Cancelled (20 page)

“Since Friday. Eric and I submitted a proposal and they called Friday morning. We arranged for him to spend a few days this week there glad-handing and getting the initial design requirements.”

“I need him here. Hedis has gone bonkers, and I can't get all of this done by myself.”

“Isn't Eddie there?”

“Come on, Eddie is one step out the door. Did you place an ad for a new engineer to replace him?”

“Yes.”

“So when is Eric coming back?” Johnathan picked up a pencil from his desk and twirled it anxiously.

“I don't know. However long it takes to make Neimer happy.” she said.

“So what am I supposed to do about Hedis? I thought we needed this account to be a slam dunk to get more jobs.”

“Hedis is a pain-in-the-ass. That's what you and Eric keep saying. Neimer is a mill and a half.”

“1.5 million? On a first project?”

“Our reputation precedes us. Rohmler's a partner firm.”

Johnathan slammed the pencil back on the desk. “Since when does Eric play lead? Rohmler was my project. Why in the hell was I cut out?”

“You weren't there. And, you didn't ask.” Johnathan heard swallowing sounds, assuming Alex took a drink. “You know, this isn't your company, Johnathan. It's our company.”

“And what's that supposed to mean?” Johnathan began pacing, but went too far. The coiled black cord on the phone stretched taunt and then began dragging the phone base across his desk, knocking over everything in its path. He struggled to catch the office organizers before they fell to the ground, but failed to catch any of them.

“It means what it means. You've been walking around acting like Eric and I work for you when we all work together. We've needed you. And you haven't been there.”

“Fine. I got work to do.” He stooped down and shoved the office supplies back into their containers.

Neither gave a farewell greeting before hanging up. Johnathan hung up the phone a few times, slamming it into the cradle. This was bullshit.

Picking up his To-Do list, he left to make Eddie help with the less critical tasks.

For two days, Johnathan worked alone. Eric was busy with Neimer, and Alex kept working from home. Dinner at night was a quiet affair, and Johnathan was getting sick of take out. By Wednesday morning he was done with her pouting.

“You should come into work today.”

“No, I think I'm going to work from home.” Alex said with a yawn, refusing to get out of bed. Johnathan took a breath and yanked the covers in one swoop, making Alex shriek. “What are you doing?” she hissed.

Johnathan jumped into the bed, fully dressed for work already. “I'll just have to stay home and keep you warm.” He nuzzled with his fiancée, wanting her more than anything. No sex in almost a week; a first for them since living together.

“You'll wrinkle your clothes.”

Johnathan gave a sleepy yawn. “Oh well.”

“You have to get up.”

“Nope. Not without you.”

Alex rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. After a few moments she spoke. “Fine.” She shoved Johnathan away and hurried to the bathroom. After shutting the door, she opened it again. “Make me breakfast, handsome. And you're driving.” She disappeared behind the door once more.

Johnathan jogged down the wooden stairs and started to cook a bagel breakfast sandwich. Having a second cup of coffee, he wondered how many more times he was going to have to step up and get Alex out of her funk.

With both Eric and Alex back at work on Wednesday, the office flurried with activity. Eric brought Johnathan in on the details of the Neimer Fabrications project. Hedis was moving to production in a few weeks and there were still materials to order. Johnathan took the lion's share of Hedis work to give Eric room on Neimer.

Both engineers ate lunch in from a little Thai place down the street. Huddled around the conference room table, Johnathan and Eric checked in with each other.

“Did you sign off on the designs?” Eric asked, before shoving his mouth full of noodles.

“Yeah, I sent the email to the printer. Full sized drawing should arrive by courier in the morning.”

“What about the control chips? Initial production starts next month.” Eric checked his notes from the morning once more.

Johnathan stared at his best friend. Where had this man come from? This was the first time Eric had ever taken the full reigns and made Johnathan feel like the subordinate.

“No. I'll get to it this afternoon. I'm still trying to finish up our final analysis on the testing data.”

“Why don't you see if Zach can help with any of that? At least the number crunching?”

