Breaking Out Bk. 01 Ch. 13

Greg pulled into his driveway and really did not want to get out of the truck. Amy had hardly stopped talking from the time she got into the truck back at Kalya's underground car park and he dreaded what the evening was going to turn into.

Amy had made it clear that she was looking forward to a night alone with Greg and she didn't seem to notice his reluctance to talk about anything... anything at all... and he had been like that since the phone call from Helen.

Greg had felt a wave of despair wash over him when Helen had ended the call... despair at what life would be like the future.

He knew that he had told Helen that he was comfortable with the arrangements that Helen had proposed and maybe he was comfortable with her being a pornstar or an escort but, when it came to her spending nights with another man that she said she loved... well that was different.

He had set about burying his feelings about that... and he thought that he had succeed. He had even been able to meet the guy, shake his hand, agree to do business with him... but the moment she had mentioned spending the night with Alex without giving him any real warning... those feelings had all come flooding back.

And on top of that, she had got angry with him. He couldn't remember the last time she had been angry with him and yet this time... when he was really trying to avoid any sort of confrontation... she had taken the tone of his voice and turned it into something major.

He had been disappointed that she wasn't coming home that night but that would have amounted to nothing... but then she got angry with him. He knew that she must be under some pressure at Kalya to hit the ground running and to start producing results and maybe the anger was as a result of that but...

Greg had made excuses about feeling ill and had gone to bed early in the hope that Amy would sleep in her own bed that night and that worked although Greg didn't get much sleep. He may not have tossed and turned but his mind was certainly busy running over the same things again and again and never reaching any sort of solution.

In the end he managed to convince himself that he had two alternatives and he didn't like either of them. He either talked to Helen and they reached some comprise that allowed them both something of what they wanted or their years together would slowly crumble and that alternative filled him with dread.

Helen had been part of his life for so long that he couldn't imagine life without her. They had worked together to build a family and a business and had succeeded but how could he achieve anything by himself if it all crumbled?

He knew that he could never have achieved the success that they had achieved if it had been up to him. Helen hadn't driven him so much as giving him a reason to drive himself.

The drive into the Kalya office had been difficult. Once again Amy wanted to talk the whole way while all Greg wanted to do was to travel in silence and he was glad when they separated and she headed for the office she shared with Shanti and Greg headed for his small area on the other side of the building.

"You look like shit." Greg knew that he could always rely on Carrie for an honest opinion.

"You don't look much better yourself. I didn't realise that stripping was so hard."

She laughed, "The public show was a breeze... it was the private show with two other girls and 15 guys that wore me out." He mentally shrugged, there was obviously nothing there for him either.

At 9am Shanti called and told him that Helen wanted him in her office immediately. She sounded very apologetic and he instantly knew that the she had been given the task of summoning Helen's husband... and that was not a good sign.

"Good morning Greg... sit down." Her tone of voice made him feel ill and he could tell that, right from the greeting, she was trying to put him on the back foot... but for what purpose?

"Just so you know, I'll be spending the rest of the week with Alex and, while it's not certain yet, there's a good chance that I'll be flying to Florida with him on Saturday morning."

He sighed and nodded... the chance of any compromise about anything had just disappeared over the horizon, "OK."

"OK? Is that all you can say?"

"What more do you want me to say Helen?"

"Oh... I don't know... maybe some words of encouragement or some faint sign of gratitude for what I am doing for us?"

Greg suddenly realised that he felt like a naughty little boy being scolded by an angry parent.

"Greg, I am doing this for us... I am making sure that our business succeeds... I am working my ass off for us and all you can do is try and dump guilt trips on me because I'm not home holding your hand!"

Greg wanted to ask Helen if the anal sex she obviously had last night had been good but this wasn't the time for wise cracks... you don't farewell over 20 years of your life with wise cracks.

"We had an agreement Greg... we discussed it... you said it was OK... that you would come to terms with it... and now you want to give me guilt trips because..."

