but ignore it. It’s Daisy, I’ll call her back later. To be fair, if it wasn’t Kyle, who has his own ringtone, I was never going to answer it, but curiosity made me look at the caller ID.
The call rings out, switches to voice-mail and I want to fill the gap that remains, to ask how he feels about this, but I can tell that he’s not too sure about that. He had all the cards until he walked in here today, and now he’s not only lost his hand, but his cards are out of sequence.
He needs time, and I get that.
So, I wait.
To the point of feeling uncomfortable, watching as he’s still stirring that damned coffee. I’m sure now that he said he didn’t take sugar.
OK. Enough now. “So, I’d love a chance to get to know you properly. What do you think?” I ignore the fucking obvious fact that he clearly wants to get to know me. Otherwise why would he have infiltrated my company? But, as all good dads do with their wayward teenagers, I zip it.
Elliott
Whoa, I was not expecting that. Sure, I thought the kid may initially show some anger towards me, but if I got it out there up front that I didn’t know anything about him, then he’d calm down quickly and we could move on.
But no.
He balls his fists, and he squares up to me, leaving the coffee stirring in favor of growling inches from my face. “You left me. You didn’t stay around to see what happened to my mother.” His palm comes out of no-where connecting with my chest, catching me off guard and throwing me off balance, so that I have to steady myself against the counter.
“But, I explained-” I stammer.
“You explained that you were a spoiled brat who didn’t give two flying fucks about anyone else. You could have hung around with mom, but instead you chose to use women. You used my mother.”
“Hey, I’m not exactly difficult to find. She could have gotten in touch at any time.” I’m stating the obvious there, but he’s missed the point.
“Fuck you, man. I don’t need you in my life.” He gives me another shove for good measure, a vein throbbing in his forehead, before stalking off towards the door.
But, he doesn’t leave. He stands, facing away from me, fists clenched, spine stiff like he’s about to explode. And then, in that second, a cold hand of fear clutches my heart. I can’t lose him, not like this. We need to figure out where we take this next.
I kick over the stool in my eagerness to reach him before he moves away again, spin him around and grip him by both biceps, staring him out. Our breathing is ragged, and that’s when I see it.
The pain behind his shield of anger.
And now I’ve cornered him, he has no place to run and he’s scared out of his mind. I need that shield he’s holding so close to come tumbling down so that we can work through this, but he’s clinging to it with every ounce of strength he possesses.
“Listen to me. I didn’t know about you, and sure I made mistakes. I was a kid, like you are now. Full disclosure, you’ve not exactly had your finest moments since we met. I think we can both accept that, but we both need to forgive; otherwise, you might as well not have bothered showing up here. And I don’t care what you say. You’re here, with me, for a reason.”
“I’m here to destroy you.” The words are almost silent, but they ring out bright and clear against the chill of our mingling emotions. His lifetime of pain is trapped behind the sardonic smile in his eyes, and even though I should smash some sense into him, all I want is to seize him up into my arms and draw him close. I pause though, unsure about whether that’s the right thing to do, whether it will alienate him further and have him bolting out of the door and then, before I’ve had time to catch myself, we’re locked in an embrace. His body stiffens against mine as the pounding of both our hearts collides. His arms hang by his side, but as I hold him there, he doesn’t struggle and then I feel him relax against me.
I cling on for dear life, afraid that if I let go now, we’ll never have the closeness of this moment again. That if I loosen this embrace he’ll scoot out of the door and as I stand there, refusing to listen to the rational thoughts in my head, I do what I do best. I trust my instinct.
“I’m sorry.” The words are strangled by the emotion rising in my throat; they come out as a whisper, but they’re soft, and he relaxes a fraction more.
And then, those arms, which had been rigid just moments ago, snake up under mine and secure behind my back as he returns my hug. That's when my body spontaneously breaks out into goosebumps. And he’s strong as he clutches me, his fingers digging into my skin through my t-shirt, his breathing noisy as he sucks in air.
We stand like that for some time, each resting our chins on the shoulder of the other. This young man has done as much as he can to make my life a living hell, and yet in return, my one desire is to be allowed to do everything in my power to make his life good again. With no prior warning, he has stormed into my life, twice, with his anger burning bright fires of hatred. And now here we stand, with me cradling away the pain that’s eaten through at his reserve of love.
I have no idea how long we stay there, but we resolve a lot during that embrace and eventually when it’s time, we pull apart and look at each other. Both our eyes are misted with tears. Something between a laugh and a sob escapes my throat, and we stare taking in the other, a dash of pink scorching our cheeks.
“We have a lot of work to do, but we’re OK. We can do this, OK?” I murmur, squeezing his biceps again.
He nods, mute now that his anger has quelled.
“I want you in my life, but this is a two-way thing, and we can’t work through and get to know each other properly if you work against me. You OK with that?”
“Yeah, I’m OK.”
Kyle
“So, how did it go?” I ask as Elliott pokes his head around my office door, looking more than a little jaded. I’ve been climbing the walls waiting for him to finish up and come and see me. It’s two and a half hours since Axel was due to turn up at our house, and I’ve almost convinced myself that Elliott is lying in a pool of his own blood after being attacked with one of the carving knives we never use.
“I think it went well. He was angry and abrasive and a total little shite, but he calmed down after about twenty minutes of abusive verbal diarrhea.” He ignores the chair he usually sits in, walks to the couch, but doesn’t sit on that either.
