Chapter Five
After Damon came onto her at the resort, Jay had avoided coming home as much as possible. College had been great for that but the dorms shut down for the holidays, forcing students to vacate, and so she had been forced to endure several Thanksgivings and Christmases at home, which she spent barricaded in her room with the door locked and a chair wedged under the doorknob just in case.
They pretended to be a normal family at their so-called family dinners. It was as if there were cameras embedded in the walls, zooming in on her mother’s forced happiness, while Damon bragged over her about his latest business conquests, and Nick just sat there in silence watching everyone else with an expression of complete indifference.
He stayed away, too, but unlike her, he had a big group of friends, courtesy of his father. The phone was always ringing off the hook from people who weren’t important enough to have his cell phone number, and Nick was more than happy to let the maid get it.
“Why don’t you answer your own phone calls?”
Jay had said once. “They’re your friends.”
“Them?”
He’d looked at the phone with a scoff. “They’re nothing.”
Which had angered her more than it should have, because she often felt the same way about herself. That nothing she did would ever be good enough by any order of magnitude because nothing was still nothing regardless of what you multiplied it with.
As soon as she felt like she safely could, Jay fled to her room, aware of her stepfather’s leaded gaze boring into her back. You fucked up , his eyes seemed to say. You should have chosen me.
You’re nothing.
When she heard the heavy knock on her door, Jay’s first horrified thought was that it was him.
That he was going to force her to choose him.
“W-who is it?”
she had asked, in a high, wavering voice, and Nick had responded through the door, in a tone of deep disdain: “Me.”
She almost didn’t let him in, either, but it was Nick. She had known him since he was a boy and except for that awful day at the beach, he had never tried to do anything to her that would warrant a fear response like this. He was her brother, for god’s sake. Well, almost.
It’s just Nick.
Jay opened the door and he brushed past her, giving her a whiff of citrus aftershave as he swung into her computer chair backwards like it was his, leaning his ropy forearms over the top so he could prop his chin on them. He was wearing a white undershirt beneath a green-checked button-down and had recently started gelling his hair. Jay thought that he looked like he belonged on TRL, but he pulled it off anyway. Confidence, she supposed, could make anything look good.
“What do you want?”
She leaned against the wall by her door, keeping an ear out for the sounds of their parents’ footsteps. She didn’t want Damon catching her with Nick in her room.
“To get away from that .”
His eyes flicked past her, towards the door. “What else?”
“You have your own room,”
she pointed out. “It’s even larger than mine. You’re always telling me so. Remember?”
His dark eyebrows shot up and the look he gave her made her walk across the room to fetch her old Berkeley hoodie. “What’s with you?”
he asked, sounding distracted.
You tried to kiss me . She zipped the sweatshirt all the way up over her thin white V-neck. Don’t you remember?
“What?”
Jay tried to keep her voice light. “You’re the only one allowed to be in a bad mood?”
“You don’t have bad moods. You’re the perfect one.”
Jay bit her lip. After her slip-up with Angie about the whole stripper thing, she’d learned to bury her real feelings and playact the grateful rags-to-riches princess they all wanted her to be. But hearing that from Nick—hurt. He, of all people, should know her better than anyone.
“At least you only have to deal with them for three more years.”
Jay sat on the edge of her bed at a slight angle, so they were facing. “Then you can leave.”
“Like you did?”
His tone was almost accusing. “You’ve changed.”
“So have you, metal boy. It’s called growing up.”
That brought the ghost of a smile to his mouth. He looks different when he smiles , Jay thought, surprised by her surprise. He looked less like his father, and more like himself.
“Dad called you a bra-burning bitch the other night,”
Nick drawled. “He said he isn’t paying almost ten grand a quarter for a bunch of communist pricks to teach you how to hate men.”
“I don’t hate men,”
Jay said tightly.
“Not yet.”
Nick kicked his feet against the wheels of her desk chair. “If you do burn your bra, just make sure you’re not wearing it when you do. Or better yet, go to one of those cool protests where they don’t wear anything on top at all.”
“Please stop talking about my underwear,” said Jay.
He gave her a sideways glance. “You used to like it here. I remember you almost creamed yourself when you saw your bedroom that first time. Now, it’s like you hate it.”
His eyes narrowed and she squirmed uneasily as his expression shifted so minutely that no one else would have noticed but her. “Did your mom say something to you before you left?”
“What? No.”
“My dad?”
