Stronger Than Bonds Read online

  “We’re proud to present to you our latest smart irrigation software, allowing and others involved with harvesting crops to optimize their water usage throughout the crop life cycle.” I looked around and everyone was confused, but I kept moving forward. “Smart irrigation software often communicates with specially designed controllers or sensors from the vendor, or with commonly used hardware on the market…” I went on and on, and it wasn’t long before Julie picked up her pen and started taking notes. That was when I realized they had caught on. Samantha, on the other hand, looked more flustered than ever, and the more I delved into our presentation, the angrier she became. Ryan looked proud of me, immensely proud, and when we exchanged places for him to step onto the podium, he gave me a little spank.

  We were approaching the end of our presentation when Samantha shot up from her place. “What’s the meaning of all of this?” she demanded. Her fists were clenched by her side and her eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets.

  “Sarah’s team,” Ryan started again. “Is ready to release this software by the end of this month.”

  “Will you answer me?” she said again, her nostrils flared.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure you’ve all picked up that there is no military contract.” He paused for a moment, clearing his throat. “The reason why we did this has nothing to do with deception, or at least, the deception wasn’t from our side.” His eyes snapped to Samantha, who averted her gaze elsewhere. “What, you don’t know what I’m talking about?” The whole board was staring at her and then suddenly it felt like we were in court.

  “I don’t understand what you mean,” she said with her arms crossed.

  “What I mean is this.” He turned to Julie again. “Samantha was trying to leak information about our project to give it to Luxem Technologies. For about a month and a half, she and I worked very closely, and I had no idea. It was only when I found out that Luxem was releasing a software almost identical to ours did I realize what she had done, and we had to put a stop to it.”

  “I can’t believe you would accuse me of such a thing,” she snapped, throwing her bag over her shoulder and storming out of the meeting room. The silence was heavy, but I was smiling from ear to ear.

  “So,” Julie said, crossing one leg over the other. “The whole military project was a sham?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “It was the only way that we could stop Luxem from stealing our idea.”

  Julie’s lips curved to a smile. “That was pretty sly of you guys,” she said, turning to Frederick. “You’ve raised quite the son, huh?”

  His eyes sparkled when he looked at Ryan; I could tell he was really proud of him. “Speaking of which,” Ryan said, scanning the room with his eyes. “I have an announcement to make.” Everyone fell quiet again, and I braced myself for the big news. “I’d like to step down from my position as CEO. Dad, you made this company, this title is yours to carry, and I can never take that away from you. I’m sorry for being a disappointment.”

  A heavy silence lingered in the air, thicker than the uneasy tension in the room. Unsettled eyes glanced unceremoniously around and tried to avoid catching other glances that passed by. Some shifted uncomfortably in their seat and others grasped their sweaty, nervous hands under the tables, and even others shuffled their feet against the floor, awkwardly tracing the outlines of each tile while judging whispers swirled in the air around the small space. I looked over and Frederick was smiling.

  “Son, I built this company to make a life for myself. Then I met your mother and I wanted to make a life for her, too. And then you and Patricia came along, and I wanted to make a life for all of you guys, and it worked!” Everyone was watching him with a smile on their face. “I think it’s about time that I passed on these responsibilities to you because to be completely honest, I’m beat!”

  “Well, what do you mean?” Ryan asked him.

  “What I mean is this. I, Frederick Callaway, hereby name you, Ryan Callaway, the CEO of this company… again.” A collective laughter rose into the air, the joyful kind. Julie looked at Ryan and I like she was proud of us, also like she was about to give me a raise. “Make me proud, son. From here on out, Callaway Tech is yours!”

  A collective sigh rose from the people sitting around the table. Members of the board exchanged brief, curious glances, and I smiled at Ryan as if to tell him that I loved him. His eyes were welling up with tears, but he held them back because he didn’t want to make a scene. “Thank you, dad,” he finally managed to utter. “I appreciate that.”

