2. Elijah
ELIJAH
“You’re going to be at the awards ceremony tonight, aren’t you?”
Elijah Norcross held the phone away from his face for a moment so that his father wouldn’t hear his sigh of exasperation. “I told you I was going to be there,” he said. “Do you think I don’t know how important it is to you? You’ve been talking about it for weeks, Dad.”
“Yes, but I never know if you’re listening to me,” Oliver Norcross said. “And, in fact, you usually aren’t. Usually you’re just trying to come up with ways to cause trouble.”
Elijah was nettled. “Just because trouble finds me every now and then, that doesn’t mean I’m out looking for it.”
“Well, you certainly aren’t avoiding it,” his father said sharply. “After what happened at the last company party I let you attend, can you blame me for having my doubts about you?”
“It wasn’t even that bad,” Elijah said crossly.
He opened the fridge and regarded its contents.
It was nearly bare. There was a half-empty bottle of vodka, a few apples, and half a brick of cheddar cheese that might or might not have been past its prime.
He’d have to look into that later. For now, he pulled out one of the apples and took a paring knife out of the kitchen sink.
He gave the knife a quick scrub and began to cut the apple, musing that he would probably need to hire someone to do his shopping.
Maybe even his food prep. This was no way to live.
“The company party was fun,” he said now, thinking back.
The truth was that his memories of it were murky.
He recalled spinning around on the dance floor, so fast that he’d thought he might fall over.
He remembered Mackenzie Knight, the fashion influencer who had been his date to a few things lately, walking around with a plate full of shrimp, giggling about being the queen of shrimp cocktail.
That had seemed funnier at the time. Right now he couldn’t recall exactly what the joke had been.
His father’s voice turned stern. “Fun isn’t the word,” he said. “You were loud and obnoxious. Maybe you had a good time, but nobody else did, and that’s your fault. I don’t want you bringing a date to this one.”
“Don’t worry,” Elijah said. “Mackenzie and I aren’t hanging out anymore.
” It had never been serious between the two of them.
She was pretty, with blond hair and green eyes and an amazing figure, and he felt cool squiring her around town and showing up on her social media.
But it wasn’t as if she was someone he had strong feelings about.
She could be demanding, and that wasn’t worth it at all.
“I’m not just talking about that girl,” his father said. “I mean any girl. You come alone to this event. I’m going to be receiving a Lifetime Achievement in Business award, you know…”
“Of course I know.” His father had spoken of little else since being notified that he was going to get the award.
Elijah was proud of him, but at the same time, he was tired of hearing about it, and tired of knowing that his father was disappointed that Elijah himself didn’t have any similar accomplishments and never would.
“Well, I don’t want you making a ruckus tonight and ending up in the news again,” his father said. “So no girls and no drinking. You come, you sit at our table, you smile for the cameras and clap when I accept my award, and then you go straight home when it’s over.”
“No fun, in other words,” Elijah grumbled.
“That’s right. Tonight isn’t about you having fun. Not everything is, you know. Just try to behave yourself for one night. Even you can manage that.”
Elijah knew he could, even though it meant that an already boring party was going to be dull to the point that he would risk falling asleep at his overpriced table.
“I’ll go along with it,” he said to his father.
“I know how much this night means to you. I’ll come alone, and I won’t even drink—even though I think it’s going a little too far for you to ask me for that.
I don’t lose my mind every time I drink, you know. ”
“I do know,” his father agreed. “I’ve seen plenty of times where you drink responsibly.
You have one beer and loosen up and have a good time.
My problem with you drinking isn’t that you can’t be trusted with alcohol, Elijah.
It’s that you can’t be trusted period. I can’t know if you’ll decide out of nowhere that tonight is the night you want to have ten drinks and start breakdancing in the middle of the room. ”
“I’ve never done anything like that.” Elijah was annoyed.
“Or you decide that you want to make a speech,” his father went on. “You’ve done that before.”
Elijah felt his face grow hot at the memory.
That was one thing he had actually been ashamed of.
He had awoken the morning after that event—it had been the Christmas party at his father’s company—recalling the stories he’d told the night before when he had gotten a microphone into his hands and feeling like an utter fool for it.
“You don’t need to worry about any of this,” he reiterated to his father. “No drinking. No girls. No partying. Not tonight. You have my word. Is that good enough?”
“That’s good enough,” his father said. “A car will be there for you at six.”
“You don’t need to send a car, Dad. I was going to drive myself, and what’s the harm in it if I’m not drinking?”
“We have these resources, Elijah. You shouldn’t be ashamed to use them. A car is something we can afford, so just let me send one for you.”
