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Post by Madison Benson on Aug 14, 2015 2:09:53 GMT
She kept reminding herself that it wasn't a date. It was two friends catching up over dinner and drinks. Two old friends. From high school, even. No one even wound up back with their high school flings, and she wasn't going to assume that she was the exception. And yet, as she smoothed out her dress in front of the mirror for the third time, she wondered if she had chosen the right outfit. She wanted to be sexy, she wanted him to forget about the wretched blonde woman who seemed to keep making an appearance in her head every time she thought about him.
Hell, she just wanted him to realize that he had missed out.
She glanced down at her watch and chewed at her lip, not only would the car be here soon, but the moment of truth was upon her. She made her way down to the lobby of her building and silent kept kicking herself for giving him her address in the first place. She could have left it one of those great mysteries, one that made it easy to cut ties when the night went sourly and she once more wanted to forget he had ever been part of her life. But it was too late now.
The town car rolled up in front of her building and she found herself irrationally holding her breath. Like the gentleman she knew he was, he walked to the door to collect her. "Hello, Parker."
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Post by Parker Blye on Aug 14, 2015 2:21:04 GMT
Parker had met successfully with several members of the New York City Council and, all in all, he was having a pretty great day. When he went to go pick up Maddy, however, he became a bit less confident. There were few women who could take his legs out from underneath him and one of them was Madison Warren. On the car ride, he called Nina and gave his assistant express instructions to hold all of his calls unless there was an emergency with his family, she was to intercept every call while he was having dinner.
When Maddy came to the door, he grinned at her. "Madison, you look fantastic" he nodded and held his hand out to her. "Shall we?" he offered before leading her towards the car and pulling the door open for her before jogging around to the other side and sliding in.
"I hope you're hungry. My mate Greg recommended a great steakhouse, so I made reservations there and thought that we should try it out," he explained as the car pulled away from the curb.
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Post by Madison Benson on Aug 14, 2015 2:30:49 GMT
She flushed from his compliment. The way that he had said it had been so off-handed, so matter-of-fact that she didn't know how to respond. She had barely gotten out a soft "Thank you," before he led her out the door and into the car.
Listening to him bring her up to speed on their plans for the evening, she nodded her agreement and smiled at him. "Thank you for inviting me to dinner, by the way. I'm sorry I didn't really get a chance to catch up at the reunion."
She thought back to the few moments they had the opportunity to politely engage in conversation and quickly remember how sour the entire event had turned upon Olivia's assertion into the conversation. Madison had no desire to continue to live in the past, dwelling on either the reunion or the pair's behavior in high school. Instead she was determined to be the bigger person now, to prove that she wasn't as naive as she once was.
"So, how was your day? Convince any other companies to sign up for whatever new amazing software your company is creating?"
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Post by Parker Blye on Aug 14, 2015 2:46:32 GMT
Parker chuckled softly. "Well, I met with a contact of mine at the Met Opera House and then met with a few members of City Council and I'm pretty confident we'll be able to sell our software in the city, so that's good to know. But it was all boring and regulatory, and I'm glad I can have dinner with someone that knows how to hold a conversation, so really, thank you for saying yes."
He grinned when they arrived promptly at the restaurant. "What about you? How was your day?" he asked as he led her from the sidewalk into the restaurant, dimly lit for the dinner crowd and full of people in the entranceway who were hoping to score a last minute table. "Parker Blye, party of two," he said quickly to the hostess and was pleased that they were immediately led back to a private booth away from most of the crowd. Nina always made him the best reservations.
"And listen, don't worry about the reunion. It was not my finest night, to be honest," he added quickly. "I'm just glad you're here."
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Post by Madison Benson on Aug 14, 2015 2:55:13 GMT
She wasn't sure whether she was pleased or worried by the private booth. Running out of things to say to each other was high on her list of concerns for the evening, and with their isolation, she worried if she was going to have to pull conversation topics out of thin air. Smoothing out her dress before taking a seat, she smiled across the table at him.