  Then, against my better judgment I went up to Ryan, looked him in the eye for only a moment, and then I kissed him in front of everyone. I kissed him in front of the board, in front of Miles, in front of Frederick. I don’t know what came over me, but I was just really proud of him and I wanted to make that known. He pulled me closer to him and kissed me passionately, then everyone started applauding, even Julie.

  I turned around, shrugged and mouthed “I’m sorry” to no one in particular. The blood rushed to my cheeks, but with no remorse. I loved him like never before, and I wanted to prove that to him, over and over again.

  Fifteen - Sarah

  I woke up next to Ryan for the fifteenth time in a row. It felt good, really good. Every morning when I woke up I asked myself the same question; am I happy today? And the answer is always yes, or at least it has been so far. I stared at his freckled back, his muscles, his shoulder blades. Everything about him was perfect, from his smile to the way he walked. It all seemed so well rehearsed but in fact, it was the most spontaneous thing in the world.

  Streaks of sunlight were slashing in through the drapes. Ryan rolled over and hugged me tightly. “Good morning, I love you,” he whispered into my ear. His body was dewy against mine; I rolled over and pressed my lips to his.

  “I love you, too.”

  “Ready for today?” he asked me.

  “So ready.”

  We cuddled for a little while before we got up and made ourselves breakfast. I taught Ryan a bunch of new recipes, but he always liked to fuck them up somehow. “I’m going to add a little cinnamon to this, is that cool?” he asked me, looking over a bowl of scrambled eggs.

  “Oh, God no,” I said, rushing over to the kitchen counter. “Why you gotta ruin recipes, man?”

  Ryan chuckled. “Come on, just let me do this,” he said, sprinkling a little cinnamon on the mixture and flashing me a wry grin.

  “I love you regardless of your shitty standards when it comes to food.”

  “And I love you, period.”

  “So, how long will it take us to get there?” I asked him.

  “Hey, what did I say about asking too many questions?”

  “Come on, I want to know,” I insisted.

  “You’ll find out when we hit the road.”

  Surprises drove me crazy. I knew we were going on a road trip, I just didn’t know where Ryan was taking me. After the whole omelet fiasco, he told me to pack up my stuff, so I threw a bunch of things into my suitcase and ran up to the room to get ready. Ryan followed me quietly, like a cat pouncing up the stairs.

  “Don’t forget to pack your swimsuit,” he told me.

  “Uh, isn’t it a bit cold for that?” I asked him.

  “Never too cold to go for a lake swim.”

  I had always loved swimming in lakes. Perhaps that was one of the first things Ryan

  found out about me. Growing up in the countryside they were my only escape, in fact, I would hide in the water to get away from my grandpa. He would go hours not knowing where I was; little did he know I’d be swimming around with a bunch of goldfish. One day he reported me missing, and I remember being ambushed at sunset by a bunch of police officers yelling, “Is that her? Is that her?”

  My head was bobbing out of the water; I had spent around six hours in there, and when they got me out, I was completely dehydrated.

  “You know me,” I said, zipping up my suitcase. “I’m one hell
of a swimmer.”

  A little while later we were on the road. Music was blasting from the radio and I was snapping pictures of everything, from Ryan’s face to the open road ahead of us… I wanted to document everything. “How much longer till we get there?” I asked him. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on this road before, are you kidnapping me?”

  “I sure am,” he replied, stomping the gas pedal.

  “Don’t kill us!” I yelled.

  “Alright, I’ll slow down once you stop asking questions.”

  “Sir yes, sir.”

  The road stretched onward, hugging the land, taking each turn in easy stride. It was a mountain road, winding and unwinding along the curvatures, taking us on one hell of a rollercoaster ride. It seemed as though the concrete had welcomed many suns, become silvery as it soaked in the rays. I let my eyes run over each hue, seeing imperfections for the first time, yet feeling that as details created by an artistic hand, they rendered it all the more beautiful.

