LOVELL, phillip nicholas

he was here early, before the allotted time slot that he had been called about three days ago. he had put it into his phone, a device that was usually strapped to his hand when he was in his own company as a reminder that he was not actually alone. but face to face with another, the phone has disappeared from existence but it is still vibrating in his pocket, alerting him of this exact meeting and that it was meant to happen at this exact time. he takes a breath as he strolls across the room, hands out of his pocket, swinging to his side, his head his slightly high but still has a bit of a curve to the neck which grows deeper as he approaches his chair. he pulls it out from the spot, crosses his legs and folds his hands On the table in front of him. nodding to the woman, he gave a small clear of his throat, "please, take your time.", because he hated the idea of her being unprepared as he was probably overprepared in his head for this interview. "oh well, i'm 26, turning 27 on may 26th. i'm currently the CFO of Lovell Enterprises which is a company that my family runs. i've been married...", he had to stop and think of the proper word for his relationship status, "for three years." and cheating on her for almost a full year but he decided that the woman didn't need to know that, in fact, no one ever needed to know that. "got a younger sister.", he added just to fill in the space of silence as he then pressed his lips together, pursing them slightly and chewing on the inside of his cheek. he was finished with explaining himself.


”my family is from poland..”, though you would never tell with his lack of an accent. his sister had more of the hold on their roots while phillip had embraced the american life. maybe a little too much. ”moved here when i was oh—around eight.”, he nodded, confirming that with himself as his mind took the small tumble down memory lane. ”lived in new york city for a while, bit cliché..”, immigrants in new york city was hardly a ground breaking topic. ”moved to los angeles when i was seventeen. graduated high school here.”, and that was as far as the male got until he was twenty three and engaged. the education, even the marriage, it was all for business.


there were many people in his life that he held near and dear to him but he was not about to divulge all of his personal facts to this woman. she had already asked far too personal of questions that had phillip a little abrasive to even be sitting here for much longer. he did not enjoy this meeting and was still in the dark about the purpose. "my entire family is here and a decade of being here would mean that i have good friends too. the company is now based here so all the employees plus the clients around the city...they are important.", buut not giving out any names, "and my wife of course.." and that was as much as he wanted to talk about. he felt a small tug at his heartstrings for not mentioning melissa, the woman that he had met over 10 months ago who he had been unfaithful to his wife for. she was something else though, something different and refreshing but then there was something safe about his wife too.


”pretty standard really.”, if lavish lifestyle was the standard. in Poland, they had next to nothing. phillip was told that megan was born in a shack and nearly froze to death but he doesn’t remember this. he was about six and a lot more important things had happened in his lifetime for him to actually care about the girl who was always breathing down his neck, almost dying. they lived in that shack until word got out of a cargo plane that was leaving for the states. his father did something, maybe a bribe, a promise, an agreement, but they were on that plane, squished between the wooden boxes. they slept on the filling of the boxes, sand paper like material, and travelled across the land to america. apparently, there was nothing left for them in Poland. ”you know how i got here. nyc was nothing special, not that i remember anyhoo. it was kind of just, there. it was a concrete, overcrowded block..”, he commented with a light shrug. the city never slept but the lights did turn off, people did tuck themselves in. they lived in an inn, off very little income for such a hardworking family. new york city was filled with people that phillip did not know or like or even trust. he was weary as a child and that habit has not really faded away either. he was always cautious, he was careful about whose toes he was stepping in. he ended up scoffing up a shoe with a simple graze of his work boots, at ten years old. the shoe belonged to chance buthuer, a man with a company, small but powerful. that company grew into the one that he was currently employed at. it was the same company that was passed to a fifteen year old him when the elderly man died. that scoffed shoe turned out to be the greatest thing in the world for their family as they were given the company. the old man turned into a dear friend, inviting the family to stay in his large pent house apartment and live the life that they had always dreamed of. the man taught both phillip and his father how to work the company. his father was given the power as phillip was not old enough to take it when the old man died, and he did not really want it.