Asking about what happened that night was probably not the best call. She wasn't sure that she even wanted to know - especially if it involved him continuing to spend time with Olivia after she had left. "I don't think any of us we as prepared for that as we would have liked to be," she hadn't been expecting the onslaught of attacks, at least.
"My day was relatively boring. Just lots of copy editing and a few meetings thrown in for good measure." She shrugged and looked across the table at him. "Look, I really appreciate what you're trying to do, I really do. I just -- I just want you to know that it's not necessary. I mean the apologizing and the playing nice and everything"
She thought that she was being strong by dismissing him, by trying to show her that she had actually grown into a big girl, one who could take care of herself. "But, work aside, I am curious to know what you've been up to since I last saw you."
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Post by Parker Blye on Aug 14, 2015 3:08:42 GMT
Parker looked at her and shook his head, "I assure you, Madison. I know it's not necessary, but I wanted to have dinner with you." He chuckled. "Is that actually hard for you to believe?" he asked. When the waitress came by, he ordered himself a glass of scotch and waited for her to place her drink order.
When she asked about himself, he cleared his throat. "Let's see, I went away to college, met Greg - who was planning to start his own company. The two of us were both business students and our senior year he told me he wanted to bring me in on his big project, so naturally I said yes and proposed to my girlfriend at the time. Six months later, I ended my engagement and moved out to Silicon Valley with Greg. Other than that, I've been flying between there and London a lot up until I moved back here to take over launching us on the East Coast. My father's not doing so well, health-wise, so I use our London roll out as an excuse to go home, take my mum out for a bite and check in on how they're doing."
"What about you? Other than work, that is."
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Post by Madison Benson on Aug 14, 2015 3:19:18 GMT
Ordering a glass of red wine, she waited until the waitress had left to fully turn her attention back to him. Even in synopsis form, his life had seemed to shape in a way that she couldn't even begin to understand. And while she was sorry to hear about his father, she was stuck on something else that he had said. He was engaged? She was having a hard time picturing him in any circumstance that might have led to marriage. It was probably the memory of the games that he had played before that kept her from thinking that he could do anything different now.
"I'm sorry to hear that," she said, wishing that her drink had already arrived. Liquid courage, she reminded herself. "About your father. And your former fiancee."
He asked about her and for a moment she truly had to think. What had she done in the last ten years - work aside - that was worth mentioning. "Well, um, I received my Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan in English and Communications and started working at Harper Collins not long after graduating. I met someone pretty early on and he and I were together until relatively recently." Well, it had been nearly a year since they had finally ended the relationship, but since he still worked for the publishing house, the wounds still felt more fresh than they probably should.
"And that's basically it in a nutshell. I'm actually really boring when it gets boiled down like that," she laughed.
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Post by Parker Blye on Aug 14, 2015 3:37:40 GMT
Parker listened to her catch him up on her life so far. He nodded, frowning a bit when he mentioned an ex. In response to his own he waved it off easily. "Well my father is an incredibly strong man, he'll pull through. And as for Ashleigh, she wasn't looking to be tied down, so I didn't try to force her."
He shook his head at her. "You're far from boring, Maddy. Harper Collins is an incredible company. And you really didn't have to go get this job, did you? You could've probably done whatever you wanted like most of our graduating class and been just fine. But it's good, I'm happy for you that you're doing so well," he admitted. "Ever since I moved back to New York, I've been wondering how you've been, to be quite honest. And I was glad to see you so that I could find out for myself."
He took a sip of his scotch before closing his menu, having decided on what he'd be ordering for dinner and turned his attention fully back to her. "Do you like your job?"
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Post by Madison Benson on Aug 14, 2015 3:50:38 GMT
It made perfect sense that she would have a name, this former fiancee, but Madison was having a hard time making the pieces fit. Parker and Ashleigh? It sounded like an awful boybander name or something. She had to keep herself from putting her own name next to his, refusing to go down that path. It was only going to lead to her irrationally thinking that he was someone that he wasn't.
