Chapter 3

I was and wasn’t really interested in what Larissa might offer me. But to be safe and to maintain my personal beliefs in my vows, I handed the remote to Marky.

“Take care of this for me. See if there is something on that your sister would like to watch. OK?”

“Yes, sir, Uncle Paul.”

“Larissa, stay with the kids. I have some work to do,” I instructed the beautiful woman.

I got up and walked over to my computer and went back to my emails. I found answers from both my former company and from XYZ. XYZ requested a meeting time of 11AM and my former employer’s HR asked for a meeting at 1PM. Perfect timing. I replied to both that the times were acceptable and I would see them then.

There was also an email from Deb. I forced myself to open it.

Paul, I called your companies HR and told them what Peter was doing. He is in trouble and angry at me. I’m afraid of what he might do. Please come home. Please.”

That got my attention. I needed to make sure that Deb knew that we were done, but I also needed to make sure that Peter knew that if he hurt Deb, I would kill him. Deb was no longer mine, but she wasn’t going to be abused by Peter. I had it settled in my mind that if he hurt Deb, that I would find my table leg and put it to deadly use on his head.

Looking at the clock I saw that I had 45 minutes to get to the meeting with XYZ. I went back to the couch to see Larissa between her kids, watching “Despicable Me”.

“Larissa, I need to speak to you quickly and in private.”

I nodded my head towards the bedroom and when I left the room she stood and followed me into what used to be my bedroom.

“I have a meeting at 11 and another at 1. I also got an email from Deb saying that she called HR and turned Peter in. She is worried that he is going to go after her. I need you to somehow contact Peter without giving away where you are and let him know that if he hurts Deb, I will kill him. He is already on my kill list for what he did to you and the kids, but Deb is still my wife and I guess I still love her, at least a little. If he hurts her, I will avenge her.”

“Don’t do anything that will get you in jail. I can’t afford to bail you out,” she smiled at my gallantry.

“Just tell him. I’m going to shower and take off for my meeting,” Larissa left the bedroom, closing the door.

I went into the bathroom and closed the bathroom door and locked it. I wondered why I would do that. I showered and shaved and generally made my self beautiful, in a manly sort of way. Opening the bathroom door, I looked out to be sure there were no uninvited guests lying in wait. When I saw the room was empty, I went to my dresser and took out the days clothes.

Dressed in slacks, a polo shirt, black socks and dress shoes, I went back to the living room to let everyone know that I was leaving and would be back later. Both of the kids ran over and gave me hugs and said “Good bye, Uncle Paul”. Larissa gave me a smile. When she hugged me I could feel her nipple through her shirt. Tearing myself away and hiding the small tent in my pants, I headed out to my meeting at XYZ.

I walked confidently into the front door of XYZ and went straight to the receptionist desk. I gave the young lady my name and that I had an eleven o’clock meeting. She smiled and typed on her computer keyboard before looking at me.

“Mr. O’Dell, Ms. Flammel will be down in a moment. Please have a seat.”

“Thank you.”

I turned and sat in one of the very nice chairs and looked at my phone. It seemed that the instant the clock on the phone changed to 11:00 AM I heard my name called. Looking up there was an attractive, mature woman with a manila folder in one hand smiling at me. I walked towards her and offered my hand. We shook hands and introduced ourselves and she led me to a suite of offices.

“Mr. O’Dell, I’m the head of HR here at XYZ. I have some questions that I need to ask you about your previous employer,” she asked as we walked.

Entering an empty office, she directed me to take a seat at the long table in the middle of the room. I sat and to my surprise, she sat next to me, as opposed to across from me, setting the folder on the table and opening it.

“Mr. O’Dell, we got a call from your previous employer. They seem to be very reluctant to lose you. May I ask why you left them?”

“They didn’t give you any reason or hints?”

“Actually, no they didn’t. The man I spoke with was very upset and all but begged me to turn you down and send you back to him.”

The thought of that brought a smile. Bobby Ferris was the head of HR and was a good guy. I had been paired with him at the companies team building outings and I had spent some time with he and his family at our company summer picnics. He seemed like a good strong family man.

“You must have talked with Bobby Ferris. The reason was because I found out that my supervisor was piling hours on me so he could carry on an affair with my wife. I quit and I’m going to be seeing a lawyer about a divorce and I’ll be filing against the company because their non-fraternization policy specifically prohibits relations with spouses of other employees.”

“So there is no chance that you will go back to them?”

“I learned to never say never, but it’s highly unlikely. I will tell you that they have asked me for a meeting and I will be seeing them at 1PM. I don’t know the reason for the meeting. I haven’t told them about my thoughts on filing suit. I did find out that my wife called them and told HR what my supervisor had done. I don’t know the exact timeline of calls or who did what when.”