Greg couldn't take anymore... there was nothing he could say... nothing that she would listen to... nothing more that he could do and suddenly he didn't want to be near her anymore. There was just no point in even trying.

He stood up and walked out of the office. He walked past Amy and Shanti without even seeing them... but he did hear Helen shouting at him to come back because she hadn't finished with him. He passed Serge without even noticing him... he was in a daze but he knew that he had to get out of there.

He used the fire escape rather than wait for the elevator and he kept walking till he found a cab. Once he was in the cab he turned his phone off to stop the calls that would come.

When the cab dropped him at his house he went into his office and fired up his laptop and logged into his bank accounts.

He went straight to their business account and moved $200k to his personal account... he knew that he could have taken more but he didn't want it... he didn't want to take anything from Helen... he loved her but he couldn't stay.

He then turned his phone on, ignored the three missed calls from Helen and multiple messages from Shanti and Carrie, called a used car dealer that he had dealt with before and in 10 minutes he had bought a slightly used Toyota truck and transferred the purchase price from his account to the dealer's account.

While he waited for the dealer to bring the truck over to his place he found an old backpack from the days when he and Helen would go hiking and threw some clothes into it.

Within 40 minutes he was at a strip mall, buying a new sim card for his phone and once he had that installed he headed east on Route 10. There would be tears later but at that point all he felt was numb.

Epilogue

He had woken up wondering what he would do with his day. The fencing work that he had been doing had dried up at the start of summer and he knew that he wouldn't get anymore calls till late July or early August but that was OK, he made enough during the times he could work to tide him over the times when there was no work.

So what would he do today? There was some reading he wanted to catch up on and he might head down to the general store and pick up a few things... maybe even stop at the saloon and lean on the bar and talk to Georgia for a while.

He had stayed away from women since he had arrived in what passed for a town. A few of the locals had made some effort to find an excuse to talk to him but he had gently let it be known that he wasn't interested... although Georgia was... different.

She wasn't from around here but had drifted into town after a failed relationship... just as he had... and they seemed to be comfortable with each other... probably thanks to the pain they shared. Maybe something might start there but maybe it was too soon to even think about it. He wasn't even sure that he wanted anything with another woman.

He had been to the store, he had talked to a rancher he met there about some fencing to start in late September and two beers later he was sitting out on the veranda in nothing but an old pair of shorts, reading a book, when he heard the sound of a vehicle coming up the track on the other side of the hill. He was too far off the road and too far along a rough track for this to be someone who had taken a wrong turn.

But when the vehicle finally came over the last hill and into sight he didn't recognise it. No one in town owned the latest model Jeep Cherokee and no one would have it set up like a city car... except someone from the city.

He couldn't even see how many people were in it... but something that he couldn't put his finger on was making him feel uneasy. He put his book down and got up out of the chair as the vehicle came closer... California plates... all that told him was that the vehicle was from out of state.

The track faded away about 150 yards from the cabin and the driver slowed for a few moments as he appeared to think about where he should go now the track had gone. He still couldn't make out who was in the vehicle because the sunlight was reflecting off the windscreen and that made it impossible for him to see into the vehicle.

It was on the move again... slowly creeping forward because the ground was still rough... but it stopped about 150 feet from the cabin as Greg went down the steps from the veranda and slowly walked towards the vehicle.

Greg stopped when he heard the ratchet of the handbrake as the driver applied it and the slight change in engine note as the driver shifted the transmission into Park... but he kept the engine running. That wasn't unusual... in this heat you kept your aircon running as long as possible... and way out here you didn't want to flatten your battery so you kept your engine running too.

The passenger door began to open and Greg had to squint to see who was getting out and even when the passenger was on the ground he was having trouble seeing who it was because he was still being blinded by the reflected light from the windscreen.

"Hi there, can I help you guys, you seem to be lost."

"Hello Greg... no, I'm not lost. I'm right where I need to be." and the woman, yes it was a woman, started walking towards him.

He didn't have to see her face to recognize her voice.