Her heart froze, making the rapid pump of blood feel sharp and painful. She stood up abruptly from the wall, folding her arms over her chest. “It’s nothing like that. I’m just busy. That’s all. Sometimes, it’s just a little overwhelming, dealing with all that pressure.”
“What,”
he began, getting up as well, “do you know about pressure?”
“I work hard,”
she said defiantly, wondering why she felt frightened. “I always have. Coming from nothing, and being forced to prove myself again and again—that’s pressure.”
He stalked towards her in a way that felt deliberately predatory and as she tilted her head up to maintain eye contact, she realized, with a jolt, that he was now taller.
Nick seemed to realize that, too. A shadow passed through his slate-gray eyes as he looked down at her face. “You don’t deal with pressure, blue jay. You run from it. My dad thinks so, too.”
“Your dad’s an asshole,”
Jay said hotly. “You can’t trust anything he says.” Anger flickered through her, hot and unsteady. She swallowed it back. “ Especially about women. I don’t—”
“Jay.”
Nick leaned an arm against the wall, bending close enough to see the flecks in his gray eyes, and their fringe of thick, sooty lashes. Her voice died in her throat as she glanced at his arm. “You’re deflecting.”
“Shut up, Nick.”
“Hollybrook’s little angel,”
he mocked gently. “What are you running from now?”
Still caught in her dreams like a snare, Jay was not sure where she was, or even when she was. All she knew was that she wasn’t in her sunflower-dappled bedroom or Nick’s austere master suite, and for some reason the light was wrong, and the air was cold and stale—
Terror filled her lungs, white-hot as a blade fresh from a forge. You’re alone , that awful voice whispered in her ears, and she grabbed at the mattress. You’re nothing. No one loves you.
“Mom?”
Alone.
“Nick?”
Her memories hit just as the panic attack did, both of them battering her like a rogue wave against a cliff. A sob left her lips and she thrashed so violently that she woke herself up for real.
She was in her apartment, tangled up in the vintage patchwork quilt she had purchased at an estate sale because it had so much personality that she couldn’t bear to leave it there to molder. Fake plants lined the top of her clumsily painted dresser, their plastic and rubber leaves throwing out sinister shadows that stretched over her face like long fingers. Catty corner from that was a photo collage of people she used to hang out with, so faded from the sun that she could barely make out their yellowed faces.
(What are you running from now?)
I don’t know. Jay slid out of bad, bracing herself against the edge of the mattress as the ringing in her ears subsided. Her stomach turned and tilted, and she found herself swaying as she stood upright on that nubby old carpet and forced herself towards the kitchenette. Maybe everything.
She began to brew a pot of coffee to go with her breakfast and then remembered as she looked into her odorous fridge that she had given most of her food away to a neighbor before leaving for LA. There was a box of Kashi in her cupboard, still sealed, and she ate it dry from the box while some only-slightly-stale coffee dripped into the pitcher. It smelled like it came from a gas station, but Jay didn’t need fancy coffee. She’d survived on far worse.
With her non-eating hand, she scrolled through her phone, checking her work emails and what little social media she had. There were no texts from Nicholas, but that wasn’t entirely surprising after she’d refused to play into his weird little sex games.
There was a message from her mother, though. Another one.
Don’t think I’ve forgotten you hanging up on me at the office. Do you really think that you can just abandon your own mother like this whenever it suits you? What gives you the right?
She must have been getting desperate. Her mother had never been this interested in her before. Not even when she was a child. There was an entire column of missed calls, some with messages attached. Jay wouldn’t let herself listen to them, knowing that whatever they said would hurt.
(You’re too clingy, Jay. Nobody is going to want you around if you pester them all the time)
Jay had put out some boxes from her last move in anticipation of the packing but seeing them all surrounding her felt suffocating. The air itself seemed to drain from the room. When she breathed in, she imagined she could smell her mother’s Bath and Body Works body spray and the stale cigarette smoke that came from the strip club.
I need to get out of here.
She picked up her now-cold coffee, which somehow managed to taste even worse than it smelled, and settled into her chair with her phone. The packing could wait, she decided. It wasn’t like she could do much anyway, not while she was like this.
Her hands were shaking so badly that she could barely manage to bring up her contacts list.
Who are you going to call, Jay? You don’t have any friends.
(You care too much. And now you’re alone.)
Then her eye landed on Lily’s name.
Hey , she wrote, before she could second-guess herself. I’m in SF. Want to meet up?
Probably nothing would come of it, but at least she could walk to the corner store or—
Her phone buzzed almost as soon as she had set it down.
