Saving Her Billionaire

Chapter 4

Nate’s hands were shaking on the steering wheel as he drove. He did not know where he was going, he just knew that he had to go somewhere, anywhere. He needed to go somewhere where there would be no memory whatsoever of his father.

This was the main problem he faced right now. Every bar that he could think of would have memories of his father attached to it, and he did not think that he could deal with being in such a place right now. He needed to not think about his father, he needed to be able to think about something else because the moment he got back he was going to have to be able to deal with all of the things that his father had left behind.

He wasn’t ready for this. He wasn’t ready to become the head of the company. He didn’t think he was going to have to become the head of the company so soon. It was true that he was thirty years old and that he had been working in his father’s company for quite some time already. However, becoming the CEO was serious business. It involved doing things that he had absolutely no experience with whatsoever right now.

He needed to get drunk. He drove frantically, trying to find a bar that did not have so many memories of his father attached to it. This was a significant task, because he was used to going to very fancy bars. His father would never drink, of course, but he would meet his friends at these bars, and for a long time Nate had been coming to these bars with his father. He would hang out with all of the big corporate fat cats because his father thought that this would help him become CEO when the time came.

He didn’t know where to go, but he eventually found a bar in a random part of town and decided to go in. It was a fairly nice place. It wasn’t as fancy as the bars he was used to going to, of course, but it was the best that he could get at this point in time. It had alcohol, and that was all that mattered. He would have settled for any roadside watering hole, even if they had cheap alcohol and none of the good stuff that he was used to drinking. He needed to be drunk, he did not care if the ambiance was off or if the alcohol that he was drinking was not good at all. It was alcohol, after all. It would get him inebriated. It would help him forget. That was what Nate wanted right now more than anything else. That was what he needed.

He entered the bar. It was decorated quite well. It was the kind of bar that middle class professionals would come to. The crowd was young but not rich at all. They were fairly comfortable, but they had the air of people that were still coming to terms with the fact that they were adults now. They were the people that would be running the world in the future. Not in a big way, of course. That was for people like Nate. But these were the people that would end up becoming tiny cogs in the machine. These were the people that would contribute to the way the world was run, and in doing so they would be important in their own small way.

It broke Nate’s heart that they would not know just how important they were. He wanted to shout it out to them. He wanted to shout out to them and tell them just how unbelievably important they were going to be to how the world worked. However, getting drunk was the foremost thing on his mind right now, so he decided that he would focus on that for the moment.

He went up to the bar and told the bartender to give him whiskey, straight up. He drank it down in a single gulp and asked for another, which he also downed. The twin shots of whiskey calmed him down somewhat, allowing him to nurse the third drink and sip it slowly.

He was starting to feel a lot calmer now, as if he would be able to handle the responsibilities that his father had left behind for him. However, in getting calmer he opened the floodgates for his emotions and they came pouring in. He felt his grief in a way that he had never felt it before, and it consumed him. He felt like he was about to cry and he did not want anyone in this bar to see him like that so he downed the third drink too.

After this third drink he looked up and felt light headed. The alcohol was really starting to have an effect now. After all, this was his third straight shot of whiskey.

“Give me another,” said Nate, noticing that his voice was starting to slur. “Another single malt whiskey. Make it a double this time.”

“You sure you should be having another?” said the bartender. “You just downed three shots of whiskey in five minutes, I don’t think you should be having anymore right now. You should get home, man. Anything that’s wrong in your life, whatever it is that is making you want to drink like this, it’s not worth it, trust me when I say that. It’s not worth the damage that you are going to end up doing to yourself. You’re going to regret it in the morning.”

“Just pour the damn drink man,” said Nate. He immediately regretted snapping at the man. He was only trying to help after all.

He saw that Nate was grieving and wanted him to feel like it would all get better. It was an incredibly nice thing to do at the end of the day, and Nate really appreciated the fact that he was doing it. Not everybody took the time to be so nice, and if people started snapping at them for doing this they would probably end up stopping their nice behavior because they would start to feel like nobody appreciated it, and in fact people snapped at them for it.

Nate was slowly starting to realize that actions had real consequences, so he decided to undo the damage that he had just potentially caused. He decided to apologize to the bartender who was only trying to make sure that he did not harm his health.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” said Nate. “It wasn’t right of me to do that. But I’m going through something and this is how I’m coping. I will get drunk this night and starting tomorrow morning I am going to start dealing with everything that I am running away from right now.”

“Alright man,” said the bartender. “You don’t have to apologize. I appreciate that you’re saying sorry. Most people don’t seem to realize that us bartenders have feelings too. But you don’t need to apologize. Don’t worry about it. Here is your drink, if you need anything else just let me know.”