Johnathan stared at Eric blankly. He hadn't thought to use their engineering student to help. “Yeah, I'll do that.”

“Good.” Eric made a note on his legal pad.

Johnathan couldn't handle anymore direction. He grabbed his cartoon of noodles and headed to the door. “Finishing up in my office.” Eric simply nodded at him in dismissal, going back to his own paperwork in front of him.

On the way, Johnathan was nearly knocked down by Alex walking quickly to her own office from outside.

“You go out for lunch?” Johnathan wondered why he hadn't seen her in the conference room.

“Had to run an errand.” She walked into her office, stowed her purse, and picked up her lunch Zach had placed on her desk. Johnathan naturally followed Alex in.

“We should go out on a date.”

Alex gave Johnathan a dismissive look. “We see each other every night.”

“I know, but we should go out. Tonight. Let's go out to dinner, no take out in the dining room.” Johnathan smiled and hoped she wouldn't say she needed to work. Now that the Neimer deal was through, he wondered what she had been working on at home and at night long after he was in bed.

Alex sat on the edge of her desk. She dug around in the carton of noodles for another shrimp with her chopsticks. “Alright. I've thought about the situation with the baby and have some thoughts to share with you.” Alex returned the smile, putting Johnathan at ease. Then she shooed him out of her office.

Before Johnathan could start working, his office phone rang. He picked up without looking at the caller ID, his attention on his computer. He opened up the vendor ordering forms and began typing in the information for the controller chips.

“Johnathan Michaels.”

“I get that cold of a greeting?” Anna asked.

“It's crazy here, right now.” Johnathan scanned the order paperwork in front of him to find the part number. Z06784931154.

“I need to apologize to you.”

“What for?” Johnathan began typing in the order number: Z-0-6-7-8-4.

“The other night you wanted to know about the trust fund and I shut you out. I need to talk to you. There's history you don't know, and you should.”

Johnathan wracked his brain trying to think of what Anna was talking about. He had checked with Simms that Anna was legally clear before getting the police involved. He kept going back and forth between the paperwork and typing. 9-3-1-1-5-5.

“Anna, it's fine. I called Simms to notify the police. Nancy Jean is going to jail. It's what I should have done in the first place.” Johnathan glanced over the address, quantity and clicked SEND.

“You called...” Anna took a breath. “You called the authorities?”

“Yeah, I mean I had to. Even Alex agreed. What kind of monster would I be leaving my sisters and brother with that woman when I know what she's capable of?” Johnathan flipped the order information over, and found the stack of data from testing the Claw. The stack was three inches thick. He was going to have to get Zach to help him if he hoped to make dinner with Alex at a decent hour. He still had to make reservations.

“I need to talk to you, it's important. Can you come over tonight?” Anna pleaded.

Johnathan banged the edge of the pages on his desk to line up the raw data into a neat stack. “I can't. I'm swamped at work and things with Alex are still tense. She's agreed to have dinner with me tonight. I can't miss it.”

“Another night?”

Johnathan glanced at his calendar. “Thursday night I'm meeting clients for dinner and Friday afternoon we're leaving for Jersey. That's why we're trying to get all of the work done before the holiday.”

“Have fun with the Rodriguez family. Give me a call next week when we can talk.”

“Will do. Love ya.” Johnathan stood up, ready to bombard Zach as soon as he could hang up the phone.

“Love you, too.”

Johnathan spent the last four hours of the day babysitting a student engineer and working on his reports. After finally getting everything sent to Hedis, he made a reservation at a smaller favorite where the menu consisted of tapas. He hoped it would make Alex happy. A quick stop at home at her request, and the two were off to what Johnathan hoped would be a night ending with playtime in the bedroom.

“I've given the baby a lot of thought.” Alex began a new topic of discussion.

Johnathan lifted a slice of beef carpaccio from the warm stone and held it on his fork a moment before responding. “And what have you come up with?” Opening his mouth wide, he ate the entire slice in one bite. He gulped the food down, worried she was going to finally say she couldn't handle it.