Oh my GOD, can this be JAY? JAY VARENS? Because I’m pretty sure Jay is dead. Otherwise she would have TEXTED ME instead of turning into a literal ghost.
That stung. She heard Nicholas’s whisper: Have you texted her recently? Or have you already started freezing her out, the way you always do?
(a slave to your ghost)
Shaking her head, Jay wrote: It’s really me, Lily. I’m so sorry, I’ve just been busy.
Quick—tell me something only SHE would know so I know you’re not a pod person.
You got in trouble with security for writing Mrs. Jungkook on your work badge in sharpie on April Fools’ Day last year.
Pffffft. Anyone could know that.
You’re allergic to cats and bees, and your favorite K-drama is Coffee Prince.
OH HI JAY. SO NICE TO SEE YOU. WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN? 3
Jay scrunched a few locks of hair, wincing at how dry they felt. That’s what she got for neglecting her hair care routine. I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. It’s the new job. I’m still kind of settling in. They’ve been working me hard.
A turn of phrase she regretted almost instantly as the image of Nicholas bending her back over the kitchen counter while going down on her like he had something to prove popped into her head.
(Quid pro quo, little bird)
Oh, RIGHT , Lily wrote, continuing to abuse her screaming caps-key. How’s the new gig with Mr. TDaStSooY? Has he fallen in love with his favorite new secretary yet?
Jay choked.
It’s good , she wrote, after a shaken pause. I’m just using some PTO to tie up some loose ends.
Well, lucky for YOU, I happen to be available. Do you want to meet up in the Mission?
Sure. Let’s get burritos. I’ve been craving them.
YAS. BURRITOS WITH MY JAYRITO. I’m so glad you’re not dead, bestie. 3
Jay set the phone down again, throwing her head back with a loud sigh. Fuck, Lily , she thought, amused and exasperated and drained, all at once. She didn’t need someone to tell her that her life was royally screwed, because she knew it was. It always had been.
Screwed up was basically her normal.
But the cost of that was that she had always needed to hold people at a distance, to stop them before they could ask the difficult questions. Nicholas had never seemed to care what people thought of him but she did. It was like a game of smoke and mirrors: you could never let anyone get too close or they’d see the rips and snarls that marred that illusion of perfection.
She had unthinkingly packed for the warmer So-Cal weather, so she delved into her yet-to-be-packed-up closet and pulled on one of her old sweaters and a pair of tight-fitting jeans. This time, she did take BART—because Nicholas didn’t run her life—and as soon as she got off on Sixteenth and Mission, she was assailed by the all-too-familiar sight of homeless people begging in the station courtyard.
Jay skirted the edge of it, avoiding someone who was shooting up—what a shock that would be to the historical society matrons, Jay thought. They’d probably throw another fucking charity ball for it.
As she walked deeper into Mission, it gained a cozier, almost residential feel. Lots of couples, some of them with children, and hipsters wearing the latest street fashions. Other places, they stayed inside you. But when you left the city, it was like ripping off a scab. It simply grew back over the raw place you’d left, sealing up like a wound.
She found the rather uncreatively named Mission Burritos Lily had texted her. She’d never even heard of the place before, but in her brief tenure in the city, Jay had found that the less creative the name, the more delicious the food. It was always those pop-up places with the cutesy, punny names that ended up giving you the runs.
“Jay!”
Lily jumped up from her seat, causing several people around her to look around, perplexed. She was wearing jeans and a cute little striped top that looked vintage and, knowing her, probably was. She wrapped Jay in a hug, who stiffened and then returned it slowly, putting her arm around the smaller woman and tentatively squeezing back. “You made it!”
“I hope you weren’t waiting long. BART was late, as usual.”
“Not at all.”
Lily grinned. “Nice beach tan.”
“I’m always tan.”
Jay rolled her eyes, following Lily to the ordering counter. “So what’s new with you? Give me the elevator version first.”
“Well, I got promoted. To senior executive assistant!”
“Wow, that’s awesome. Congratulations.”
“I’m pumped,”
Lily said, pausing to take a breath and place her order. “Though obviously I miss your face. Sheridan hired a new assistant and I’m pretty sure he hates me.”
“Who could hate you?”
Jay said. “It would be like hating a puppy.”
“See? That’s why you’re the best. So tell me. How is your job?”
Jay glanced at the menu and ordered the vegan chorizo. “It’s looking pretty permanent. Like I said, I’m just taking some personal days to box up my things. Then I’m going back.”
“To LA?”
“Yeah.”
Jay scratched at her neck. “I actually lived there for a while, so it feels pretty familiar.”