he had learned that he had an artistic hand. he could whisk a paintbrush across the canvas with such grace and create works of art that could be called beautiful. he never painted still life, only what was in his mind at that moment. sometimes he sketched it but it was never really planned out. everything was improvisation in that moment, and his family was never really supportive of that lifestyle. he could never make money being an artist, he could never support another. so instead of going to school for arts, following his own ambition to wherever it was going to take him, the male took business and began to learn how to form a company. not only form one, but run it, improve it, enhance it and manage everyone that was involved with the process. but he slipped. he was not entirely sure where he messed up. maybe it was the late night partying with the dormmates. maybe it was the large consumption of alcohol that made it hard to focus. ivy league was the big shots but the students knew how to study and party hard. somewhere, phillip lost the will to study hard. he just wanted to have fun, even though his entire life had been a breeze. ”my family moved out here when i was seventeen after a lightning strike of luck occurred..”, the only way to really explain how he got the fortune to his family’s name. they never told the story in the same way to the press, and phillip never mentioned his lack of a degree. ”i went off to princeton and came back three years later. my family basically made me start from the bottom..”, a mail delivery boy at twenty, then each six months, he moved up just a little further. he flunked out of school, the first male in the family to do so. the women of the family never really attended the post secondary education path, their futures were set with husbands picked out for them most of the time. megan, she did not approve of that. when phillip flunked out, she seemed to have her eyes opened a little as her brother was put into blue collar work. not wanting to suffer the same fate, megan pushed for her grades with hard work and sliding a few bills into the teachers’ hand. she passed high school with honors, phillp was not there to see her graduate. phillip was too busy at that point. ”i made my way up to the CFO of the company and that is where i have remained for the past three years.”, or so, give or take. he was not entirely sure how much time passed. the days blurred together with the same routine, the same facecs, the same duties. he had been interchangeable for the longest time, moving up, changing responsibilities, gaining some self respect but now, he really was as far as he could go until his father stepped down and even then, phillip was not entirely sure if the company was what he wanted. plus, the lack of a degree would make it hard to gain any authenticity as a proper, educated boss.

”and then i got married..”, he added suddenly as it was an important part of his history. it was a vital piece of who he was. the title husband would always be attached to his name, his last name was hers too. she was a part of his life.”it was a business arrangement by our fathers. merging the companies but then her father passed away, so our companies grew.”, he had been a husband then, at the funeral. he had held her hand, squeezing it when he heard a sniffle from her. she never talked about her father and he never asked. ”she is great.”, but there was always something that phillip had dreamed of. sweeping a girl off her feet with his smile, falling for her slowly, being the one to take the step instead of being pushed to the final decision. he did not love her, not yet. three years later, it was nothing but a business arrangement. they slept on opposite sides of the bed but at the same time, they were there for one another. they had a connection that went deeper than the business arrangement. phillip knew love could grow but when he married her at twenty three, he never thought that he would fall into bed with another. that could very well be the distance between them these days, these last twelve months. ”you’re all caught up..”, giving a chuckle as he started to shed that business persona, making himself slouch in his seat a little, even leaned back into the leather as his muscles finally began to go lax.


he was not close enough to enough people to have an actual opinion about him. he did not really know what people thought of him and could only give the woman a shrug as his mind had to really dig for words to give back to her. he was usually quite quick with his comebacks but there was the occasional loss of words. it was in these moments that phillip realized how alone he was in his life. he was not entirely sure if interesting was the word that someone would list when they were asked to describe him. was he interesting? he was quizzical, that much was for certain. he often asked questions that others wouldn’t, pried into lives that he shouldn’t and it was all just to feed his own curiosity. he sighed as he leaned back in his chair and felt his pocket for his phone, wanting to know that his security blanket was still close. he looked over to the woman, almost forgetting for a moment that he had forgotten to answer her. ”elusive. i’m not always there..”, in more ways than once because his mind was always working, figuring out problems that the company was having and his current marital troubles was always sitting on his mind. stella had recently brought home yet another dog to add to their collection and they were never manly dog, medium sized dogs , they were all small and furry. they were like little rats that he could easily punt over the fence, not that he would. ”secretive.” was another words that people would use as most of his life was only known through the articles that were ran where his name briefly appeared. his life was a mystery to most people as they were not aware of his marriage being a sham and cold, hardened by the resentment that the two had for one another. he sighed as he looked over to the woman who appeared to want more, ”appeasing..”, he continued before sitting up a bit straighter to indicate, with a shift in his position, that he was uncomfortable and the woman thankfully move on to the next question.