Instead, he paces two steps forward, then takes the two steps back. My office isn’t big enough for him to take many more without bumping into something.
“What do you mean, you think it went well?”
“Well, he didn’t attack me for a start, so that’s good.” He reads my mind. “He had some fairly nasty things to say once he got started though.”
“Like?”
“Well, he accused me of never being interested in him, just caring about racing and dumping his mum, who of course is the angelic victim in all of this. But, I guess underneath his hurt he has some valid points, because there’s no telling I would have acted any differently back then if I had known she was pregnant.” He gives a dismissive shrug of his shoulders. “But, at least he gave me the chance to explain, after he’d finished his rant, that is. So, I was able to say to him that I can’t care about what is unknown. And once he’d calmed down he did hear me out.”
I’m sensing I’m receiving the simplified version. I let him get away with it. For now. I check his face for a clue as to how he’s really feeling. His eyes are heavy, tired, but they carry the lightness of relief as well.
“Do you feel better for dealing with this?”
He shakes his head, sits on the sofa and leans on the arm, exhausted like he used to be after the adrenaline of a race had worn off.
I wait.
“I feel like the shit he pegged me for. I’ve slept with so many women. Who’s to say this isn’t going to be a recurring theme over the next few years? I never thought about who these women were, over and above them being a means to an end. They knew the score and as far as I was concerned that was my job done. But, people have feelings and lives beyond what I’m exposed to. Beyond what I wanted to be exposed to.”
A sudden chill sweeps through my body and I just have to be next to him. I rise and walk until I’m standing in front of him, holding out my hands for him to accept my embrace as I wrap them around his shoulders. He buries his head in my chest as I enfold his head in my arms, kissing his head.
When I speak, my voice is hushed like I’m lulling a baby. “There’s nothing you can do about the past. But, you do have today and our future. You can make a difference to that. Don’t beat yourself up for what you don’t know about yet. Just be ready for it if it happens. Is Axel at least open to having a more constructive relationship with you?”
“I think so. But he’s got his barriers that I’m going to have to break down. His mother died five years ago, and that’s when his life turned upside down. And now, of course, she’s immortalized.” He chuffs, knowing full well this is where his battle lies.
“So, where’s Axel now?” I ask when the mood changes enough to understand that Elliott feels stronger.
“He’s taken the day off, but I don’t know where he’s gone. I didn’t get to ask him where he’s living now, so I still don’t know how we’re going to be able to help him.”
Elliott and I have talked about what him having a son requires in terms of financial support. He’ll be over eighteen soon, but Elliott has a lot of making up to do, and the means with which to do it. But, that doesn’t mean that we’ll suddenly hand everything we’ve worked for over to a two-bit twerp who tried his absolute best to ruin us. It’s a tricky line to walk and neither of us is sure how we’re going to navigate that yet.
Kyle
I’ve been mulling over an idea and now seems to be the right time to propose it, as Elliott is lost in his emotions.
“So, you don’t know where Axel headed off to?” I ask.
“No, why?”
“Can you call him and invite him to come down here? I’ll speak to Jessie. I think we need to make some proper plans about our combined futures.” I fill Elliott in on my idea while we wait for the other two to arrive.
Axel hasn’t gone very far, so within ten minutes we’re all reunited in an awkward foursome.
I start. “OK, so we’ve had some revelations which are emotional all round, but we’re also working together in a business, which I don’t think it’s any big shocker if we say is a tad fragile at the moment.” I avoid raising an eyebrow in the direction of my new step son. “So, Jessie, how would you feel about us coming out in the press about Elliott and Axel?”
“I can publish anything you want, with whatever spin we choose.” She brushes a stray hair from her eyes, then thinks better of it and scrapes it back into a ponytail.
“Are you serious? I’ve only just spoken with my father about all of this and already you’re turning me into a PR stunt?” Axel stands, heaves his arms out in a I-cannot-believe-you’re-for-real kind of way and makes back towards the door.
Elliott throws me with a look before sprinting to block Axel’s exit route. “Hey, wait up, don’t you want everyone to know you’re my son?”
To be fair, after his recent performance, I thought this was a massive gesture from Elliott, but it would appear the opinion is not unanimous.
“Sure, it’s a grand gesture, but for what? All this will do is have the press crawling all over us, preventing us from getting to know each other properly. Who knows who else will come creeping out of the woodwork then? I think we all know that you’ve not been a saint.” Axel’s eyes widen and fix upon Elliott.
Elliott visibly shrinks, “He has a fair point.”
“OK, well, Axel. Listen, you’ve not exactly been blameless in this whole business being on the rocks situation, so you need to take some responsibility. Imagine if it comes out later that you’ve been working at Judd Racing all along, and you’re not only Elliott’s son, but also that you were our leak. You must sign a non-disclosure agreement.” That should clip his wings and buy us some time.
“He’s right, Axel.” Jessie releases her hair. “If you sign the NDA, you’ll be bound to keep private the sensitive information in the business to which you’re exposed, but also that you were our leak. That then means I can go ahead and train you up without worrying about security.”
Axel’s mouth falls open as though he can’t believe what he’s hearing. That look of pure disbelief says that we have nothing to worry about, he really doesn’t care what he signs, he just wants to move forward. I’m heartened that the Axel of the past is now well forgotten after this morning’s chat with Elliott.
“I have no problem signing whatever it is you need me to,” he says, as though it’s the most obvious answer in the world. Oh, to be young and able to move on so quickly.