“Extra ancho chiles, please—Jay, that’s so awesome! Is your work hooking you up with a place?”
Emphasis on the hooking , her brain whispered.
“Sort of.”
She managed a watery smile. “It’s a culture shock for sure but so much of it’s changed. Not like here.” She asked for an horchata, propping her hip against the counter as the server grabbed a plastic cup. “I grew up here. In the city. Did I ever tell you that?”
“I think so, but it’s been a while so I don’t really remember.”
Lily cradled her foil-wrapped burrito like it was something precious. “Tell me more about the guy. The hot one who came in. Do you know him? When you went skipping out of there, you looked like you’d seen a ghost.”
“I know him.”
She took her burrito carefully. “He’s my stepbrother.”
“Wait, really? Your brother? I thought he might have been—”
Lily blushed. “Your ex.”
Probably because I’ve fucked him more than I ever did any of my exes.
Jay took a desperate sip of horchata to cool the burning in her throat. “We grew up together. After I left SF with my mom, that is. She married his dad. He’s younger—four years younger,”
she reminded herself.
“Wow, and now he’s your boss? That must be awkward.”
“No, he just owns the company. I work for his CFO, who’s really nice.”
She watched Lily take that in. “Do you like it?”
she asked eventually.
“Yeah, I do, surprisingly. I never thought I’d get involved in the family business.”
“You don’t work for the mob, do you?”
Jay laughed. “No. Nicholas is an investor. Not a killer. I don’t even think he owns a gun.”
Lily tilted her head. “Not to belabor the point or anything, but, what’s going on there? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you mention a brother before. Are you close?”
“Not that close,”
Jay mumbled.
Liar.
(Why are you making that sound, little bird? Is it because it hurts? Or do you like it when Daddy fucks you rough?)
A memory of him biting her neck while he sank into her from behind popped into her head, sharp and visceral. It nearly left her breathless.
(Such a good little slut)
“You’re not close and he flew all the way across the state to offer you a job?”
“It’s complicated.”
Her voice came out sounding a little strangled. “We have . . . history.”
“Ah. I get it. Things are kind of weird between my mom and aunt, too.”
Are they, though? that obnoxious voice in Jay’s head whispered. “They don’t like each other, but my mom would drop everything to fly back to Asia in a heartbeat if anything ever happened to her.”
“Yeah,”
Jay said faintly. “I guess it is a little bit like that.”
(you’ve owned me for years)
There was a lull in the chatter of the restaurant, and Jay could hear some female pop artist playing in the kitchen as the fry cook cleaned. It made her remember a different kitchen, where her fourteen-year-old self had once eaten a hamburger with a pretty young stripper named Honey.
“You know,”
Lily said, a little self-consciously, “I was never sure you wanted to be friends.”
“What?”
Jay covered her mouth, hiding the bite she’d just taken as her mouth fell open.
“You were just so quiet and kind of distant.”
She toyed with her bright purple straw. “I figured we were pretty good work friends, but it didn’t seem like you wanted to be more than that.”
“I’m sorry.”
Jay set down her food. “I’ve never been very good at reaching out.”
“No kidding.”
Lily wiggled her brows to soften the bite of her words. “I didn’t want to lead with this, because I didn’t want to freak you out, but I actually have some cousins who live in the OC. Sometimes we all rent a house in Malibu and spend a few weeks by the beach. So, if you want, you could come and hang. All you’d have to do is pitch in for rent.”
“That would be amazing. I’d love that so much.”
“See? Yes. Now it needs to happen.”
Jay smiled and shook her head. “So what else have you been doing? You got an amazing promotion, and that’s awesome. Do you have anything else going on?”
“Well, I’ve been seeing this guy. I met him at an art show. They were doing a Yayoi Kusuma exhibit at the SFMoMa—you should totally go, Jay, they have an exhibition on ephemeral art —and we got to talking in the infinity room. He was wearing an OK Go hoodie so I knew he was going to be cool. We ended up going for drinks and desserts in the museum café.”
“Wow,”
Jay said, a little longingly. “That’s like something out of a movie.”
“I know .”
Lily grinned. “What about you? Seeing anyone?”
“Um.”
Jay flicked her aluminum wrapper. “Kind of.”
“Jay! What’s he like? Is he hot? Tell me everything.”
“Well—”
Jay stared at the wall, worrying her lip between her teeth. “He’s very attractive—and he knows it,” she added, her face softening unconsciously. “But he’s very contained. You wouldn’t know it at a glance, because he looks like a stereotypical jock, but there’s a lot going on beneath the surface. When you’re close enough to him, you can almost feel his mind working. Like it’s buzzing right against your skin—”
(You’re the sweetest girl I know)
Jay broke off.
