Midnight Sun Challenge Chapter 1.23 "Do What It Takes"

Do What It Takes

Ian had taken Saturday to head into town and run some last minute errands for Christmas.  He had picked up a shiny new firetruck to give to Jin as a present and a beautiful necklace for Maya.  He left Jin with the local child minder, so he wouldn't have him in tow and his arms would be free.  He just had the local grocer to pop into and then he was done.  He headed straight for the back of the store and picked up the essentials he still needed for Christmas dinner.  The rest he would order online and have delivered to the island.  His arms were full with boxes of dressing, a large turkey, a can of cranberry sauce, an apple pie and a can of whipped cream as topping for the pie.  He was just passing the magazine rack when he stopped dead in his tracks.  He picked up the magazine that had caught his attention, which was being featured next to the "mens" magazines and held his breath.  Not wanting to lose his cool in the store, he casually added it to his pile of items and walked up to the store clerk.

"Oh man, this is a great issue!" the clerk said to Ian.  "Just wait till you see the full spread on the inside!"

"Really," Ian said nonchalantly hoping to deter the clerk.

"Oh yeah.  Maya is hot!  Just the thought of that tight round derriere get my juices flowing.  Man if only I could get her alone for just fifteen minutes.  Dream come true I tell ya."

Ian was stunned into silence.  Visions of grabbing the clerk by the back of his head and slamming his face down on the counter suddenly became overwhelming and very tempting.

"Have a nice day," Ian said to the clerk and stormed out to his car.  He placed the items on the front passenger seat and took a deep breath before opening the magazine.  He instantly became fighting angry and threw the magazine down onto the floor of his car.  He slammed his palms on the steering wheel and laid his forehead on his hands.  At that moment Ian was just as pissed at himself as he was at Eddy.  He knew just where the idea for this magazine issue had come from.  Maya wouldn't have thought of this, let alone set it up, and he certainly couldn't see her agreeing to this easily. Pissed at himself because apparently he wasn't as clever as he thought.  Ian had been systematically arranging music gigs for Eddy's band, to keep Eddy away from Maya.  He had arranged for Eddy to be gone for six weeks, which also included over the Christmas holidays.  It wasn't hard to do.  All it took was money and connections and he had both thanks to his very wealthy clients.  Somehow Eddy had found the time to not only get together with Maya, but plan and implement this, this, piece of garbage as well.  So Ian was just going to have to double his efforts to keep them apart.

Ian was just happy that Jin wasn't with him today.  He didn't want his son to see him so distraught and he certainly wouldn't have wanted him to see this magazine.  So he scooped it up off the floor of his car, walked to the nearest trash can and dropped it in.  Then he walked back into the grocer, bought every copy on the rack and the biggest slushy he could buy.  He dropped all the copies into the trash can upside down, pushed them down and dumped his blue raspberry slushy all over the top.  Tossing in the cup, he wiped his hands clean and walked away.  He couldn't stop the issue from being shown around the world, but he could stop it from being seen in this small town.

He set his mind to work on a new plan for breaking up Maya from Eddy.  Now that he was a bit calmer and could think more clearly, he realized that this magazine article actually worked in his favour.  Maya couldn't be happy about this and it was his hope that it would help to drive a wedge between Eddy and Maya.  But in the meantime he was going to do his best to keep Eddy on the other side of the world.  As much as he was tempted to try and get Maya to spend Christmas with him and Jin, he knew it was still too soon.  So he had arranged for her to be in Sunset Valley painting a mural at the local hospital.  It originally had been offered to him, but once he showed Maya's paintings to the board, they readily agreed to make the offer to her.  So Eddy would be in Bridgeport and Maya in Sunset Valley.  A very long airplane ride away. He had one more "goodie" up his sleeve for Maya that he knew she was going to love.  Then he thought it would almost be time for Jin to see his mother. Hopefully this time everything would go according to plan.