Page 341 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
The other much-needed pause was the one on the relationship with Adam. I liked him. A lot. But the more I thought about it while I was here, the more I felt like I barely even knew him. I had gotten him to open up a little in the time that I’d been in Park City, but he was still so reserved. And now, it seemed like every time I got him on the phone or on an online chat, he was quick to turn the conversation away from himself and over to work matters. I knew everything that was going on at the resort, but I barely knew anything about what Adam had been up to since I had left.
It made me wonder if maybe he was having second thoughts about things. Maybe he had realized that he was no longer interested in me? I remembered what he had said at the airport about how I deserved better than him, and about how this had just been some seasonal fling. Maybe it wasn’t that he thought I thought it was a seasonal thing. Maybe it was more that he wanted to keep thinking about things that way himself.
I tried not to think about it like that. I knew that Adam had been married before. I wanted to be honored that I was the person that he had chosen to break his celibacy with. I wanted to think that I was special somehow. But on the other hand, maybe I was just an easy rebound. Maybe he had his eye on someone else at the resort and wanted me to be the person he tried things out with before he went for something real with her.
I didn’t want to think those things about Adam. But I just didn’t really know him at all. We had never really talked about our relationship. We hadn’t communicated at all like we should have.
The fact that our communication hadn’t really changed since I had come to Nevada only showed me how bad things had been while I was in Utah. He was one of the employees at the resort; I should have seen him pretty much every day. But I hadn’t. He had been careful not to let our paths cross too much, and he had been careful not to say too much when our paths had crossed.
Could you really miss someone that you had never really been with in the first place?
But the more I thought about him while I was here in Nevada, the more I was sure that I wanted to get to know him better. There was something about him that just drew me in. Something about him that I just couldn’t forget. I wanted to be in a relationship with him. I might need to wait until I was back in Utah to really get him to open up to me again. Maybe he just didn’t like chatting over the phone.
I was willing to wait, I realized.
I pushed those thoughts out of my head for now. It was time to go into this meeting with the board of directors and tell them about all the good work that Ian and I had been doing over the past two weeks. We were definitely starting to see an uptick in business at the casino again, Ian and I had had a long chat about the way that things needed to be run in the future so as not to piss off the board of directors again, and that all meant that my work here was pretty much done.
Time for me to head back to Utah and pick up where I had left off, both with the work and with Adam. I couldn’t wait to get back.
I wanted to answer the call from Adam, but I didn’t want to keep the board of directors waiting. I’d give him a call back in a little while. I doubted it was anything too catastrophic anyway. He probably just wanted to update me about the latest news. They had had a company meeting that morning, I remembered. Maybe something had come up in there.
Anyway, if it had been something catastrophic, Adam would no doubt have left me a message. The fact that he had just hung up led me to believe that he hadn’t been calling about anything too important.
I smiled at the board of directors and received smiles in response, especially from Bill, the head of the board and the guy who had agreed to let me help fix everything that Ian had done wrong. I knew a lot of them wanted me to commit to being here long-term, and not just because of the Ian debacle. Again, I was good at what I did here. But I didn’t want to stay here in this business, and if they weren’t happy with that, at least they all respected that.
I started to reel off the little speech that I had rehearsed about how everything was basically back to normal now. “And Ian and I have walked through a plan for the future so that the casino can continue to be successful,” I concluded. “You shouldn’t have to deal with any of the problems that you’ve been having since he took over before.”
There were grateful looks from the board. “We’re happy to hear that,” Bill said, nodding at me.
“So I guess that means I can go home now,” I said, only partially joking.
Bill looked surprised and then uncomfortable. He glanced around at the rest of the board. “Actually, we were expecting you to stick around for a little longer,” he said, holding up a hand when I started to protest. “I know that you and Ian have talked about a plan for the future, but we’re a little worried that as soon as you’re back in Utah, that plan’ll go out the window again and things will be just as bad as before. Unfortunately, there are a number of our shareholders who don’t exactly trust the fact that Ian is still in power here.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably.
I stared dumbly at him for a moment. “I mean, I understand that,” I finally said slowly. “But this isn’t my business. I have my own things to deal with in Utah.”
“I understand that,” Bill said, nodding at me. “And we’re not asking you to stay here forever. Just for another month.” He paused, glancing around again. “I’m afraid that if you don’t agree to supervise Ian, there are a number of investors who will withdraw their support for the company.”
I sighed, feeling a headache coming on. But really, what could I do? We couldn’t stand to lose any of our investors, especially not given that we had lost a fair bit of money in the changes that Ian had made and then subsequently agreed to undo. And I had agreed to help Ian, after all. If this was what helping him meant, then I supposed I would stick around for another month.
It was just a month, after all. I might own Brooks Mountain for the rest of my life. And plans were already in place for how the mountain’s surplus would be spent in the coming months. Most of those improvements would start to happen once we closed in the spring, and throughout the summer. I would be back there by then, I was positive of that.
So there was nothing to lose by sticking around, and plenty that could be problematic for Ian if I refused to stay here for now.
So I nodded at Bill. “All right,” I said. “I don’t exactly like it, but if that’s what you need, then I’ll stick around. But only for a month.”
“That’s all we’re asking,” Bill said.
We chatted for a little while longer and then people began to disperse. Ben caught me before I could head out the door. “It’s good to hear you’ll be sticking around for a while,” he said in his charming British accent.
I smiled tightly at him. Ben was a new addition to the board of directors; he hadn’t been there when I had worked for the company before. Since I had come back, he hadn’t exactly made it a secret that he was interested in me. And I really wished that I could be interested in him in the same way, but I couldn’t help comparing him to Adam. Ben was definitely more the type of person that I would have thought I would end up with, but I had promised Adam that I would save myself for him.
And besides, Ben just seemed so much more pompous than Adam. I liked how down-to-earth Adam was, how grounded he was. Things with him felt solid. Ben just seemed like more the kind of guy that you might have a fun fling with, and I wasn’t really interested in that.
“Hopefully, I won’t be here for too much longer,” I said to him now.
“But you’re at least here long enough that I could take you to dinner sometime,” Ben said, his eyes twinkling.
“I’ve got someone waiting for me back in Utah,” I said, hoping that would shut things down.