“All right.” Elijah didn’t really mind taking a car. By the end of a long, boring evening like this one, he was sure to be worn out. Having the ability to sit back and relax while he was driven home would be a good thing for him.
“All right,” his father said. “I’ll see you in a few hours. Make sure you dress appropriately.”
“Now you’re going too far. I’ve never showed up to an event not dressed suitably for it.
” Elijah took clothing fairly seriously, because he knew it was the best first impression a person could use to judge you.
He wasn’t as serious about it as Mackenzie Knight had been—he wasn’t sure you could make a whole career out of fashion without eventually starting to repeat yourself.
But he would never have underdressed for an event.
Tonight’s clothes were already picked out, in fact, and the moment he was off the phone with his father, he went into his bedroom to get dressed.
It felt good to pull on his perfectly tailored suit—it was the antidote to that discussion with his father, in which he had felt as if all his flaws were under a microscope.
He might not be the son his father had always wanted, he reflected, but he looked damn good in a suit, and he knew it.
Elijah turned back and forth in front of his full-length mirror, trying to prepare for what his father would have to say about his appearance.
He’d like the suit, of course, but he would have a problem with Elijah’s hair.
It was dark blond, and Elijah kept it a little longer than his chin and didn’t get it cut regularly.
His father hated that. You look like a surfer, he would complain.
Elijah had no problem at all with looking like a surfer.
It was a cool look. But a guy did start to get tired of seeing his father’s face fall slightly every time he looked Elijah’s way.
He clearly had hope that one of these days he would come face to face with a brand-new haircut when he saw his son.
If Elijah had had any realistic belief that cutting his hair would make his father proud of him at last, he would have done it in a heartbeat. But Oliver Norcross had never been proud of his son. It seemed unlikely that anything was ever going to change that fact.
With a sigh, Elijah picked up his tie. The tie was his one tiny rebellion tonight, the one thing he was deliberately doing to go against what his father would want from him.
It was going to make everything else bearable.
From a distance, no one would notice anything but a plain navy-blue necktie, but when you got up close, you would see a pattern of smiley faces on the tie in a barely-there lighter shade of blue.
It was unlikely that anyone would ever see it who wasn’t looking for it.
But Elijah knew that it was there, and whenever this party frustrated him too badly, he would be able to look down at it and remind himself that he hadn’t just obeyed orders.
He was still Elijah. He still had that hint of defiance in him.
He tied the tie around his neck and looked in the mirror again, taking in the finished product. He did look good. Well put-together. His father wouldn’t be able to find anything to complain about.
And Elijah would do what he’d been asked to do. He would attend the function. He’d clap for his father’s award. And then he would go home.
His phone buzzed with an incoming text. He looked down. As anticipated, the message was from his father.
Your car is pulling up.
He would be early if he left right now, of course, and if it had been up to him, he wouldn’t have done it. But if that was what his father wanted from him, Elijah would go along.
It’s Dad’s big night. I do want it to go well, even though I’m tired of the constant disapproval. I want him to enjoy receiving his award, and I want to support him—in whatever way he needs me to do that.
So for this one night, he wasn’t going to push back. He’d do what his father was asking, and he wouldn’t even complain—or rather, he wouldn’t complain any more than he already had. He probably should have buttoned it up a little bit on that phone call.
All that being said, though… maybe there would be a way to enjoy himself tonight.
He couldn’t yet think what it might be, but if there was one thing Elijah Norcross was good at, it was finding the fun.
He’d always had that skill, from the time he had been very young.
He had known how to go into situations that seemed, on their surface, as if they were going to be boring, and figure out some way to turn them into a good time.
He had faith in his ability to do that tonight as well.
He didn’t know what it was going to look like yet—but he would figure it out.
With a last look in the mirror and a quick straightening of his hair with his hands, he turned and hurried out the front door to the waiting car.
He slid into the backseat. The driver didn’t speak to him, of course—drivers rarely did. The car simply began to move. Elijah leaned against the window and looked out at the passing city.
It was a warm night. San Valentino was lit up, just starting to come to life.
Nightclubs would be getting ready to open.
People would be at the beach with coolers of beer and surfboards.
Men like him would be out on dates with beautiful women, already fantasizing about what the end of their evening would bring.
And Elijah was stuck attending an awards dinner.
Yes, he could make his own fun wherever he went.
And he was sure he would. But, not for the first time, he found himself fantasizing about a different life.
One in which he wouldn’t ever have to struggle to find a good time.
One in which good times would always be abundant, because he would have the freedom to do whatever he wanted to do.