The CEO (18 page)

I asked John to meet me at the Sotto Italia restaurant. It was my second go-to place to get great seafood. I wasn’t ready to bring him to my number one place just yet; I still didn’t know him that well.

It was a chilly fall evening so I wore my navy blue pant suit with black pumps and wore my hair in a loose side ponytail.

John met me at the door wearing a long tailored suit jacket with matching pants. “Ladies first,” he said as he opened the door for me.

“What a true gentleman.”

It was pretty slow for a Tuesday night and we were seated immediately.

Our waiter’s name was Jason and he was absolutely gorgeous. Short blonde hair, a strong chiseled chin, and I could see the indentions of his muscles underneath his formal fitted uniform.

The way he said ‘I’ll take care of you’ as he took our order made my insides tingle. If I had been there without John, I would have found out how well he really would take care of me.

“So John, tell me more about yourself.”

“What would you like to know?”

“Do you have any siblings?”

“Yes, I have two brothers and one sister.”

“Are they younger or older than you?”

“All of them are older than me.”

“Aw, so you’re the ‘baby’. How was that growing up?”

“Well if you must know, it sucked.”

The waiter came back with our drinks and a second waiter came behind him with our meals. “Enjoy.”

“Thank you. Why is that, John?”

“I had the pleasure of receiving
everyone’s
hand me downs.”

“Ouch!” I laughed.

“Go ahead, laugh your ass off. It sucked
badly.”

“I can imagine.”

“So what about you, Sheila?” he paused. “How many siblings do you have?”

“Just the two: the hell-beast you met earlier, and my younger brother, Kieran.”

“How’s he doing by the way?”

“Not good, but I don’t really wanna talk about it.”

“I can respect that. The subject is dropped.”

“How are you folks enjoying your meals tonight? the waiter interrupted.

“It’s delicious. Thank you!” John snapped back.

I glanced over at John and as our eyes connected I felt a spark between us. There was definitely something there, but I had to keep my head and my legs together for now.

“Sheila, I must admit that place blows my favorite spot out of the water. Everything tasted, I don’t know, fresher? Anyway, you have a good night. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

“Of course, night.” John escorted me to my car to make sure I got in safely before he ran across the lot to find his own vehicle.

He was a really nice guy, but I had that off feeling in the pit of my stomach, again.

After dinner, I went straight to the hospital to visit my brother. Dad was still sitting at his bedside and I could tell he hadn’t left in days by the facial hair that had grown. I didn’t stay long, I just wanted to see him and see if there were any changes in brain activity. Thankfully, his brain was still active despite the damage it’d received from oxygen deprivation.

Dad gave me the third degree for not coming by all week, but it hurt to come by every day and see someone you care about like that. It almost reminded me of Mom before she passed. Kieran looked just like her, so it brought back horrible memories for me.

I promised Dad I’d try and visit twice a week, just to get him off my back.

All of the city permits I needed to start the Nat-Co division were signed and underground construction was set to start the next day.

Hopefully Frank could nail his two meetings, and that would get us a step in the right direction.

John was making a lot of progress on the Nat-Co app. He already had the user friendly design created on Illustrator and had implemented the logo I’d created for it. “John this looks amazing. I can’t wait to see the app once it’s up and running.”

“It’ll only take me another week or so to complete the design. The hard part is getting all the coding to work, bug free.”

“Well you take as much time as you need. We hired you for a reason, so don’t let the company down.”

“I won’t, Sheila. You can definitely count on me.”

I received a phone call later that night, a call that had the ability to break me into a million tiny pieces. I’d known this day would come, but I’d been in denial. Not him, not us; my family couldn’t handle another blow like this.

Kieran was brain dead. I didn’t want to believe it and I couldn’t bring myself
to
believe it. When my Dad called me, it was the furthest thing from my mind.

I sat on my bed frozen in place, staring blankly at the wall. I couldn’t find any motivation to say or do anything, but if I learned anything from it, it was that life is too short.

