Ben Hughes, a 22 year-old failure, has never known success. He's heard of it and he's dreamt of it, but it seems to have always slipped through his fingers. Taunted by his mother, and judged by the world, Ben decides to take matters into his own han...
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Ben ended his second meeting that day feeling accomplished. He had secured two new deals and H & H security was going to be selling to another school and an emerging company that sold computers, laptops and tablets. He watched as investors and buyers alike walked out of the meeting room, with a few staying back to talk to him. He joked, he laughed, he was sociable and it was pretty exhausting but Ben did it all. After all, it was his job.
Ben felt happy when everything had been wrapped up, and packed up all of his charts and signed documents and put them back into his briefcase - something that was full to the brim all of the time these days. It was just getting dark outside and everybody except Ben, just under half of his employees and the cleaners had left. Ara had given a lot of people the afternoon off, as there was a local fundraising event happening and some of Ben's employees were volunteering and setting up stalls. Ben had sent them out with T-shirts with the company logo on the front and back as part of some free advertising.
When he thought about free advertising, he froze for a second. He remembered a time when Andrew Davis had talked about free advertising, back in Ben's junk mail days. He had jokingly suggested implementing the same idea at H & H security to Larry, who had completely refused which Ben thought was a bit of a bummer. His previous job could have gone from being useless to useful if he could actually use some of the skills he had acquired there. He remembered his father laughing about Andrew Davis with him, back when they could still talk without Ben's busy work schedule getting in the way.
"Junk mail," Ben laughed. "What was I thinking?"
As if on cue, Ben's phone rang and, as he answered it, he heard a voice he hadn't heard in a long time. When he had been younger, Ben's father had told him that if a person you've just been thinking about turns up or calls you, that person would live a long life. Ben hoped with everything he had that that wasn't true, because he definitely didn't want Andrew Davis hanging around for very long.
"Ben?" Andrew Davis called through the phone. "I know you're there, so you better speak up."
Ben put the phone down.
What was Andrew Davis doing calling Ben up at this time in the evening? It was nearly half past five for heaven's sake! Ben decided to ignore all of Andrew Davis's subsequent calls, even though he got close to twenty in the time that it took for him to return to his own office, collect all of his things and walk out of the building. Ben really didn't know what the other man wanted, and didn't really want to know but the constant vibrating of his phone got quite irritating by the time he reached his car.
"What?" Ben barked into the phone. "Am I the only person in your contacts? Can't you just send someone junk mail for fun? How did you get my number anyway? And why do you keep calling me? Wait.. am I the only person in your contacts? Can't you just send-"
"Shut up!" Andrew Davis screamed through the phone, and Ben was so shocked that he carried on talking. "Stop talking! Stop it right now. Ben! Ben, stop it!"