Watching her closely, Lily asked, “Is he nice?”
“No—I mean, he tries. Sort of. But he’s bad at it.”
Jay sighed ruefully. “He’s kind of an asshole.”
“Oh.”
Lily frowned. “That’s not good.”
“It sounds worse than it is,”
Jay said. “He’s not cruel to me.” Low bar, Jay. “He really tries to give me what he thinks I want. In some ways, he’s a product of his environment. His father was a wealthy man who used his privilege to hurt people or buy them off, and that left an impression.”
“So, a typical late-stage capitalist.”
Jay breathed out a reluctant laugh. “Something like that. I worry that I’m just an outlet for him, though. An easy source of affection he can come to and then leave. You know how it can be—some people treat their relationships like they’re a glass of wine at the end of the day.”
“Jay, if a man is drinking you down like a bottle of good red at the end of the night, I’d say you’re in a better position than most straight women.”
She tilted her head. “I mean, as long as he’s not hurting you. He’s not hurting you, is he?”
“No,”
Jay said, aghast. “No, of course not.”
Except for that one time.
“Then I don’t see a problem as long as you’re happy.”
Lily shrugged her shoulders. “Let him give you the princess treatment. Nobody said you can’t use someone back for using you.”
Use Nick.
The conversation switched to lighter topics with longer pauses as they ate, but Jay kept thinking about Lily’s words. Even on the ride back, when she was siting with her legs crushed to one side so her feet wouldn’t touch the man who was aggressively splayed out in the seat across from her, she found herself thinking of how good it had felt to abandon her scruples and just take for once as soon as he laid his ungentle hands on her body.
When she closed her eyes, she could forget who he was and what he’d done. She could focus on those slow, deep kisses that made her feel like she was drowning, and the hard and desperate fucks that sometimes left her feeling too limp to even stand. She even liked the gifts, usually, though she was afraid that if she didn’t put her foot down over his rampant spending for those, the sheer amount of them would increase to terrifying extremes.
But was that love? She was pretty sure it wasn’t, just as how she was equally sure Lily’s “girl, you get some”
enthusiasm would wane if she found out that the man drinking her down like a good red was her own stepbrother.
Jay hitched her purse more tightly against her body as she slid her ticket into the reader for the turn gate, watching it get sucked in and spat out.
That was the problem, though. In his single-minded pursuit of her, Nicholas never stopped to think about how other people would look at them when— if —their relationship came out. His privilege had insulated him from the stark realities of his own desires.
She knew exactly how it would be. It was already there in how Meghana and Renata, Nick’s general counsel, looked at her. Or didn’t look at her. It was the disappointed look of finding out that someone was actually a much worse person than you thought they were.
Everyone would look at them like that if she married him. Marriages were a part of the public record—she had looked that up—and all of their colleagues and old friends would think they were out of their minds. Or, like Damon, they’d turn it into something salacious and assume that they’d spent their teen years ensconced in each other’s bedrooms.
Worse, they’d make her out to be some kind of predator. She couldn’t bear that—because it wasn’t true. She didn’t want to see suspicion and rumor tarnish Nick’s reputation and the way he ran his business, either. He’d become a laughingstock and so would she.
And he would hate her for it.
Jay touched the bird ring she wore at her throat and a chill zipped down her spine as she passed a parked Mercedes. She stopped and looked over her shoulder. The street outside of her apartment had the usual amount of foot traffic, and nothing seemed amiss, but the cold spot hadn’t left.
She had the strangest sensation that she was being watched.
*****
“I noticed your calendar was blocked off all morning. Were you in that meeting with the software development company?”
“Yeah.”
Nicholas stabbed his fork into his chicken kebab, silently cursing the obnoxious tech CEO and the sensitivity training session that had preceded it. “He got weaselly about the interest rates and said he ‘wasn’t sure our reputation was compatible with his family-owned business.’”
“Was this about the misconduct allegations? I thought that rumor was put to rest.”
“Apparently not.”
Among other things. “Maybe he heard we lost our VP.”
Arthur shook his head. “How would they hear about that? They’re multinational.”
“I guess he knows how to Google.”
Nicholas grimaced. “I looked him up—he’s on his third wife. So unless she started out as his secretary, their business is about as family-owned as the mob.” He felt his face heat as it belatedly occurred to him that his words could just as easily apply to himself and his own “family business.”
