Violet Chain (13 page)

It was fucking torture, leaving Violet. I hated it. I hated my job, I hated the plane; I even hated the over-friendly stewardess who kept giving me googly eyes. I hated everything that took me away from her. The more I was with her, the more I didn’t want to be without her.

I was never one to use the term ‘making love,’ because I found it to be a silly term. Honestly, how do you make love? Humping was humping, right? A little slam bam, thank you, ma’am? All about the bump and grind? Boy was I wrong.  Sex was sex, but making love was a deep emotional feeling, it was losing yourself in the other person, not necessarily for the reason of ‘getting off’ per se, but to feel closer to that person, to want them to feel everything you felt for them, deep in your heart. When I lay down with Violet, we were no longer fucking or having just sex as I used to believe, we were most definitely making love.

It felt so personal now we had that special bond that could only be shared between two people in love.  Although Violet didn’t want to admit it, I felt it and I knew as much as I loved her, she loved me just as much back. The only problem was getting her to admit it.

I felt a nudge against my shoulder and looked up to David, grinning from ear to ear.

“What are you thinking about?” David asked.

“Nothing,” I responded smugly.

“You’re lying; you’re thinking about Vicky, aren’t you?”

Who the hell was Vicky? It took me a few minutes to remember that it was the fictitious name I had given David when he asked about the woman I was seeing.

“So what if I am?” I grumbled.

“Man, I never thought I would see the fucking day when Chain Alexander fell for a girl!” he said with disbelief.

“Why are you making a big deal out of it?” I snarled.

He laughed. Why was he always laughing? Couldn’t he see I was aggravated? Fucking bastard.

He shrugged. “You have all the classic signs. The scowl, the deep thinking, the nervous twitching, man you got it bad.”

“I do not twitch,” I retorted. He pointed to my hand that was resting on the armrest of the plane chair. I looked down and my hand was slightly jumping up and down. I was twitching.

“You are really into her,” he said simply.

I pulled on my shirt collar. It was hot on the plane, and my collar seemed to be choking me literally to death.

“Sweating, another sign,” David gloated.

“It’s hot, David,” I said as I used my shirt, fanning myself.

“Actually I’m kind of cold, I was going to ask the stewardess for a blanket,” he said casually.

I rubbed my forehead and felt the damp wetness cling to my hand. I was sweating! Profusely.

David patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Chain, it happens to the best of us. You’re worried about her, aren’t you?” he asked. I couldn’t lie to him, I was.

“Yes,” I answered quickly, maybe too quickly.

“I know how you feel, I worry about Callie too,” he said as he glanced towards the window, his eyes looking into the distance.

I leaned forward. “So it’s normal?”

He turned his head towards me. “Yes, it’s normal, Chain.”

I sank back in my seat. “Does it ever get better? I mean, do you ever stop worrying?”

“Not really, but it’s not a bad thing, it just means you care.”  

I pulled my shirt away from my chest. It was drenched in sweat. “This is good? Tell me how this is good?”

“I don’t know. I suppose the ending result is worth it all. Callie fills a void inside of me, she makes me want to be a better person, she makes me want to change the world, to make it more perfect for her. I could never imagine not having her in my life, not being with her.”

“Well with
Vicky
it is way different. She changes me and I have to say it’s not always for the better. I never had a violent bone in my body till I met her. But every time I think someone is going to hurt her, I want to rip their head off their shoulders.”

“It’s the way it should be, Chain. Wanting to keep the one you care about happy and safe.”

I smiled as her face flashed in my head. “I do care about her, David, a lot.”

He patted me on the shoulder. “I’m glad you found someone, Chain, I really am.” A smile spread across his face and I could tell he was genuinely happy for me.

When the plane landed in Minneapolis, David and I rushed down the corridor, turning our cells on, trying to catch a signal. We had to look ridiculous, two lovesick puppies trying to call their girls.

I finally had a strong signal and called Violet up; to my relief she answered on the first ring.

“Chain,” she whispered. My name from her lips made me melt against the wall, hearing her voice comforted me instantly, the worry and the twitching left me.

“Hi,” I responded happily.

“Hi yourself, how was your flight?” she asked me.

“It was pretty smooth.”

“Thank you for the flowers, they are very beautiful.”

“I really wanted to get you violets, but they were fresh out. I wanted something that showed you how beautiful you are to me.”

I could almost hear her blushing over the phone. “Aw, Chain, I swear you say the nicest things to me.”

Because it was how I felt, didn’t she get it?

“So what are you doing?” I asked, trying to make conversation.

“Working, as usual,” she responded. “Hold on.” She covered the phone. A few minutes later she came back on the line. “I have to go, can I call you back?”

No! We just started talking, she couldn’t hang up now.

I chewed on the side of my lip, before saying, “Okay.”

“I will call you back in twenty.”

“Alright.” I hung up my cell and the worry and twitching returned immediately. David draped his arm around me.

“You’re sweating again,” he pointed out. I wiped my forehead and he was right. I thought love was supposed to be a wonderful feeling, not the makings of a heart attack. With the way I was sweating, twitching and worrying my heart was not going to hold out very long. I sure hoped she called back soon, before I ended up in the morgue.

It seemed more cost effective to rent a condo for a week than a hotel. I had never roomed with anyone before and definitely never David and I soon realized why.

