Playing Pretend by Cassie-Ann L. Miller

Thirty

Liam

I broughtmy work home with me as I do most of the week. But tonight is one of those nights where the documents sit untouched on the conference table while I pace around my penthouse with mounting agitation.

It’s been a while since I’ve been this high strung. I haven’t felt like this since way back in the early development stages of my organization when I worked at least twenty hours a day, slept on a stiff couch at the office, and sprouted my first gray hair.

Dinner with the Varners and my fake wife? Come on.

I hate how the old man has me dancing around like a circus act for his entertainment. But I’ll grin and bear it. The deal is almost sealed. Soon everything will be in order and I won’t have to bend to his every whim anymore.

My nerves are fried. My anxiety is through the roof. And I might be on the verge of cardiac arrest with the mess my life has turned into.

I keep compounding my mistakes, one on top of the other. First, the whole marriage disaster. Then the decision to sleep with my assistant-turned-wife. Now, the business deal that’s hanging by a thread. Everything is dangling on a single fragile lie. One that could snap in two with the slightest wrong movement.

And then everything I’ve worked for over the past eleven months will implode. With me in the middle of it.

I stare at the paperwork on the table again. But it’s useless. I can’t focus. My bad choices have evolved into distraction after distraction.

I’m tempted to pour a large glass of whiskey, but I realize I haven’t eaten all day. So I order delivery, continue to pace around the penthouse, and pray my brain doesn’t explode.

I didn’t bother taking a lunch break today, trying to make up for all the time I spent staring outside my office’s glass walls at the back of Eliza’s head.

Goddamned Eliza. I’m not even gonna go there right now.

After having ordered chicken wings so many times over the past few weeks, the delivery person from the Cathedral Pub knows me by name. My food arrives in no time, and the man leaves here happily clutching his hefty tip.

I grab the bags and dump everything out on my conference table. Whenever I eat at home, I usually sit on the couch and catch up on the game, but the sheer amount of food I ordered tonight lured me to the table.

Ten minutes later, I find myself seated at the head of my massive conference table, surrounded by my uneaten food.

My eyes flick around the penthouse.

Once attracted to the high ceilings and open concept space, right now I just find the whole place too big. Too quiet. Too…lonely.

Despite my best efforts, I hear Eliza’s laughter. I smell the scent of her berry shampoo on the couch cushions. I see the ghost of her waltzing around my space, balled up in those white bed sheets she loves so much. At the memory of her, I can’t help but chuckle.

I hate eating at this giant table alone.

Dinners are supposed to be loud and unruly, exactly how they are when I go home and eat with my parents and Yaya and my peabrain brothers.

Fuck this.

Wearing a scowl, I pack up all the food. With the paper takeout bags and an unopened bottle of wine in hand, I storm out the front door, an echoing slam reverberates throughout the hallway.