“Well, for starters, I have a document you probably aren't going to like, but it's for both of us.” Alex leaned down to her large purse, unwinding the string that held a large paper envelope closed. “It's a pre-nup, but only to outline ownership of savings and real property to prevent a family judge from using my assets against you in a child support hearing.”

“Kellie and I are working all of that out next week with Simms. We aren't going to court.”

Alex pressed her lips together and took a sip of her water. “But the legal responsibility is always going to be there. She can take you to court anytime.”

“She isn't like that.” Johnathan skimmed over the paperwork, assuming this was what Alex had worked on clandestinely.

“I don't know her, and frankly, I'm not willing to take the risk.” Alex took another bite of her paella. “There's another condition.”

“Oh, so these are conditions now?”

“Stop being so dramatic, I'm trying to compromise here. This isn't easy for me. Every time I think I'm over it, you bring her up or there's an appointment you have to go to, and it cuts me all over again.” Alex wiped her mouth with her napkin. “So yes, conditions for compromise.”

Johnathan said nothing, not trusting his anger to stay in check. Instead, he took another bite of his own meal and held out his hand, palm up, as a sign for her to continue.

“You go next week to work out the custody orders, right?”

Johnathan nodded. Alex took a deep breath.

“I would like for you to arrange to exercise visitation at Anna's home, at least until we can have a baby of our own. And, I think we should start trying for a baby now, instead of waiting a few years.”

Johnathan nearly choked on his food. Coughing continuously, his eyes began to water. He grabbed his drink and gulped, trying to clear his windpipe. Alex didn't show any concern over her choking fiancé, instead focusing on her half-eaten dinner .

“You don't want to have a baby with me?” she asked in a small voice.

“Wait, I didn't say that.”

“No, you just nearly choked to death at the thought.” Alex lost her sadness for anger.

“I took a breath in wrong. All of this, the pre-nup, the conditions...are a surprise, Alexis. You and I haven't even talked about having kids.”

“I thought neither one of us would be ready for a baby, but obviously, that isn't the case.”

Johnathan shut his eyes, creasing them tightly. “I don't know about the visitation. Say my daughter has no contact with you, we have a baby in the next year or two, and then with a brand new baby we're going to throw a toddler suddenly into the mix?”

“Johnathan, I'm not really interested in playing Mommy to a kid when I haven't had one myself. I won't even know what to do.” Alexis locked eyes with Johnathan, showing the fear she felt at becoming a step-parent.

Johnathan gave her a small smile and reached over the table to grab her hand. “You will be a great mother to any child lucky enough to have you in her life.” He gently squeezed her four fingers before releasing.

Alex sighed. “Maybe it's a little silly for me not to have contact with the baby. But if things don't work out, I want you to promise me you will give me room. I have to come first, Johnathan, or this marriage isn't going to work out.”

As selfish as it sounded, he realized she was right. Anna's words about who Johnathan would trust when it came to issues with the baby echoed in his brain. And here was Alex, asking to be first. Who could be more natural as confidante and partner than his wife? No one.

Johnathan motioned for the check. “You will always come first for me, Alexis. There is nothing more important to me than our marriage.”

After weeks of disconnect, Alex slept soundly snuggled in Johnathan's arms. Sleep remained elusive to him. Thoughts of two children in less than two years kept adding up to disaster in his mind. But, Alex wasn't pregnant, yet, and maybe once the baby came, she would want to wait a little while. The bandaged alarm clock digitally changed the hour from eleven to twelve in what felt like five minutes. He released a deep sigh and finally coaxed his mind to stop worrying and go to sleep.

A blaring modem connecting sound pierced the night. Johnathan groped his nightstand for his phone. He flipped the receiver up and answered, eyes shut to keep a half-hold on sleep.

“John?”

“Yeah.”

“I need to talk.”

Squinting one eye open, the time on the alarm clock disappointed him. “Hang on a minute.” Johnathan put the phone down and walked the few paces to his bathroom. After heeding the call of nature, he splashed a little cold water on his face. It was 1:12 AM where Jenn was. This call couldn't be good.

He picked the phone back up and resumed the conversation.

“What's wrong?” he asked, bracing himself for the worst.