Chapter Seven #2
“Sir, yes, sir!” I said without realizing. I went so red it hurt. Alec did, too, but laughed so hard he clutched his stomach.
◆◆◆
If my entire job was working networking events, I’d have been a billionaire before twenty-five.
It’s my true natural habitat. A little booze, but not too much, and everyone was willing to talk to people they didn’t know.
No pressure to hit on anyone, which wasn’t a problem for me, but it helped.
I could schmooze and cruise through a whole evening, gathering business cards like Pokémon. I was a master—I always got them all.
I was off my game that night. Or, no, not off my game, I was playing Alec’s. I stuck to him like fucking glue. I couldn’t help it. Not only did he not mind, but he encouraged it.
The event was networking in name only. I got the vibe everyone knew everyone else already.
It was more about getting all the attendees sloshed and mixing.
It happened every night of the conference, and was likely the most significant reason so many people attended.
With good food, free booze, and the chance to hang out with friends you rarely see, I could see why.
Alec introduced me to all the people he thought I should meet. Big names too, from across the buyer and seller divide. Potential future clients and bosses. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated it, but there wasn’t time to network outside of being Alec’s protégé.
Our team got drunk fast. More drunk than I’d seen them, but nowhere near the drunkest company there. That honor belonged to Financial Asset Management Infrastructure, who got so blasted, someone puked on a table.
We were chatting in the couch and chairs lounge section, which was never something I’d seen at a networking event.
It felt more like I was with my college friends at some trendy lounge downtown than at a work event.
The only things missing were the provocative waitresses and thumping club music.
Instead, it was mixed-gender cater servers and mid-volume pop from a decade ago.
“Anyone want anything while I’m up?” Jess, another Jr. Rep. said, standing.
Alec tipped his small plastic glass back and said, “Yeah, please?”
She smiled. “Mm-hmm. You?” she said, looking at me.
“Good for now. But thanks.”
Jess was the only other person talking to us. The rest of the team, while sitting close by, were engrossed in their own conversations. I couldn’t hear them, so I assumed they couldn’t hear us. Not that it mattered, but any form of privacy with Alec gave me a slight thrill.
“See them,” Alec pointed with a chin nod to a younger man and woman chatting near the bar.
“Yeah.”
“They’re gonna fuck later tonight.”
“Oh yeah? How do you know?”
“Been to this conference so many times, I’ve got a sixth sense for it. Tonight is just speed dating to find your conference boo.”
I snorted a laugh. “Seriously?”
“Yup.” He gave me a smug grin. “And those two. And them. And I think… yup, those guys are gonna share her, or each other and her, by the end of the conference if they haven’t already,” he said, pointing to random groups of people.
“What the genuine fuck, Alec?” I said with a hearty laugh.
Everything I knew about him screamed he didn’t like that kind of thing. He screamed it from the past, through his own lips.
“What?” he said, his false innocence revealing how drunk he was. Another side of him I didn’t know existed.
I gave him a look halfway between what the fuck, and you’re fucking with me, right? He said, “They all work for different companies.”
I tried to impersonate his voice. “Anyone you meet will be related to your work, and sleeping with people in the industry gets messy.”
He looked at me for a minute, then laughed. “Never fucking said it wasn’t messy. It’s crazy messy. Doesn’t mean they’re not gonna fuck.”
I laughed, shook my head, and sipped my drink. Jess returned with Alec’s and was called over by one of the other groups. The feeling that I was at a social event meant for early twenty-something's grew stronger.
“It’s always like that here. People pairing off and everyone pretending they aren’t. Or colleagues never mentioning the missing rings from people’s fingers. Just gross. All around.”
“I don’t get you, man. One minute you’re condoning that shit, then the next, you’re bitching about it.”
He looked at me, his face darkening. “I hate cheating. Always have. Always will.”
“Then what gives?”
“Nothing gives, Blackwood.”
“If you say so, man,” I said and took out my phone.
A minute passed. Alec sighed as if I’d worn him down. “I guess part of me misses being unattached at something like this.”
“So, you’re jealous?”
He laughed. “Fuck you. I’m not jealous.”
