Friend Me by John Faubion Read Free Book Online Page B

hung like a wall of ice before him. Somewhere on the other side of that frozen wall was the answer. He hoped he’d never have to find out what it was.
    He looked at the clock on his desktop. Seriously? Too late to go out, and the message on the screen indicated he still had seventeen minutes to go. Okay, he’d wait.
    The Gleason Archer account had to turn around. He had to bring it off. Back in those halcyon days when he had first started working at Castle Investments he’d been the shiny new kid on the block. Everyone knew he would go far. Three years later he didn’t seem to be going anywhere. His life was becoming an endless series of tasteless business lunches and late nights in the officeworking alone. No matter how well he had performed in the past, it seemed like he was on trial every day. Always on probation. Never knowing where he stood. How long could he keep this up?
    He’d tried to talk to Rachel about it a few times, but she was all about the children and the house and really didn’t understand what he was doing at work. He chided himself for his own naïveté. Why should he expect her to understand what he did when he was in the office? She didn’t need to understand the details of investments; she had a husband who was supposed to take care of her and his family. He was on the verge of doing a very poor job of that.
    God had given him a good wife. Not only a good wife but a faithful one, and two wonderful children. At the thought of the children, gloom settled on him like a low-hanging cloud. When was the last time he had taken little Scotty out into the yard and played with him? For that matter, when was the last time he had picked up Angela, holding and cuddling her like he used to? He couldn’t remember. He didn’t know the answer, and that troubled him even more.
    I’m not doing a very good job as a husband and I’m not doing a very good job as a dad. And it’s not like I don’t know how. . . . My mother and father set a perfect example in that .
    He was still wearing the headset. He pushed redial on the phone and listened as it rang once again at the house. No answer. He hit the speed dial for the cell phone. Still no answer. Rachel must be busy somewhere, shopping or exercising. And probably wondering why he had left in the morning without even kissing her good-bye. She probably thinks it’s her, but it’s not. It’s me, and there’s no one I can talk to about it .
    Across the room, Carole Turner sat at a table with a lowstack of green folders. Blond hair swept around the shoulders of the black top she wore. Scott started to turn his eyes away, then hesitated when he saw a flash of white skin from slits cut into her sleevetops. No. “As an ox goeth to the slaughter?” That would not be him. He turned back to his desk.
    If only he could go back, start last evening over again. The episode this morning wouldn’t have happened.
    Their honeymoon trip had been an event to envy. What a wonderful time they’d had just the two of them alone together, no one else around, for two amazing weeks. They had never left each other’s side as they drove to Sequoia National Forest in Northern California. The year before, in an uncharacteristic act of foresight, Scott had rented a cabin in that huge primitive forest. They’d spent all their time together, walking the trails under the great redwood canopy in early summer, marveling at the grace of God in creation.
    The cabin had been sparse but not primitive, with running water and two bedrooms. They’d needed only one. As he recalled those times now it seemed they had spent more time in each other’s arms than apart.
    Rachel completed his life. All that had gone before her no longer seemed important.
    Scott pushed the redial button again and listened to the soft burr-burr of the ring. He imagined he could hear the phone ringing in their living room, and pictured