* * *
The ride to Elton hotel became an increasingly suffocating one between the two men in the car. Riddled with minefields of quaint, precarious conversation, it roused anxiety in the heart of the lackey, and anger in the master's.
"I'm assuming it didn't go too well?"
"No. No—it actually went swimmingly! Matter of fact, she starts tomorrow," David replied sardonically from behind his laptop; his virile voice (yet again) bathing the car with a domineering presence, accompanied with a pair of untamed eyes sucking the soul out of his friend at the driver's seat. Perfectly sculpted hands kept busy on his laptop, yet an ingenious mind was in an unrelenting twist.
"Fuck!" he cursed tempestuously.
While typically it was calming and efficient to drown himself in work as detachment from reality's misfortune, results failed to show this time around when he needed it the most.
"It's not working."
"Of course it's not," Miles thought aloud in a murmur. "You should address the problem instead of trivializing it. Distracting yourself with work doesn't do anyone any good, neither does it solve the problem at hand."
David gave a surface-level politesse, masking an underlining scornful connotation. "I beg your pardon?"
He tended to do that a lot in place of actual communication. But when he didn't get an immediate reply, he chose to cut to the chase. "If you have something to say, spill it."
"No. It was nothing. Nothing at all!" Miles quickly shut his mouth with an invisible zipper, but even that yielding gesture did not stop the lion at the backseat from staring him down through the rear-view mirror with paralyzing red eyes. Those pair of deep, deep red eyes seemed to have a mystical power in them... savage-like... and grossly imposing. Exactly like his father's, the oldest Marquis.
"Well... actually, what I'm trying to say is..." Although Miles knew it was not a glare of umbrage and more a request for vindication, he was still a bit anxious to give a reply; having worked alongside David for the past 5 years—plus being friends and all—Miles discerned he was not at all well versed in the slightest form of confrontation. Albeit, sporadically he may retreat to cerebrate the matter seriously.
"Are you telling me to beg her to rethink my offer?"
"I'm asking you to act less boorish and more gentlemanly, David."
That vexed the dour man to scorn uncontrollably harder at his confidant.
"I'm not wrong!" Miles upheld the statement despite open refutations from his dismissive best friend. A friend who was no less a good conversationalist than he was a listener. "You were rude, weren't you?"
"Oh, I'm sure you're not. It is a discourteous thing to give a woman an inflated pay, a promotion, and the opportunity to become an executive. I have done her a grave wrong."
"Yes! You have!"
Work speedily filled the young Marquis' mind, suppressing any other feelings than returning attention to pending work in hopes that a miracle would set his coping mechanism in order, and alleviate half the irritation he felt at that moment. "You're making zero sense, Chase," he finalized the stirring argument. And Miles read the hidden message within the statement again via telepathic transmission—the special talent for reading his jumbled employer's mind on the daily, accounting for more than half his salary—so he continued driving in perfect silence.
Short moments after however, switching gears, he parked the car gleefully at a convenient red light, took a few seconds to ponder, then chose each word he spoke carefully.
"You're really not thinking about this from her perspective at all."
But careful wasn't careful enough because the comment only spurred the brooding man to give more undivided attention to his laptop screen.
"Do you even know what people call you at the company?" Miles made another attempt to create conversation through goading a reply from David; strikingly effective, seeing how his typing hands took a hard pause at the scandalous possibilities. Then in earnest, David racked through his brain.
"Mr. Marquis."
"A formidable sadist."
"Fuck," he drew yet another curse, but ominously long, whilst licking his dry lips wet; he seemed to be boiling with so much rage that it was dehydrating every cell within his body. Maybe even his brain, therefore limiting its productivity levels. "Let's see how much they enjoy their new pay cuts."
"This is exactly what I'm talking about! You act out and become what is depicted of you instead of doing the opposite!"
"Chase, I'm not itching for public approval."
"But that reputation of yours surely must've affected Ruby's decision-making this morning." Just her name reeled his attention in like a fish on a hook. "I don't think you know it, but after yesterday's fiasco, rumors are circulating that your abrupt appearances meant someone would lose their job. Ruby must've felt so humiliated. Even her new juniors watched her bargain her job back! If that wasn't bad enough, you forcefully made me lie to summon her for you!"
Marquis began to feel a growl grow at the back of this throat. "I simply said to bring her by any means possible."
"What does that change, though? I still lied!" Fully turned and facing the backseat passenger, Miles pouted on some more. "Unfortunately, that makes me your partner in crime—"
"There was no 'crime' committed, Chase."
"There are other ways to tell a woman you like her other than making her a secretary, you know!"