“Well, you’re not attached now. Go. Be free. Find some hot young thing to stick that monster of yours in,” I said and choked on my saliva. I guess I was more drunk than I thought.
“No. I’m not,” he said, looking into his cup and ignoring the comment about his dick.
It got quiet, and I considered joining one of the other groups, or making the rounds by myself, when he said, “I asked her for more time. That’s what the fight was about. She said I had a year already and needed to be gone. Not gone. Move on. I need to move on. Fucking sucks, man.”
“A year? I thought you said this was a new development?”
“It is. Or was. Or isn’t really new. She asked me to move out a year ago when we officially found out I couldn’t have kids. What’s new is that she’s already dating and wants to host them at our—her—house, so I’m off to a hotel. Fuck, man.”
“Fuck… Wait, didn’t you know she was dating? You downloaded, uh…” My face got hot.
So did his. “She said she wanted to date months and months ago, but wouldn’t ‘till I was gone. I, uh, downloaded that app when she said she was gonna get Tinder.”
“Oh…”
“Yeah…” He swirled his drink around his cup.
“I think some part of me thought we’d salvage it, or something would change.
Her heart, her mind, anything. It didn’t.
I procrastinated on purpose.” He looked at me, and I saw the most real version of Alec yet.
“I don’t want my marriage to end. But at the same time, I don’t want to be married to her anymore, either. ”
“Do you think it might get better when you move out and give her some space? Maybe she just needs to realize what it’s like without you to know how much she wants you. Bio kids or not.”
“I tried, dude. For years. Years and years. No one knows how nasty she got when we found out the problem was mine and couldn’t be fixed. It was fucking awful.” He stared at his drink. The ten-year-old pop song ended, and another began. “It killed whatever love-love I had left for her.”
“Damn. Then you know what? It’s better if you move out and move on. Right?”
“I guess. Yeah… No, you’re right. And it’s not all Viv’s fault.
Not at all. I…” he looked my face up and down before retreating to his cup again.
“I think I resented her for a long time, or forever, because,” his voice dropped to just above audible, “I was always curious about guys, and never had time to explore it. I know that’s not her fault.
Just another reason why I gotta go. But it’s still fucking hard, man. So fucking hard.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. It might not be the best look to console my boss in such a public setting, but I couldn’t help it. I cared for him, and his pain was so clear it seared into me. Anyone would think he got a little too drunk, and I was helping him. Which was true.
He said, “I know it ended years ago—if it wasn’t DOA after the I dos—but I feel like once I move out, not only will my marriage be over, but my grounding. I’ll be afloat with no anchoring.”
I rubbed his back a little. “You don’t need grounding, man. You need to fly. You’re young and hot. Let’s make this the year of Alec!”
He looked at me and laughed. I moved my hand. “Yeah? Coming from you, that sounds like a perfect way to become an alcoholic and a slut.”
I laughed harder than him. “An alcoholic slut sounds better than being tied down. Just have some fun, man.”
Alec glanced at me as his face changed. With a low grumble, he said, “I wouldn’t mind seeing you tied down. Or tying you up myself.”
It took a second to process. In doing so, my cock went from flaccid to half mast. My heart stopped, I leaned back, and my face burned so bright it hurt.
I wasn’t used to getting hit on like that.
I did that to others. A vulgar suggestion I knew they couldn’t resist, in my deepest, most gravely man-voice, with a filthy face to match.
Was that how they felt when I did it? Unmoored, unsettled, and unnerved? A little dizzy with blood rushing in their ears? But so fucking horny I’d blow him on the spot if he asked.
Alec’s face fell at my reaction. He blinked twice and shook the arousal away. “Holy fuck! Sorry! Jesus fucking Christ, that was out of line.”
I swallowed twice before I could speak. “No, uh… No. Tell me more.”
He evaluated me, not unlike when I said something he was about to challenge in a meeting, giving me a chance to explain and show everyone else I wasn’t full of shit. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Only the very corner of his mouth changed. “You know what, I’m kinda beat, and too drunk. Want to head back to the room?”
“Uh… I mean… are we…”
In monotone, “Just say ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ Blackwood.”
“Yes! Yeah. Let’s go. I’m beat, too.”
The curl stretched the length of his lips. “Good.” I swore he was about to say boy.