  “I feel like I’m in a movie,” I said, snapping a photo of Ryan. The path meandered into greenery, and at one point I just put my camera away because it was all too beautiful to miss out on. We must’ve spent hours like this, gliding up and down a winding road, turning with it, letting it guide us. Eventually, I was exposed to a grand view of a silver lake, and it knocked the wind from my lungs.

  “Welcome to Placid Lake,” Ryan told me. I rolled the windows down and stuck my head out like an over-excited puppy. The cold wind caressed my face; suddenly I felt home again. It wasn’t my home in New York City, but it was a new kind of home, my home with Ryan.

  “What made you want to come here?” I asked him.

  “Well, my mom grew up here, in the lake house over there,” he pointed in a vague direction, but when I looked over my eyes landed on a single house looming in the distance. It was a single dot right in the middle of the water. “See, there’s only one of them,” he told me. “And you see that line connecting the house to the field? That’s the dock, that’s where my dad and I used to go fishing.”

  “Oh my God,” I said, my eyes growing wide. “That’s so beautiful.” Unlike the city, I didn’t have to wonder what other people were doing behind glowing windows. We were alone, isolated from the rest of the universe with all its happenings, but in the best way possible. “Do you still go fishing with your dad?” I asked.

  “No, we haven’t done that since I was a little kid,” he told me. “What I’d like to do, though, is go fishing with you.”

  “How romantic,” I beamed. “You know what else we can do?”

  “Go skinny-dipping in the lake?”

  “This man gets me, I swear to God,” I said, shaking my head in nothing but approval. It wasn’t long before we pulled into the driveway of Ryan’s lakehouse. I popped my car door open, hopped out and looked around. Even though I was fond of the city I don’t think I had ever seen anything more beautiful. The lake lay flat without a ripple, almost as if it had frozen over. The sun hung high above our heads, but it greeted us with its warmth and sent its rays blazing over the lake’s surface. It resembled a mirror in how silver it was; all I wanted to do right now was jump right in.

  “Ryan, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked him. He turned to look at me.

  “Oh, I think I am.” We exchanged brief glances before I started unbuttoning my jeans. “Bet you I can get in there first,” he said, wiggling out of his pants. I pulled my top off and charged in the direction of the lake; I turned to look at Ryan, who tackled me right into the water. Our bodies hit the lake with a splash. I could hear bubbling, lots and lots of bubbling, and then eventually, we surfaced.

  “Oh my God!” I screamed. “The water’s fucking freezing!” All of a sudden I was twelve again, and I was hiding in the water while my grandpa went out looking for me. The freedom was as intoxicating as if I were swimming in vodka. I could move in any direction or even just stop and float for a while; the water was blue like a perfect sky. My air bubbles made their way to the surface with every exhale; they were only thing down here in a hurry to leave. I thought to myself, I could be out here all day.

  “So, what do you think?” Ryan asked me.

  “This place is amazing, it reminds me of everything good in the world.”

  “Didn’t New York remind you of everything good in the world?” he asked me.

  “I think I like this place better, I don’t know.” I was confused because, even though I considered the city to be my home, my source of inspiration, I couldn’t help but feel comfortable here. “There’s no rush here,” I said, trying to gather my thoughts. “No one’s in a hurry to go to work, no one’s angry, all is well.”

  “But there are no people in sight, to begin with,” he told me.

  “Exactly, it almost feels like we’re the only humans here.” Perhaps, I thought, that was why I felt the way I did. “Humans stress me out sometimes,” I said finally.

  “They’re always in a rush, aren’t they?” Ryan swam around me, and then he carried me in his arms. I looked up at the eye of the sun, squinting as he spun around, holding me in the water. My hair felt sleek and smooth with the freshness of the lake water; my skin did also.

  We must’ve swum about for what felt like an eternity, and then eventually, we got out. Ryan kept telling me stories about his mom, how she used to love gardening, how all those cacti in the backyard were hers. “So who took care of them?” I asked him.