She did like knowing that he had thought about her, though. Even if it was for the most brief of moments, she was just glad that she hadn't been thinking of him with one-sided curiosity. Twirling her wine in her glass slowly she shrugged. "Sure, it's fine. I mean ..." It wasn't that she disliked her job, it was just that she felt like she still had so much of a ladder to climb, and she was starting to feel as though her time to climb it was quickly becoming more and more pressed. Then again, she had only ever worked for one company and that was certainly something to be proud of, she supposed. Or something far too safe, far to naive.
"We don't have to talk about work, really." Dismissively she waved her hand at the subject as though the act of it would wipe it clean from the conversation. She took a drink from her wine glass and wiped a small splotch of the wine from the stem of the glass before it could stain the white table cloth. She didn't even think about it before she brought her wine stained thumb to her mouth and softly sucked it away.
She turned his attention back to him and truly surveyed him for the first time. There certainly was a reason why she continuously felt herself physically attracted to the man. "You really do look like you're doing well."
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Post by Parker Blye on Aug 14, 2015 14:03:58 GMT
Parker eyed Maddy for a moment, taking a sip of his scotch. He thought about himself and about guys like Brandon Finn and Cooper Benson. They, like many of those they’d grown up with had taken over companies their families had founded generations beforehand or taken their families enormous wealth and invested it in something they could call their own. Or, some of them, were like Olivia, in that they took their enormous wealth and lived off of it comfortably and served as a staple in the society that had raised them.
Then there were women like Madison. Madison had gone off to college and gotten an entry level position and there was something about that he had to respect. He’d dumped money into Greg’s company, and in his heart of hearts he knew that was why his roommate had asked him on board. Because Greg had attended Princeton on scholarship and Parker had attended on his trust fund.
He smiled at her, glancing away upon her compliment. “I do all right, I suppose,” he muttered. “You might not believe this, but I have missed you quite a bit.”
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Post by Madison Benson on Aug 14, 2015 14:20:05 GMT
He missed her? What did that even mean? Did he miss her as the foil to the person that he had been? Or was it the kind of "missing" where a person felt actual longing for the way that things had been before? When a person had played a role in their life that was now vacant. She shook the questions away with another drink from her glass. It wasn't going to do her any favors to keep questioning his motives.
"You are right," she told him teasingly, "I don't believe it."
Chewing at her lip thoughtfully, she sighed softly before speaking again. "I think part of me kind of missed you too. It's strange but I think part of me was always intrigued by this ... different vibe that you brought to the table? I don't know. I think it was very much the nice girl and the bad boy thing in high school." She looked away, flushing. It was ridiculous that she couldn't even have an adult conversation with him without feeling like she was supposed to be running around on the playground with her hair in pigtails. "But," she continued, raising a shoulder in a small shrug. "I guess that stuff all seems kind of silly when you grow up."
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Post by Parker Blye on Aug 14, 2015 14:39:11 GMT
Parker chuckled a bit, leaning in a bit as Madison spoke. "'The Bad Boy,'" he echoed with a small chuckle. "Well, I do suppose that's a fitting role," he admitted. He watched her get a bit flustered and smiled warmly at her. "I'll admit that when we were younger, I probably was interested for similar reasons. But the more I got to know you..." he trailed off for a moment, chuckling and taking a sip of his drink. "My mother was a remarkably cold woman and my father's tone was consistently one of disappointment and condescension. Olivia and I never once answered for any of the things we did wrong, and the less people responded to us the harder we tried."
"You were different. You held yourself and people to a higher standard but without looking down on anyone else. Just because being good and kind and intelligent, from my perspective, seemed to be something that came naturally to you." He shook his head, "That's very rare in this world, I honestly believe that. So, perhaps to you, schoolyard infatuation seems silly and trivial in hindsight. But today I sit on the board of two non-profits, I read in my spare time, and I honestly believe that the work that I'm doing could be good. And I think part of me wanted you to know that, for what are most likely selfish reasons. So I can puff out my chest and be proud of how far I've come rather than concerned about how much further I have to go." He stared at his drinks and then cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, I don't know where all of that came from."