I arrived at the hospital with tears falling from my eyes. I was hurting and I didn’t care to hide it anymore. I took the elevator upstairs and slowly walked through the halls until I reached the room. I
peered in and saw my father hovering over my brother’s body. The ventilator that was keeping him alive was still on, but I could feel he was no longer with us.

“Dad, what do we do now?”

“He’s gone Sheila. First, we pray, and then the final decision rests in your hands.”

“What do you mean?”

“He only trusted one person with his power of attorney, Sheila.”

“That should be you, right?”

“No...it’s you.”

“Me?” It was up to me to decide to pull the plug on my own brother. I guess he felt I would do the honorable thing and put him out of his misery if he were ever to be incapacitated.

It was an honor, but it also scared me. Did I end my twenty-five- year- old brother’s life? Or did I pray for some sort of miracle?

I walked around the opposite side of the bed and grabbed his hand. His pulse was low and I could barely see him breathing. There was absolutely no way I could let him suffer, but I felt bad and wanted Shannon to get a chance to say good bye before I made my decision.

“Did you call Shannon, Dad?”

“Yes, she should be here any minute.”

I squeezed my brother’s hand, hoping he’d squeeze back…but there was nothing. Tears silently fell from my face and onto the sheet that was covering him. “Kieran, why? Why did you have to be so stupid?” I yelled, fighting the urge to place my hands around his throat.

“No! Is he really dead?” a voice shrieked from behind us.

Shannon ran into the room with her mascara running down her cheeks. She looked a mess but I knew I didn’t look any better. She stood beside me and rubbed Kieran’s leg. “Why? He’s only twenty-five! He’s a freaking baby for Christ’s sake!” She inhaled deeply to calm herself down. “You had so much potential little brother. So what now, Dad? Are you going to pull the plug?” she questioned.

“No. It’s out of my hands.”

Shannon cut her eyes over at me. I could feel how hurt she was that I had all the power and she had none.

“Well, Sheila,” she fake smiled. “What are you going to do?”

“Pull it. He shouldn’t have to suffer any longer.”

Shannon collapsed on the floor and completely lost it. She was always the over the top drama queen in the family.

I looked back at Kieran. It honestly looked like he was in a very deep sleep. His olive skin was still full of life. His long dark hair still had its shine and luster, and the hospital staff had done a great job keeping him clean-shaven.

As my dad bent down to console my sister, I went to find the doc to give her my decision.

I left the hospital and walked straight into the nearest pub. I didn’t care about anything or anyone at that moment. I wanted to feel absolutely numb and drown the conflicting thoughts out of my head.

I sat down on an empty bar stool directly in front of the TV and ordered a double shot of whiskey. The bartended stared at me as I pounded both drinks back. “I’ll have another double shot.”

“I’ve never seen you in here before, but by the looks of those empty shot glasses I can tell you’re trying to forget something.”

“Listen, you’re my bartender, not my therapist, so just keep the fucking drinks coming, ‘kay?”

“Aw, a feisty one. Yes ma’am,” he replied.

Six shots in and the pain was slowly starting to ease. All the yelling and the sound of clinking bottles were starting to amplify, but I couldn’t understand anything.

“Sheila?” I heard from across the bar. I looked around to see where the voice had come from, but I couldn’t spot anyone. I wrapped my fingers around the last shot in front of me and as I put the glass up to my lips, I heard it again, this time a lot closer. I chugged the shot back and that’s when I saw him.

“Liam, what are you doing here?”

“Celebrating, you?”

“Trying to forget,” I sighed.

“Forget what?” he said, tilting my chin up towards him.

“Killing my brother.”

“Wait, what? Why would you be killing him?”

“Because his brain is dead, Liam, it’s fucking dead!”

“What happened?”

“Drugs happened. Are you really that surprised?”

“No, I can’t say that I am.”

“And now I have to be the one to pull the plug on him.”

“I see. But you don’t want to yet?”

“No, I wanted to wait a few more days before I ended it. I don’t want to see him suffer but the look of pain and sorrow on Dad and Shannon’s faces made me wait. They needed a little more time to come to grips with his death and let go.”