We stepped into the condo and David was literally pulling my shoes off. He placed his suitcase on the kitchen counter, unzipping it, taking out a box filled with sterilized wipes. He began to wipe down every surface in the kitchen.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“Cleaning, this place is filled with germs.” I glanced around and the place was immaculate. I wanted to reprimand him for his actions, his OCD was really out of control, but I had bigger things on my mind. I needed to speak to Violet.

There were four bedrooms and I took the one farthest to the left. I pulled my suitcase into it and closed the door, lying on the bed with my cell in my hand. Then paranoia hit me: what if my cell went dead in the middle of our conversation? I hadn’t charged it all day. I grabbed my charger from my suitcase and attached it to the wall before attaching it to my cell. I lay across the bed, staring at my cell, waiting for her to call. I glanced at the clock on the wall and noticed it was 2:00 pm.

I must have fallen asleep because I woke in a panic, fumbling with my cell as it rang.

“Hello,” I answered, placing the cell to my ear.

“Wow, that is one hairy ear,” Violet responded. I pulled the cell in front of my face and was happily surprised to see her beautiful face flashing across the screen.

“I can see you, how did you do that?” I asked, still amazed that I could see her face.

“It’s FaceTime. You have it on your cell.”

“I do? Can you see me too?”

“Mhm. So are you at your hotel?” she asked me.

“Actually we rented a condo and yes, we are here,” I responded.

“I see, so how is it rooming with David?” she asked.

“Clean,” I confessed with a grin. We both burst out into laughter.

“He brought the bleach wipes, didn’t he?” she asked. How did she know about that?

“You know about the wipes?”

“Oh yeah, whenever Callie and I travel, she always makes sure she has plenty in her suitcase.”

“They definitely are a match made in heaven, aren’t they?”

“They sure are.”

Our conversation lasted for hours. We talked about everything from Callie and David to my new project in Minneapolis. I felt at ease with Violet, she was so easy to talk to. I was not one to talk on my cell for great lengths at a time, I despised it. But with Violet I could have talked forever if she let me.

“Hey, I have to go, I’m meeting Callie for dinner.”

“Oh, okay.” The line grew silent and it seemed as if we sat there forever, saying absolutely nothing. After a few minutes, I went to speak but Violet beat me to it.

“I will call you later if you want?” she queried, as if forced. I was going to tell her there was no need, not to go out of her way, but I didn’t, I instead said, “I would like that.”

“Well, I’ll talk to you later, then.”

“Yeah.” She moved her face from the cell as she was going to hang it up.

“Violet,” I shouted and her face reappeared on the screen.

“Yeah?”

I needed to tell her that I loved her more than anything, but I promised her we would take it slow, so saying those words might push her away and we had been getting along so well lately, I didn’t want to ruin it.

“I miss you,” I whispered.

She lightly grinned then said, “I really have to go. I’ll call you later, okay.”

“I’ll be waiting.” She flashed a quick smile before her face disappeared.

***

David and I met our architect, Sam, at a small bistro to go over some of the changes we had made to the blueprints of the new mall. This particular mall would be one of the largest, allowing us to put up more shops.

Since we had so much extra space, I decided to add something a little different. I wanted to put in a place where parents could take their children for the day, with a waterslide, arcade games, carousel, bumper cars, a food court with fast food restaurants and an ice cream shop. I would name it Carena’s Palace after my little sister.

Sam spread the blueprint across the table, using water glasses to hold the four corners. “I know your main concern is about security. So what I was thinking is that we would post security guards at each one of the doors of the exits and entrances,” Sam said, pointing to all the doors on the blueprint.

Safety for the children was the first and most important factor to me. “That’s perfect,” I agreed.

David leaned forward. “And the waterslide will be protected the same also?”

Sam shrugged his shoulders. “Sort of. Of course we will have a gate surrounding the whole slide and there will be an attendant near the only open gate to allow access. But we ran out of space, so there is a blind spot near the food court that would be unseen by the attendant. A child, if he or she wanted to, could climb over the gate and get to the slide,” he explained.

“Well change it then, make a wall there, it can’t be that difficult,” I told him. I didn’t want to take any risk on a child getting hurt at all.

Sam shook his head. “If we put a wall up then we won’t have enough room to put in the food court. We need all the extra feet we can get, Chain. We are cramming a lot into a small space.”

“Then make it bigger,” I retorted.

“The only way we can do that is to use the space next to it, which means we will have to take out one of the buildings next to us to use the space. Why don’t we just eliminate the ice cream shop,” he reasoned.

“No, I will not eliminate the ice cream shop. If you have to use the building next to it, so be it. We haven’t even begun to lease out the buildings yet, so at this stage, it would be better.”

Sam exhaled. “You are asking me to redo a whole blueprint that took me two years to finalize. This will surely put your deadline behind.”

I smiled as I leaned back on my chair, folding my hands and crossing my legs. “It’s nothing an eraser can’t solve!” He growled at my answer. Maybe he felt like I was being a little inconsiderate of his hard work, but I was actually trying to lighten up the situation.

Sam ran his hands through his hair. “It will take me at least a week to draw up the new plans, then they will have to be resubmitted to the city for approval. At the least you’re looking at thirty days before we can do anything.”

“That’s fine.”

For the next three hours we sat looking at the other plans for the mall. When we finished, David and I made our way back to the condo.

I was lying in my bed, doing what I always did, thinking of Violet. She told me she would call and I didn’t want to bother her during her working hours, but impatience got the best of me and I lifted my cell and FaceTimed her. She answered on the third ring.

Her lip quirked up on one side. “Hello there, handsome, how was your day?”