At that moment, recognition suffocated the already pale-skinned man after processing the words he gutted his friend with, forcing him to redraw a gaze from the taut-faced Marquis whom realization dawn on.
The childishness his plan entailed and how asinine he had been acting like for these past few years in the name of "love" was frightening. He wasn't sure he could even define the concept anymore, losing sight of what it truly meant. Was his endearment towards Rose love, or obsession?
Disrupting his thoughts, Miles continued his spiel. "Point is, embarrassing her like you did yesterday was really insensitive. You acted as if she should be grateful that she got her lively hood back, not by her own achievements and hard work, but because of your superfluous generosity. When she chooses otherwise, you yelled at her because of a decision ultimately her's to make—I could hear you a mile away, you know." The light turns green and Miles reluctantly gears the engine and stomps on the gas, resuming the car despite his friend needing a one-to-one talk at the back.
"Pun not intended, by the way."
"You think so?"
"I know so!"
"What are you—Cupid or something?"
"You flatter me."
"Fuck that. I wasn't trying to." David's glare burned just as harsh as his curt use of words. "It was meant to have the opposite effect."
"Excuse me?"
"Cupid would've been settled with somebody by now, not living out the life of a pathetic, hopeless romantic. Better yet, he'd be a promiscuous player. So don't lecture me about how to swoon a woman, you inexperienced virgin."
Miles cursed with a face mixed with emotions, "Oh. Oh, wow," whereas behind him, he heard the muffled chuckles of David, seemingly satisfied with his animated reaction, and resigned to the encouraging fact his friend was feeling much improved.
His humor though, not so much. It was still as sick as ever.
"And here I thought I had upset you. You're doing just fine—at my mental expense, as usual."
"She's changed since I last saw her."
Noticing the switch in conversation, "Of course. That's only natural with time," Miles promptly played along.
"But, she's... changed too much."
"What do you mean?"
"It wasn't my intention to shame her yesterday; especially after being without her for so long. If those rumors really reflected in my behavior yesterday, it was poor judgment on my part. But what I truly meant to do was get closer to her. To share my world with her's even if it led to sweet, melancholic nothings in the end." The last few lines were voiced in a whisper, sinking the car into a second, severe, wave of silence. "She's so bitter now. I can't seem to find even a hint of the old her no matter how many times I search her green eyes."
Miles mused, aloof to the heartbreak those words individually carried. "I guess everything really does happen for a reason."
David gave no reaction for the longest while.
"Maybe this is life's way of saying it's just not meant to be. Plenty fish in the ocean and all that jazz."
"More fish, huh?"
"Hm-hmm" he nodded. "Keep life simple; overcomplicating things gets you nowhere."
"Maybe you're right Cupid."
"Now I'm Cupid? I swear you're a twisted individual!"
Offended by Miles casually dismissing the compliment—it was rare for him to dish those out on the daily—David channeled his domineering energy into his eyes, making innocent words sound threatening. "I'd have to be a fool demoting myself to a clown if I said you weren't right." Again, bad conversationalist. "Plus... it's time to put an end to this childish narrative. If the Rose I once knew really is gone, who the hell am I holding on to exactly?"
"Yes, sir!" Yet despite this so-called resolve, David's mind still lingered on the taboo topic in place of work.
Ruby's vivacity... the crescent-shaped eyes he would never get to see again when she smiled... or the fact he had never gotten a feel of her tantalizing body on his, pulsed through his being, bleaching his face crimson red, less from anger and more from sensual arousal. The power she held over him was more torturous if anything, numbing any sense of logical discernment he possessed.
It could not be love... no, it definitely was not love, he thought. It was obsession at its finest because love would not drive a person to asinine madness; else what an evil, conniving force of oppression masked with pleasantries of endearment it would be.
RIIING! RIIING! RIIING!
"Do you plan on ignoring that, or..."
The buzz of a phone from his briefcase revived tumult in the short-lived quiet environment.
"Of course not." He lashed at unsuspecting Miles, confounding him further and further with their every interaction. He would be nice one minute, then follow up by being the devil incarnate the next.
"Hello? Mother—good morning. To what do I owe this lovely surprise?" flattery worked charmingly with the elderly caller.
"You're duplicity is frightening."
"Piss off—sorry, not you, mother. Please go on."
He later grumbled audaciously, enabling Miles mental telepathy powers.
"This again? Mother, I've got no time for this, and quite frankly, neither should you. Get some much-needed sleep, I'll call you back at a well-disposed hour—"
The car goes especially quiet this time around. Whatever she had told him ought definitely not to be good.
"Mom... what the fuck?!"