Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
“Henry told me you kissed Jeremy,” Rose says, sliding in beside Sergio at the bar where he’s just ordered another whiskey for himself and a sparkling water with a twist of lime for Jeremy from the bartender.
Sergio, not in the mood for Rose ruining his day with a lecture he’s already heard enough that he can recite it to her, ignores her accusation. “Shouldn’t you be chatting up potential sponsors for Allison?”
She presses her finger against Sergio’s cheek and forces him to look at her instead of Jeremy, who’s shuffling his feet and standing with his arms crossed while talking with Chadwick Levinson on the other side of the party. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Fine. So what if I kissed Jeremy? He didn’t push me away. In fact, he kissed me back.”
Rose groans. “This is exactly what I did not want to happen with your arrival this week.”
“What? Two grown men rekindling what they started four years ago?” Sergio asks, annoyed. He lays a tip down on the bar as the bartender delivers his drinks. “Honestly, what goes on between me and Jeremy really isn’t any of your business.”
“Of course, it’s my business,” she says and grabs a glass of champagne. She immediately takes a sip, then eyes Sergio up and down when she brings the flute away from her lips. “He’s my best friend.”
“Some best friend you are.” Sergio scoffs. “Your husband Holden is my best friend, and I never once stood in the way of the two of you getting together like you’re doing to me and Jeremy.”
And this, believe it or not, is absolutely true.
Short of him teasing his best friend about how smitten he was over a certain red-headed figure skater flitting around the Olympic village eight years ago, Sergio let them be.
After seeing Holden’s interest, he stopped his own initial thoughts of pursuing her and was thereafter nothing but helpful.
They were all nineteen-year-old idiots, and Holden, who’d always been so narrow-eyed focused on his skiing career, had somehow managed to forget girls existed until Rose walked past him.
The fact that Holden was suddenly all starry-eyed for someone was a revelation for Sergio.
Especially since Holden had spent their entire friendship up to that point making brotherly fun of Sergio, who jumped from girlfriend to boyfriend to girlfriend to girlfriend's brother like he was flipping pages in a magazine.
“Bullshit,” Rose says.
Sergio shifts himself to stand in front of her point-blank. “You really don’t know me at all, do you?”
Rose laughs bitterly. “I know you too well, Sergio.”
“You obviously don’t, if you can’t see that I genuinely like Jeremy.”
“You only like someone for as long as it takes for you to get your dick in their mouth.”
Tired of arguing and having this same exact fight with her every night on the rare days that he does get to kiss Jeremy, and subsequently caught by Henry, Sergio sighs, then takes a sip of his drink.
“It’s not like that with Jeremy,” he says. “I really care about him.”
“I seriously doubt that. But regardless. Can we please get through this week without you breaking my best friend's heart?”
“Why do you always assume I’ll break his heart?”
“Because history repeats itself.” Rose raises an eyebrow at him. It’s an infuriating move that Sergio now officially takes as a personal challenge to prove her wrong. Not that it matters. Until he finds a way out of this loop, she’ll never realize how wrong she is about him.
Taking a sip of his drink, he turns away from her and focuses back on Jeremy.
Judging from the history of this evening, Jeremy is currently listening to Chadwick boast about himself and repeat the fallacy that four years ago, he was the better skater, and Jeremy was nothing more than a flash in the pan.
Sergio grabs Jeremy’s drink from the bar in his other hand, then takes his attention back to Rose one last time.
“I have no intentions of ever hurting Jeremy again,” he says.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me. I would like to take Jeremy his drink and save him from having to continue talking to that insufferable Chadwick Levinson asshole.
And maybe even seal the deal on a second kiss from Jeremy when the clock strikes twelve. ”
With both drinks in hand, he sets his shoulders back and stands a little taller than he already is and makes his way across the party to Jeremy, arriving right as Holden hops on stage to announce the countdown.
“Alright, everyone,” Holden says into the microphone. “Grab a glass of champagne, the countdown starts in less than a minute.”
“Here you go,” Sergio says, handing Jeremy his drink and inserting himself in the space between Jeremy and Chadwick, effectively blocking Chadwick from being able to talk to Jeremy anymore.
“Thank you,” Jeremy says. He uncrosses his arms, and his shoulders relax.
“Sorry, that took so long. Rose had some words for me.”
Jeremy, smiling and bringing his drink to his lips, says, “I’m sure she did.”