“I’m assuming you turned him down then.”
“I said if he couldn’t afford our rates, perhaps he was right and we weren’t a good fit for him.”
Arthur smiled into his doogh. “I’m sure he loved that.”
“Yeah.”
Nicholas looked around the Afghan diner, taking in the empty seats. It was the same one he had taken Jay to after their first night together, and then again just before he’d proposed. He’d seen the owner’s eyes widen with recognition as he came in before scanning the rest of the room— searching for Jay . He eyed his picked radish salad, feeling as if dozens of tiny bristles were sticking him in his spine. “He’ll be back, though. They always are.”
“They do say hindsight is twenty-twenty.”
Arthur picked up a chicken skewer so heavily dusted with paprika that it looked red. “How’s Jay doing, by the way?”
“Jay?”
“She put in about a week of PTO to go back to San Francisco.”
Arthur paused with the skewer halfway to his mouth. Nicholas saw the man’s eyes flick over his face. “I figured you knew. She mentioned a rent hike. Is everything all right?”
“She’s just settling up her old life before she moves here permanently,”
he said guardedly.
“I’m glad to hear it. Between you and me, she needs the break. She stays later than I do. As late as you, I think.”
Arthur paused again and Nicholas felt himself tense in anticipation.
“Jay works hard.”
“And seamlessly. Doing my own scheduling is turning out to be quite the novelty. It’s been years since I touched some of that software she uses. She makes it look so easy.”
“You can borrow Annica while she’s gone. I’m used to running my own schedule.”
The other man chuckled. “As kind as that is, Annica’s no Jay.”
“I thought you liked her. You hired you, didn’t you?”
“I did, and she does good work, but she’s not particularly . . . personable.”
Arthur coughed into his napkin. “She has a group chat with some of her friends at the company. I’ve seen some of the messages that were flagged by our monitoring software. They weren’t always kind.”
The robot has friends? Interesting.
“By the way,”
Arthur said. “Out of curiosity, did you limit Annica’s lunch hour?”
“Hmm? No. Why?”
“She just seemed a little rushed during her paid lunch with Jay the other day. The two of them came back very early.”
“If she did, that was all her. It makes no difference to me how long she takes as long as she does her job.”
Something else to file away for later, he thought distractedly. “How’s your wife?”
“Leah’s great. Thinks I work too hard. We’re overdue for another vacation, although the problem with a vacation is that then you need another vacation to recover from your vacation.”
He went back for more of his yogurt drink, face pink from the spices. “That offer for dinner is still open, by the way. Bring your sister. Leah would get on with Jay like a house on fire.”
Your sister gave him pause. “Everyone does. In high school, she was everyone’s little darling.”
“Leah was the same way,”
Arthur said, a note of pride in his voice. “Women like that—they just shine.”
“How did you end up with someone like that?”
It came out sounding like an insult but Arthur, gazing inward at the happy memories only he could see, didn’t appear to notice. “I ask myself the same question, to be honest. I like to think it’s because I swept her off her feet. But she says it’s because I make her laugh.”
Is that so .
The owner was manning the cash register as Nicholas walked up to settle the bill. “Where’s your pretty girlfriend?”
he asked, smiling in a way that he probably thought was friendly. “I have been saving my best baklava for her.”
“She’s not here,”
Nicholas said shortly, and the man eyed him in disapproval.
“That’s too bad.”
Fucking unbelievable. He was getting judged by someone who worked in a kitchen?
When he got back to the office, he had a follow-up meeting with HR. They wanted to review his progress and discuss “what he’d learned.”
Remembering what Jay had said, he swallowed back his true feelings and parroted a bunch of nonsense about growing as a person that Meghana and her lackey seemed to eat right up.
With no Jay to drive home, he scheduled a client dinner he’d been putting off with a tech executive. This one, young and edgy—he’d self-described as an iconoclast—wanted to sample the local bar scene, so they went to The Shack, which was basically a dive bar that lived with its very rich parents. It was the sort of place he tended to avoid at all costs.
Nicholas ordered a beer and half-listened while the man talked up his business. He still wasn’t sure what his company did exactly, but their CEO was convinced that they were going to be the next unicorn. The way he was pounding back hard seltzer wasn’t helping his fluency. When he pushed back from the table with a belch and excused himself to the bathroom Nicholas tried not to roll his eyes, turning away from the table to scan the crowd as he took a deep swallow of stout.
“Nick?”
a man’s voice said in his ear. “Hey man, how’s it hanging? Long time, no see.”