  “I did. I come back here every once in a while to care for the cacti. I don’t think I’ve done a very good job.” He leaned over and looked at one of them. I had never seen Ryan look more vulnerable. His eyes had glazed over and he was just staring into nothingness.

  “Hey,” I said, putting a hand over his shoulder. “You’re doing a great job.”

  He turned to me, and then he wrapped his hands around my waist and pulled me close. I could see the lake glitter in my periphery, shimmering wildly, making itself known. We stood in his backyard, swaying together slowly, dancing to some imaginary music. “If only we had a jukebox right now,” he joked.

  I laughed. “We can just listen to the sound of the waves.”

  “What waves? Everything is silent.”

  “Imaginary waves.” I closed my eyes and rest my head on his shoulder. He moved softly with me, and together, we danced like water. He touched me gently, caressed my back with the tips of his fingers. Shivers accelerated down my spine, and I melted in his arms. “No one has ever made me feel this way,” I confessed to him. “I didn’t expect it to turn into this, not in a million years.”

  “Me, neither,” he said. “You used to really intimidate me, you know.”

  “Me? Intimidate you?” I pulled away and looked into his eyes.

  “Yeah, because you’re smart, very smart. You’re smarter than me and smarter than my father and smarter than all the members of your team combined.”

  “Come on,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “Don’t say that I know you don’t mean that.”

  “What, you don’t believe me?”

  “It’s too good to be true.”

  “What’s too good to be true?”

  “All of this,” I said, my eyes suddenly swelling up with tears. I tried holding them back, but they burst forth like water from a dam. “I never thought I’d meet someone like you, and now that I have, now that I’m this happy, I’m scared. I’m so scared.”

  “Hey,” he pulled me to him again, tighter this time. I took in a cold whiff of air and let it circulate in my lungs. “You don’t need to worry about that, we don’t need to worry about that right now.”

  “I love you, Ryan,” I said despite myself.

  “I love you, too.”

  We must’ve sat out there for quite some time because I started to get cold and shivery. Ryan took me inside, and he gave me a tour around the house. “My mother would spend hours in the kitchen… cooking was her passion. She loved making us dinner.”

  “What did your mom look lik
e?”

  “Like this,” he pointed to an old picture frame leaning against the TV set. Ryan’s mother looked exactly like him, or he looked exactly like her.

  “Those same piercing blue eyes,” I said, rather to myself. I walked up to the picture frame and looked at it lovingly. The house was quiet, but it was a comfortable quietude, one that made me warm on the inside. The whole house smelled of sandalwood and flowers, my two favorite scents. “You know what we should do right now?” I said. “Let’s make dinner together.”

  “Let’s,” he smiled. We had bought a lot of groceries on the way there, and so we unloaded them into the fridge and started sorting through them like a bunch of college kids who didn’t know the first thing about cooking.

  “I feel like, I feel like mom is proud of me.”

  “She must be,” I told him. In a way, it felt like Ryan and I were paying homage to her, standing at the kitchen counter, fooling around with a bunch of ingredients, trying to make ourselves a decent dinner. I knew his mom would be proud of him, because the truth was, he’d come a long way.

  “You know why else she’d be proud of me? Because I met a woman like you.”

  “My parents would be proud of me, too,” I told him. I stared out the window at a twinkling night sky. It was nothing like the city; calm, inviting, silent with a lot of secrets. There were no windows to wonder about and no people. Just me and the love of my life, staring out into the distance.

  “I love you,” he whispered into my ear before kissing me one more time.

  For my EXCLUSIVE, Dedicated readers, here is a “snippet” of “The Love Grind”.

  Chapter 1 - Miles

  The melodious ascension and dissension of the diatonic scale echoed throughout my SoHo apartment’s vaulted hallways. My fingers spider- walked up and down the guitar neck with neat precision and produced clear, crisp notes with each pluck. I hummed along with the scale to help train my ear, my eyes wandering lazily around the immaculately arranged living room. Its tall rectangular windows overlooked a darkened sky, the last pale pink rays of daylight scanning the elegant buildings across the street.