“Well, I don’t want to get in a bidding war, but having said that, we think that you would be a tremendous addition to our team her at XYZ. I have been authorized to select from a range of salary and benefits to bargain with, but I’m not a big haggler. I’m going to offer you the max I can and it will not change regardless of what you are offered elsewhere.”

With that she took a paper out of her folder and crossed out a few lines with a red pen, then switched to a blue pen and signed the paper and dated it. When she was done, she folded it in half and slid it to me and smiled.

“Do you have any questions?”

“So, the job is mine for sure, and this is your best offer as far as salary and benefits?”

“Yes. After your meeting, all I ask is that you call or email me one way or the other. We have a few people on hold waiting for your decision,” she smiled as she finished.

“Thank you very much for your time and your candor. I’ll let you know as soon as I know.”

“Mr. O’Dell, you haven’t looked at the offer.”

“Nope. It’s your max and it would make no sense for me to negotiate a lower offer, right? I’ll look at it once I have figured out what my former company has to say.”

“Fair enough, Mr. O’Dell. Thank you for coming. I’ll show you back to the entrance.”

Ms. Flammel stood and I followed her, giving in to the urge to look at her butt as it moved beneath her business suit’s skirt, while fighting the urge to look at the folded paper in my hand. We shook hands again and I exited the building, pulling out my phone to check the time. The meeting had taken less than thirty minutes. I had an hour and a half to kill before my next meeting. I decided to drop a quick email and a text.

“Deb, I’ve let Peter know that it’s in his best interest to leave you alone. You should be OK.”

I knew that Deb had a laptop so she would get the email eventually. The next text went to Larissa.

“Did you give Peter my message? First meeting XYZ went well.”

Putting the phone away, I decided to have a longer lunch, and went to a local sports bar where the female servers walked around in cheek exposing shorts and cleavage exposing plaid tops. I wasn’t going to get laid for quite some time, but it was never a bad thing to look at, admire, and enjoy the sight of sexy women.

I ordered iced tea and cheese smothered, bacon covered, tater tots. The next hour was spent nibbling the tots and ogling the unending parade of female bodies that passed by while I ate. My server was cute and showed some nice cleavage, but had a wonderful ass, with a couple of inches of cheek showing from the bottom of her shorts.

I paid my tab, tipped for the service, and then added more to the tip for the butt cheeks and tits. Tips for tits. I should suggest that to the manager as a nice fundraiser for a local charity. I walked out in a great mood, and still hadn’t looked at the offer from XYZ. I drove over to my old company and was surprised that I was in such a good mood. I guess having an ace in the hole really is a good feeling. As I walked in the door, two things suddenly hit me.

First, I couldn’t just walk past security. I was going to have to stop and show ID and let them know I was there for a meeting.

Second, was that Peter might be there. For an instant I thought that I should go back to my car and get my tire iron. Then it occurred to me that security wouldn’t let me take it in. I went to the woman I knew at the reception desk.

“Hi, I’m Paul O’Dell and I have a one o’clock meeting with HR.”

“I know who you are Paul! Don’t be a dick!”

It’s nice to be remembered after being gone for a whole day. I smiled at her and went to sit down, but before I could get settled, Bobby Ferris came out to greet me.

“Hi Paul, come on back.” We shook hands and I followed him through familiar territory. The glass was being replaced on Peter’s office, but the office was empty. I was prepared to jump on him if need be.

“Let’s sit down in my office, Paul. Mr. Bowen will be joining us in a few minutes. How are you doing?” Bobby looked at me showing the first signs of sympathy I had seen during this whole fiasco.

“As good as can be expected. Lots of things have distracted me.”

“I hear you’ve got Larissa and the kids living with you? I’ll need your new address to send you stuff.”

“Not yet. I don’t want Peter to find out where Larissa and the kids are living. Did you know that he was beating and abusing them?”

Bobby looked at me as though he didn’t understand what I was saying. He leaned back in his chair and shook his head.

“Paul, where did you hear that?”

“From Larissa and the kids this morning.”

“This is going to be an interesting meeting,” I couldn’t read his expression.

Bobby began pulling out some materials from his file cabinet and then looked at me.

“OK, Paul, first, Peter has been fired for violating our personal code of conduct policy. He admitted to his affair with your wife and to using his position to keep you out of the way. He’s gone as of noon today.”

“Good, glad to hear it.”

“However, he gave us some info before he left. He gave us a copy of a police file. He hasn’t been abusing the kids, Larissa has. He gave us a report that states that she has been on probation for almost two years from a previous domestic violence charge.”

I was stunned and even more so when he passed the copies of the report to me. Then it hit me. The cereal bowl. The kids had never said that Peter hit them, just that they had been hit, hard.

“Oh shit she’s home alone with the kids,” I panicked.

“It should be OK. I doubt that she wants you to know any of this. That brings us to the other item. Your wife and Peter.”