Nicholas turned, and found himself staring into the face of his ex-friend. Shock was quickly eclipsed by anger and disdain. He picked up the half-empty bottle again, taking a heavy draught. “Probably because you got me sent to jail.”
Jake’s eyebrows drew together, briefly disconcerted, and then he laughed. It annoyed Nicholas that his laugh sounded exactly the same, horsey and loud. “Yeah, because you fucking punched me, Beaucroft.”
“And you deserved it, Van Hoff . Payback’s a bitch, or so I’m told.”
His attention shifted, flicking between the muffled music and ambient bar chatter. “That seat’s taken.”
Jake’s smile flickered. He’d already started to sink down on the executive’s vacated stool. “What are you doing here? I thought this place was too good for you.”
“My client felt like slumming.”
He set down his bottle. “What are you doing here?”
“Me? I’m a regular. Though now that I’m a kept man, I don’t get out as much.”
“Good for you.”
“Don’t you want to know who?”
Jake asked, his voice sly.
“I really don’t care who you’re fucking.”
Nicholas glanced in the direction of the bathrooms and then away. “I’m not in the mood to catch up, either.”
“That’s right, I hear you’ve become a real family man ever since Jay came back home. Wining and dining charities for little children—that’s real nice. She was always really into that charity shit, wasn’t she? I remember you used to make fun of her for it. Saint Justine, I think is what you used to call her. Though I’ve never seen a saint with tits like that.”
“How’s working for your washed-up uncle going? I heard your dad drop-kicked you to the curb like some deadbeat after losing his last election. Must suck to suck.”
“You haven’t changed at all.”
Jake laughed again, but this time there was a nasty edge to it. “You always did act like you were better than the rest of us, but you and I have more in common than you think. Remember that, the next time you decide to go full psycho for your hot sister.”
“Don’t think I won’t throw you through that fucking window,”
said Nicholas.
Jake flipped him off with a nasty smirk, though not, Nicholas noted with sardonic amusement, before stepping hastily out of reach. “See you around, Nicky. Tell Saint Jay I said hi.”
A growl built in his throat as the other man turned away. But he could see the executive making his way back across the floor, still fumbling with the zipper of his tailored pants. That little fuck , he thought, unsure whether he meant Jake, the executive, or everyone in this whole fucking bar.
“We’re leaving,”
Nicholas said, as soon as the drunken executive was in hearing distance. “Email me your decision Monday or don’t bother.”
By the time he got home from the man’s hotel, he was bristling with irritation. He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it on the back of the sofa in the den, working his tie loose one-handed. He unbuttoned his shirt but left it hanging open as he poured himself a glass of wine and started to reach for another glass before remembering— she isn’t here . His dark mood plummeted and he opened his phone, scrolling until he got to the photo that he’d made her send him last night.
She was sitting in an ugly blue chair ( blue chair for the blue jay , he thought), and the top she was wearing had frayed straps. Her face was bare and she was looking at the camera with an expression he was well familiar with, and he knew she’d sent it to him exactly like this just to prove a point, but he undid his pants anyway, sliding his hand into his open fly with a weary sigh.
You make her laugh —his brow furrowed as his head tipped back— but I make her come.
But was that enough? God, even that little fuck Van Hoff had found someone to warm his dick at night.
Just once, he would have liked for her to loosen up rather than constantly making him work for it. Fuck if he wasn’t imagining Jay with those frayed straps dangling around her arms and her dark nipples peeking through the loose curls of her hair. Touching herself. A hint of frustration in those big hazel eyes. Hot for him and ready to beg for it.
Yes, Daddy? Do you want me?
Nicholas shuddered violently and then swore as the seeping warmth of his own come soaked through the wool of his dress pants to kiss his thighs. “ Fuck .”
He leaped up from the chair so suddenly that he spilled wine on both himself and the carpet. “Fuck! Goddammit.”
He stormed into his bedroom and heard a distant howl—the cat. He’d forgotten to feed her fucking cat. Muttering a litany of curses under his breath, Nicholas rinsed the pants off in the bathroom sink and left them hanging over the edge of the counter to dry as he stormed down the hall to Jay’s room, where the cat was now clawing at the door. When he returned to the living room, now wearing sweatpants and nothing else, and his hands reeking faintly of whatever slaughterhouse floor sweepings went into the cat’s food, his mood was completely shot.
He threw open the window with a crack, letting in a gust of cold night air tinted with jasmine. That, and the faint and familiar tang of chlorine, soothed him somewhat. He sank onto the loveseat and glowered at the pool, thinking of Jay and what he had done to her in it.