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Post by Madison Benson on Aug 14, 2015 16:19:06 GMT
She flushed vibrantly at his compliments. Here he was, somebody completely different than she had ever expected him to be. She had liked to think that she had brought out the best in him and helped to make him who he was today, but she shook the thought away. In reality it was probably just time that had spawned changed, and the realization that he couldn't successfully run a business with the likes of Liv still hanging around.
And no matter how many nice things he said to her, and no matter how many charities he supported, she couldn't get the picture of him and Olivia together at the reunion.
Madison sighed softly, wondering if she should press her luck about the other woman. Wondering if it mattered in the long-run if he was here with her now. Or maybe he was having dinner with her on other nights - or maybe she was even dessert.
Frowning into her wine glass, she took another tentative sip. If she wasn't careful she was going to start saying things that she regretted soon. "And what about her? I mean, are you and Olivia still..." She realized she didn't even know the right word to use. Years of studying composition and in her entire vocabulary there seemed to be nothing that was well suited to describe the way the blonde woman had sunk her claws in and drawn Parker away from her. "Friendly?"
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Post by Parker Blye on Aug 14, 2015 16:50:32 GMT
Parker had assumed that, at some point, Madison would ask about Olivia. His brow furrowed in concentration as he tried to find the best way to sum up his relationship with her. "Before I came to school in New York, before I knew any of you - I knew Liv," he admitted. "She was...an integral part of my life. She was the person I had before I had anyone else. I will always be fond of her for that reason." He took a deep breath and examined his bread plate as though it were the most interesting feat of the new world. "When I left for college, I think that she was rather cross with me. My father wanted me to return to England and study at Cambridge or Oxford. She wanted me to stay in New York with her."
"She'll never acknowledge it, but I think she faults me for that. We didn't really keep in touch, quite honestly. I think that was deliberate on both of our parts. The first time I saw her since returning to New York is the reunion and she was exactly like I remembered her. No better nor worse. So I stooped back to who I once was, and I'm pretty sure I nearly came to physical blows with Brandon Finn over it - just like old times," he acknowledged, his words clipped. "And I offered her a job, and in the interest of not lying to you - I took her home."
"I'll always want the best for Liv. I'll always be fond of her. But at the end of the day, she always brings out a part of me that I think might actually be who I am, despite my best efforts to try to be...better." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's terrible, but sometimes I think that I use her to make myself feel better about myself. Other times I think it's so I can excuse my own behavior and my worse instincts."
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Post by Madison Benson on Aug 14, 2015 17:15:18 GMT
A small part of her felt a little badly for Liv. She had always assumed that his history with Olivia had been one of the driving forces of his relationship with her. History was comfortable. That was probably part of the reason why she found herself here now. Whether or not knew he how much, he was part of her history. And not necessarily in a good or bad way.
It surprised her that it stung to hear him admit that he had gone home with Olivia the other night. In fact, it had bothered her more than she would have ever admit.
Madison wanted to tell him that it didn't matter, that she understood his need - or compulsion - to fall back into familiar ways with Olivia. But she couldn't muster the words. It did matter. At least in the sense that she didn't want to get pulled back into a place between them. She didn't want to fight with Olivia, and she certainly didn't want to feel as though Parker could swap her out for the other woman whenever he got bored of her.
"I don't think that you're a bad person. I mean, I don't think that you are now," she admitted. "I was angry with you for a very long time when you suddenly were no longer part of my life - and honestly, I don't know that I've ever really admitted that before."
She was glad that he was trying to be better, and from everything he told her, she truly felt that he was. Better, different, maybe even happier. "But," she added. "Don't get too much better - it might take away all of your bad boy intrigue."
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