“She thinks I’m bad for you,” he says while Holden starts the countdown from the stage with a “Ten!”
Jeremy leans in close. “She might be right.”
“Nine!”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Eight!”
“No. Not after today.”
“Seven!”
“There is hope for me yet?”
“Six!”
“Oh, there’s definitely hope for you.”
“Five!”
“Hope for me to get another kiss?”
“Four!”
“Come back with me tonight, and I’ll give you more.”
Three!”
“Is that a promise?”
“Two!”
“It’s a guarantee.”
“One! Happy …”
“Uncle Sergio! Wake up!”
“Oof … morning, buddy.”
“Hiss…”
“Dad said to come get you. Breakfast is almost ready.”
Sergio rubs at his eyes and sighs. The memory of Jeremy promising him more than just a kiss lingers in the forefront of his mind.
Jeremy can promise that all he wants, but if Sergio can’t make it past midnight, there will never be a chance for any follow-through.
Frowning, he begins to sit up in bed, situating himself to sit across from Henry.
“You’re a smart kid, right?”
“Dad says I’m the smartest!” Henry says with pride.
“And what about Mom? What does she say?”
“She says I’m the sweetest.”
Sergio nods his head. “They’re both right. Do you know what I think you are?”
Henry tilts his head to the side. “Smartest?”
“For sure,” Sergio says, and ruffles his hair. “But I also think you are the sneakiest.”
Henry frowns. “Mommy says it’s not good to be sneaky.”
“Mommy is only half right,” Sergio says, hoping that today isn’t the day he finds a way to free himself from this loop, as he’s about to manipulate a five-year-old in a way that he doesn’t want to have any lasting effects on his attitude towards his mother.
But Sergio is in desperate need of an ally if he’s going to garner any new and vital intel.
Besides, Henry has been snitching on him for months now.
Sergio may as well squeeze him like a lemon for anything useful.
He leans in close to Henry and gives him a playful, mysterious smile. “Let’s talk secrets,” he says. Henry’s face lights up. “Tell me, what did Jeremy say when he found out I was coming?”
“He said he was excited to see you,” Henry says with certainty.
“And what did your dad say?”
“He said, ‘Henry! Your favorite uncles are coming!’”
“Favorite uncles?” Sergio questions. “I thought I was your favorite.”
“Mommy says it’s not nice to have favorites.”
“Fair enough.” Sergio shrugs; after all, trying to enshrine himself above Adrien in the hierarchy of Henry’s affections isn’t the point of this exercise anyway. “What did your mommy say about me coming?”
“Well, she told Daddy she couldn't wait. But she told Allison to ignore you. And she told Jeremy that if you tried anything on him this week, she was going to kick you in the nuts.”
“Like mother, like son,” he says, and ruffles Henry’s hair again. “Do me a favor, would you, kid?”
“Sure!” Henry says, eyes shining.
“Be my eyes and ears today? It’ll be our little secret,” he says with an exaggerated wink.
“Okay!” Henry agrees, giving his own version of a wink that looks more like a hard blink as he squeezes both eyes closed before he reopens them.
After breakfast, Sergio, Holden, Adrien, and Henry get into Holden’s Range Rover to head to the slopes for the day. Sergio nods his chin at Adrien and says, “Take shotgun.”
“Are you sure?” Adrien asks before opening the door and climbing in, not waiting for an answer.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Sergio climbs in next to Henry in the backseat and waves Holden off as he starts to buckle Henry into his booster. He winks at Henry again, like he did earlier when he put this plan into motion. “I have important business to discuss with Henry.”
Henry hard blinks back at him and echoes his words. “Important business.”
Holden gets into the driver's seat. “Remember, Sergio, there are child labor laws for a reason. You better not be recruiting my son for work. His labor is only allowed to be exploited by me and his mother.”
“A little late to be trying to explain labor laws to him, don’t you think?” Adrien asks. “He’s been working me like a dog for years.”
Sergio, already knowing what’s coming once he and Adrien are alone on the slopes, ignores his jab. We’ll see how you feel after I fire you my damn self.
“Ignore them,” Sergio says to Henry. “Our business has nothing to do with those two.” He raises his voice for emphasis. “This is uncle/nephew business.”
“Should I be worried about this?” Holden asks Adrien as he presses the ignition.
“They both read at a first-grade level. I think you’re safe,” Adrien says and turns on the radio, quickly finding a mellow station instead of the horrible stadium rock station Holden is prone to putting on when he has control.