It enraged him that she could leave so easily while everything inside him burned with such raging fury. The pain of it was a shallow echo of the mindless wrath he’d experienced shortly after his father’s death when he had swept through the house room by room and destroyed anything the old man had cherished or loved, propelled by the thought that he and his father had driven the only person in his life who had ever mattered away forever.
That hadn’t helped, though, and he knew deep down that he would willingly endure her torture until his world imploded, because when she smiled at him with that shy approval, it felt like nothing in the universe could ever go wrong again.
His father’s ghostly laughter mocked him.
(She’s got you wrapped around her finger, boy)
He picked up his phone and looked at the photo for a beat, before tapping back to messages.
How’s the packing going?
She didn’t respond right away. When she did, he got a picture of some sealed cardboard boxes with her neat handwriting laddering up the sides. U-Haul came earlier. Had to meet the driver down at the end of the street because he got lost. He was nice, though.
Nicholas didn’t want to hear about how nice the U-Haul driver was. He imagined that any man greeted by a sweaty, glowing Jay would probably be very fucking nice indeed.
I hope you weren’t cleaning all day.
No, I had lunch with Lily. How was your day?
Nicholas bit back a bitter laugh.
How was his day? Fucking wonderful. He was going to have to Google “how to get come out of dress pants”
and spend his evening scrubbing wine out of the white carpet so it didn’t stain, and if he got one more “urgent” work email after nine o’ clock, he really thought he might kill someone.
But please, Jay, tell me how nice that U-Haul driver was. Tell me how he tried very politely not to look at your perfect saintly tits.
He wondered, with a dispassionate sense of curiosity, if this was what madness felt like.
I had a lot of meetings and a business lunch with Arthur at that Afghan place I take you to. Then I had business drinks with a client. He invited us to dinner to meet his wife, by the way.
The client? she asked, and he thought brat .
No, Jay. Arthur.
As a couple?
No.
She never let him take her anywhere unless it was completely proper. Six inches apart, no touching. There were middle school dance chaperones were more lenient than Jay. When she’d been wearing that barely-there dress at the gala, he’d positioned his hands on her body so carefully when they danced that she might as well have been made of brittle crystal.
And even then, she’d gotten angry and demanded to leave.
That would be nice. I like him and I’d love to meet his wife. Have you met her?
Once . I don’t think she likes me very much.
Do you think she’ll like me?
He could imagine the worry on her face. She’d always been a people pleaser.
Nobody in their right mind could meet you and not fall in love with you.
As they had chatted, the wine had gradually relaxed him—and so had she. He was enjoying their conversation, imagining her expressions and gestures so clearly that she might as well have been sitting in front of him. But as soon as he’d sent those words—those damning fucking words—his fingertips went cold.
Fuck , he thought again, sitting up so quickly that he nearly upended his wine a second time.
It was too late. She was already typing. Do you mean that?
Yes, Nick. Go ahead , he imagined his father’s voice sneering. Tell her how you really feel.
Something inside him burst. What, precisely, was wrong, he could not say. Only that being here in this room with the smell of wine still emanating from the carpet, taunted by the phantoms of the father he despised and the woman he wasn’t allowed to love, he felt like he might go mad.
And now, knowing the violence that he was capable of and terrified that she might glimpse it and push him away, he couldn’t trust himself to tell her anything.
She’d already ripped his heart out once.
Nicholas picked up his half-full glass of wine and hurled it into the kitchen trash, the shatter resonating with the dark impulses that clawed beneath his skin. If she were here, he’d show her what he meant. He would throw her down and tell her with his body what he couldn’t say with words, making her come until she fucking screamed.
She’d asked him once why he always kissed her on the hand before he tied her up, and though the words had eluded him then, it was because he wanted her to know that he loved her so goddamn desperately. That even when she was on her back taking him like Daddy’s eager little slut, she was still his sweet, perfect blue jay: the woman who made him feel as if he mattered even without the gilded trappings of his life.
He set the phone down on the window seat and shucked off what remained of his clothing, diving into the pool nude. His body sliced through the surface like a white-hot iron cutting through sheets of ice as his limbs made the mirror-like surface roil with violent waves.
Swimming had been more satisfying when he was younger and the thrill of competition had made it feel vicious. Now it was just something to pass the time until he wore himself out.
After four laps, he stopped counting and just gave himself over to the emptiness. And when he went to bed, drenched and exhausted and empty, he left his phone downstairs.