Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Nate
“I’m gonna take a nap,” I tell the elevator at large. “I barely got any sleep last night.”
“Ugh, you fucking asshole,” Tony grumbles, obviously butt-hurt about the fact that he spent the whole night trolling the club and didn’t get laid, when I left early and had the hottest fucking sex ever.
He, like me, doesn’t care that there are three perfect strangers in the elevator with us. The bellman is one of those people, and I bet he’s heard way worse, but the damn flight over was bumpy as hell and I’m feeling every hour of missed sleep, so I really couldn’t care less about cursing in front of strangers.
“You’re gonna miss out,” Seth teases me, the shit-stirrer.
“You really will,” Kit pipes up, his OCD happiness showing through. “I have the whole night planned. First drinks and then dinner?—”
“Send me the dinner place so I can catch up with you guys there,” I interrupt him, right as the elevator opens on our floor. If I hadn’t then he would’ve gone off on a tangent about how perfectly the night is scheduled.
This time we all got rooms on the same floor, which means we troop down the hallway and each slowly disappear into our rooms, with Kit saying stuff about not being late and what time they have to leave and blah, blah, blah.
I for sure appreciate all the work he’s put into this trip—we probably wouldn’t even have come if it weren’t for him—but right now all I want is a nap.
Deciding not to give anything else a thought, I strip down and get into the perfectly made bed.
When I wake up I’m disoriented, and since everything beyond the glass windows is dark from my position in bed, I at least know I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.
I check my phone to find a couple of messages from Kit, one with an address and the other telling me they’re going to go to dinner late. I see I still have an hour before that, so I go to the bathroom to shower off the sleep, then take my laptop out.
It’s early Sunday morning in New York right now, so it’s as good a time as any to check out how my portfolio is doing.
Despite how I like to behave—like a himbo, as Ru put it—I do have a brain in my head, and I enjoy using it from time to time.
I am a trust fund baby, actually my face could be next to that expression in any dictionary, but that doesn’t mean I’m not well aware of what my reality is.
My father, the great Nathaniel Waterford, has built a reputation in his industry for having a Midas touch, and since he’s wanted me to become a younger version of him from the moment I was born, he taught me everything he knows before I was done with high school.
All those lessons were more than useful when I received the trust fund my grandparents set up for me.
But it was Seth’s mom, the actually great—at least in my opinion—Shirley Wall, who gave me the tools to start investing on my own.
I spent years at college and then grad school hearing shit in lectures I already knew thanks to her, so partying as hard and as long as possible was the natural way to spend my time.
My father resents that.
Mostly because I haven’t told him about my business, and probably never will.
It seems wasteful to try to explain to him that I don’t want his life, to get my hopes up that he might understand that I don’t want to spend every day putting on suits and going to an office full of assholes.
That life has not only made him happy, but it’s also provided a life of privilege for me. I hate how whiny and ungrateful I sound in my own head when I complain, but it is what it is.
Even if I show him the results, show him how I’ve tripled my trust fund in six years, I doubt he’d see things my way.
So it’s better to just let him keep on believing I’m a useless bum—which were his exact words when I told him about this trip.
There’s no more disappointment to be had from either of us that way.
It’s not like I’m ever going to gain the respect he has for Chelsea, my older sister, so why keep trying?
She did everything he ever asked of her. She even works with him and is being mentored by both him and Shirley. She has a luxury condo on Park Avenue, the picture-perfect, age-appropriate boyfriend who comes from a good family, and most importantly, she doesn’t party.
It’s not like I do drugs or anything.
Okay, I don’t do drugs anymore. I had a yearning to try everything that crossed my path in my sophomore year at Yale, so sue me.
Of course, I haven’t tried every drug out there, and I won’t, but in any case, it’s also not like I get drunk every night.
Dad believes I do, and he would probably accuse me of lying if I told him I only need to work a couple of hours every other day to make all the money I’ll ever need.
Then he would probably throw in my face the fact that I can only do that thanks to him.
Which is true, of course. Again, I’m well aware of that, and of the immense amount of privilege I have just because of the family I was born into.
But is it wrong that I take advantage of that privilege without hurting anyone?
Before the defiant anger can blaze within me, I focus on the task at hand and get to fucking work.
The hour goes by fast, and I shift a few things around after reading some articles about a new chip manufacturer. It’s a risk, but I’m willing to risk losing the money I put in because I have a good feeling about it.
Dad has always told me to trust my gut once I have all the information available, and that’s the best way to go about it—while still being safe.
It’s not like I invested even ten percent of what I could, so yeah, being safe while taking risks is the way to go. And it gives me a kind of exhilaration that I haven’t found anywhere else.
It’s a terrifying kind of excitement.
It never gets old, but I’m glad Shirley warned me about it a few years ago.
I make sure never to chase that feeling, because that’s when people start making mistakes and losing money.
I appreciate that I can have that feeling maybe once a week and then let it go. I go on with my life and do my very best to enjoy my “out-of-office” time to the fullest.
Speaking of...
I change quickly and I’m out the door only a couple of minutes late to meet the guys for dinner.
When I look up from my phone in the elevator and the gold mirrored doors show me my reflection I get a flashback of that first night when I met Ru. When he called me a himbo and acted all high and mighty.
I remember his soft skin last night, so creamy, and so easy to make it go red.
He’s a beautiful man, no question about it, and regret hits me hard and swift in the chest.
I wish I’d gotten his number.
I wish I could see him again.
Maybe I could? I fly to England... sometimes.
I could .
Maybe he comes to New York for business?
The ding of the elevator and the widening view of the bustling lobby burst my bubble.
I’m probably never going to see him again, so I need to get over it.
It was a great couple of nights fucking—a lot of fun, which is my specialty—and now it’s time to move on to the next guy.
I bet I can find one tonight.
* * *
And I do ... kinda.
Okay, no I don’t.
There are plenty of beautiful men parading in front of us that night at the club, and the next and the next.
But even dancing with a couple of them feels fucking wrong.
I can’t shake the picture of Ru looking down at me as I was sucking him off. I can’t forget the sound of his moans, of his pleading for me to fuck him harder.
It comes to the point where I can’t stop thinking about what he’s doing during the day .
How fucking pathetic is that?
And still, I pretend everything is fine with the guys. I smile and act like I’m having a great time.
They would for sure think I’d been abducted and was now a pod-person if I told them I’m hung up on a stuffy lord I spent two nights with.
And who wants to deal with that kind of emotional talk?
Not me. And I know they don’t want to either.
So I keep the forced smile on my lips and I keep pretending that I’m having the time of my life.
It’s what needs to be done until this mood goes away.