"depends what they say.." his experiences had given him lessons. ones that he took and molded himself into who he was from. the mistakes of his past helped to better him the failures made him stronger. but phillip was still forming. he had not gotten the full adult experience yet regardless of having a full time, demanding job and a marriage. nothing was perfect in his life and phillip was far from it himself. he was imperfect but that was okay to him, he is still trying to better himself but just seems to be making things worse. the biggest thing for him is the guilt. it sits on his shoulders from waking up to laying himself back down. sometimes he dreams of doing the dirty deed while his wife sleeps besides him, sometimes its gina beside him and he seems to dream of his wife. conflicted between the two loves of his life each with their own flaws and beauty. it was more than just the affair that he was guilty of. phillip was well aware that he was not the perfect son. he butchered the family name and the good reputation that went with it. he did not graduate, he often butted heads with most members of his family except for his father and only because he had to deal with day in and day out. his wife was maybe the only person in his family that could calm him. and gina, but she was a dirty little secret. despite the guilt, the gut twisting feeling that was constantly with him, he was able to charm. he had a way with words, reading what people want to hear and maybe not necessarily what they need to hear. his charm works in all forms from the ladies, he got the bubbly dancer to come to his bed after all, to the work force, as the company continues to absorb the small companies that are competing against them and losing. he has mercy in that sense. he has a conscious as he knows that it’s better to employ those people under the company’s name than let them lost their job and their pride in the process. some of the businesses aren’t ready to let go of what they build, but phillip can make it easier. he can make the reins drop after two or three meetings. he can make someone’s future seem so much better the actual prospect with just his words. if you could not tell during this meeting, it takes phillip several minutes to adapt back from the business man to the overall guy. he has to really focus on the conversation in order to make the transition smooth or else his sarcasm will come out. just a sign of his confliction. it’s his own personal aggression for the fight occurring in his mind and the only time that he really has a bite to his bark. his bark is the words that he can twist, the ones that he can manipulate to make gina stay just a little longer or to make his wife believe that he is on a business trip when he is only across town with another woman. he really doesn’t talk about himself specifically. he is vague when speaking of his own ambitions or dreams. not many are aware of his small talent for art or the fact that he will pick up a book before he goes to sleep and read more than half of it before his eyes will close. he has habits and quirks that only those close to him will know.

he had been playing with that golden band for the past ten minutes, since he had first began to speak of his wife. it seemed tighter, it felt like his circulation was being limited but it was all in his mind. it was all psychological and he knew it, it was a familiar numbness on the wedding finger that he felt at all times or when his mind wandered to his mistress. ”married, remember? spoke about her a few questions back. three years and still going..”, but not mentioning strong. they were not strong, they were rather weak these days due to his infidelity. but if she was asked, he was attentive and affectionate, he was constantly bringing home flowers and playing the role of the perfect husband—far from what he actually was. the male was a cheater, not able to give a deadline to either relationships. he had never meant to cheat. the marriage was limp when he had met gina. it started off innocent, a dinner, a drink and then it escalated and now, phillip was having a hard time not admitting to his feelings. he loved them both in very different ways. ”so, off the market and all..”, far off the market. he was having enough time juggling two girls, he never wanted to add a third. the thought never crossed his mind of cheating on melissa with another mistress but of course, he had never thought about cheating on his wife until he met melissa.
he nodded, holding out his hand, ”you too. hope this was your last one, it’s a nice day out..”, he commented before the phone in his pocket began to buzz and he pulled it out. his wife, ”speak of the devil..”, he grinned, waiting until he had fully left the room before putting the phone to his ear, ”hey honey.”, adjusting his tie as it felt tighter while strolling down the hallway to the building exit.