“What about them?”

“Peter told me before he left that he was looking for something less violent in a relationship. Deb approached him and offered herself. He finally took her up on the offer and then began to adjust your hours to accommodate his affair with her in the evenings. He insisted that she was the instigator.”

“This is all too much. I gotta go to the apartment and check on those kids,” I wasn’t hearing Bobby.

“Wait just a bit.” Bobby picked up the phone and punched in three numbers.

“Sir, he’s ready,” Bobby hung up and a few minutes later the owner of the company came in.

“Hello Paul.”

The tall mature, almost elegant, gentleman that I had met several times walked to me and offered his hand.

“Hi, Mr. Bowen,” I took his hand.

“Been a rough little patch here, hasn’t it,” he said warmly.

“Yeah. Right now I’m worried about those two kids. I’m afraid that I’ve fallen for them.”

“I understand, so I’ll make this short sweet and to the point. I want you to come back to us. I’ve spoken to the owner of XYZ and we have agreed on some terms.”

With that he slid a folded piece of paper across the desk to me and smiled.

“This is our final and top offer. If you want to negotiate, it will be for a lower situation. I’ll leave you with Bobby and hope to hear from you very soon.”

Mr. Bowen stood and shook my hand then Bobby’s and walked out. I picked up the paper and stood.

“Thanks Bobby. I gotta go.”

“Aren’t you going to look at the paper?”

“No, I gotta get back to those kids.”

We shook and I ran out of the building to my car and drove a little too fast back to the apartment. I ran to the door, unlocked it, opening it to a resounding dead quiet. I walked through the entire apartment and it was unoccupied. The kids stuff was gone and so were Larissa’s things. I panicked and ran out to notice for the first time that Larissa’s car was gone.

I went back inside and that is when I found the folded paper on the kitchen counter. Picking it up, I opened it and read.

As I read, I had slowly moved to sit on one of the bar stools. Lies on top of lies washed over me. I’m not an emotional guy, but this hurt. I sat there feeling almost more pain than when I had found out about Deb and Peter. The kids were gone. The apartment was too quiet. I walked out and got in my car and drove.

It was starting to get dark when I finally noticed that the car needed gas. I pulled into a station and filled the tank and bought a Dr. Pepper and a bag of pretzels. I drove a little more and drank and munched. I think I had driven over every major road in town when I had a thought. I pulled into the parking lot of the first shopping center I came to and looked to find a good place to stop for a bit.

I finally pulled into a spot next to the Longhorn Steakhouse and opened the glove box. I took out the two papers I had been given in my two meetings. I sat there for a bit, before opening the one from XYZ and read the offer. It was amazing. A better position, more money, more perks and much better benefits. Ms. Flammel said it was their top offer and I couldn’t imagine a better offer. I guess I was going to XYZ.

Then, more out of courtesy than anything else, I opened the paper from my former company. To say I was shocked would be a gross understatement. I read the offer and put the two papers side by side. With one exception, they were exactly the same! The difference was that the paper from Mr. Bowen had a hand written note at the bottom.

I was stunned. Mr. Bowen and Ms. Flammel were married and each own a similar company. That had to be a great story. Now what to do? A new company or a familiar one. I would have a position well above Peter’s and almost triple what I had been earning. Retirement, full medical, a company car. I must have been the subject of a good amount of pillow talk last night.

I got out of the car and went into the steakhouse, ordering the biggest Porterhouse steak and asked for the largest baked potato they could find. I got a nice glass of red wine and sat there and ruminated over the two offers. I chewed, swallowed, thought, over and over and over. By the end of the meal, I knew what I was going to do.

I woke up and the world seemed empty with no kids in it. That short exposure to them had solidified the idea of having kids someday. I wanted to be a dad as well as a father. I got up and showered, before noticing that there were a small pair of shoes on the floor in my closet. There was a small piece of paper in one of them.

I opened the paper and read the crayon message.

“Thanks Uncle Paul. Marky. Penny.”

I sat on the bed and cried. Yeah if this was any indicator, I had to find a woman who would give me kids like Marky and Penny. But first I needed breakfast and a job. I went to the kitchen and had a bowl of Fruit Loops and then walked out of the apartment feeling better with each step. I got in the car and drove to my old employer. When I walked into the front door there was a bit of a kerfuffle at the reception desk.

“Hi, My name is Paul O’Dell and I need to speak to Bobby Ferris in HR.”

“Damn it Paul! We know who you are! Are you coming back?”

“What a great question. Let me know when Bobby Ferris can see me.”

“You big goof, just walk back there.”

I looked past her to the security desk. Davey just smiled and waved me in. I went to meet Bobby in HR. I knew that the girl at the desk would call him and let him know that I was on my way. I was right and turned the corner to find a smiling Bobby Ferris waiting for me at the door to his office.