25. Mimosa
CHAPTER 25
Mimosa
I’m surprised my elevator key card still works.
I’m more surprised that it’s Chase who greets me at the elevator.
“Is Drake here?” I ask, peering past him.
“Yep.” Chase gives me a once over. “He was convinced you’d ditched him.”
I roll my eyes and clutch my bag tighter. “He’s convinced of a lot of stupid things.”
From further into the condo, I hear somebody snort. It’s Drake’s other friend, Hunter, who doesn’t look happy to be there.
Chase shakes his head and motions for me to walk past him. “He’s in the shower. I think he didn’t want you to see him as he was.”
“Hungover and filthy,” Hunter clarifies, like I couldn’t have figured that part out.
“Why are you two here?” I ask, sitting down in the lone armchair—and carefully keeping my legs pressed together. I haven’t forgotten the weird exam Hunter gave me.
“Just a little crisis at his work.” Chase rubs his brow and goes to join Hunter. “We’re going to prevent him from losing his business… Which you couldn’t know about, so why are you back?”
Why indeed. As soon as Irene was off to work, I’d done some research, and somehow, I’d ended up back here.
Not som ehow. Very purposefully, because the thought of Drake trying to manage his own life and failing miserably didn’t fill me with any sense of schadenfreude.
It just made me miss him.
Yeah, that’s probably not a “small” dose of Stockholm Syndrome I’ve got.
“I’m just not a quitter, I guess,” I answer. “And I don’t want to see Drake’s life implode on him.”
I hear footsteps coming from his bedroom, and he appears in a pair of sweatpants. He’s still toweling off his hair, and his chest is wet. He’s out of breath, too, like he couldn’t get through the shower fast enough.
Like he couldn’t get to me fast enough.
I don’t know what to make of that.
“Mimi,” he says, coming straight to me. He drops the towel on the floor, which makes Hunter purse his lips in disapproval, but Drake only has eyes for me.
To my utter shock, he gets to his knees in front of me.
“Uh. Hi,” I say, awkwardly. “I hear things aren’t going so well. Only took a day of me being gone, huh.”
“Less than a day, actually,” he mumbles. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I kicked you out, I’m sorry for what I did to you, I’m just sorry.”
Unlike that day at the yacht, he actually sounds like he means it.
My chest warms, and I struggle to keep my face neutral.
“Okay.” I answer, reaching out to stroke his cheek. “Do you want to fix things?”
Drake lets out a shaky breath. “I don’t—” His voice catches. “I don’t know how.”
Chase and Hunter are still sitting behind him. Hunter has his eyes closed like he wishes he weren’t here, but Chase is watching us with keen interest.
“It’s not going to be easy,” I say. “I don’t mean whatever’s going on at work. I mean your life. Because you must know you’ve been self-medicating and avoiding doing anything to address the actual problems, right?”
He stares at me, his mouth slightly open like he can’t believe I actually called him out on it.
Really, it ’s a wonder I haven’t done it sooner.
Groaning, he shuts his mouth and closes his eyes for a moment. His voice is despondent bordering on desperate as he asks, “And if I do that, you’ll stay?”
I purse my lips, fighting the irritation inside me. “If I don’t stay, you won’t do it?”
Hunter suddenly gets up and goes out to the patio, although Chase stays behind, still eagerly listening.
Drake scowls at me. “What reason do I have if you don’t stay?” he retorts, getting up. “Only Chase and Hunter give a damn what happens to me. Everyone else in New Bristol would love to see me fall on my ass.”
“So you’ll give those assholes what they want.” I stand up too, glaring at him. “You’re so eager to give up on yourself that you’ll give all those people the satisfaction of seeing you fail?”
He glares right back. “It’s too fucking late. The board meeting is tonight.” He clues in on the fact that I have no idea what I’m talking about a second later and adds, “They’re kicking me off the board. No more CEO position for Drake Brutal. No more anything.”
Chase coughs loudly. “It’s not actually too late, which is what Hunter and I have been trying to say. Until the board has actually voted, nothing is set in stone—and even then, we would have legal recourse…” He trails off when we both stare at him. “Or I could just go join Hunter on the patio.” He gets up to do that, finally giving me and Drake some privacy.
Drake watches him go, then turns back to me. “I found out my secretary has been working against me with some of the higher-ups in the company last night,” he says slowly, looking like a wounded puppy instead of the outraged madman he had the night before. “She tried to make it so I missed the board meeting. She even rescheduled it to a later date just for Hunter and Chase so they wouldn’t be there either.”
“That sucks,” I say honestly, and I’m reminded of something. “Maybe those are the same people I overheard at the party. There was something about an announcement?”
He looks blank. “What announcement?” He shakes his head, gritting his teeth. “Fuck. I need to go through some emails that she apparently deleted,” he says darkly. “ Fucking snake.” His brows furrow, then he says, “Wait. What did you overhear? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Not much,” I admit. “And I didn’t say anything because you bought me, tortured me, and tried to break me.”
Drake sighs, but he nods in reluctant understanding. “Okay. I’m sorry. I really am, Mimi. But now…” He shakes his head, reaching out to take my hand and pull me close to him. “Now it feels like it’s too late, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Your friends seem to think things aren’t set in stone.” I gesture to Chase and Hunter, who are visible through the floor to ceiling windows. “They can help with a lot of the board things. You and I can…” I take a breath. “I’ll stay, Drake. I have some ideas of what you might need. But I think you’ll have to see a proper psychiatrist so you can get proper, prescribed medication. Not whatever Patrick was selling you.”
He opens his mouth, probably to argue, but he doesn’t speak for a moment. “Okay, but it has to be like… virtual, okay? I can’t be seen going to a psych office. And meds…” He cringes. “What if it gets out? I don’t really need meds.”
I lift my brows at him.
He visibly deflates. “Okay,” he mutters. “Fine. But I’m not seeing a therapist. I’ve done too much illegal shit for that.”
Baby steps, I guess. I nod and take a step closer to him. “Do you want me to sit in on your brainstorming session with the boys? Or are those trade secrets?”
“I want you there,” he says, sounding steady for the first time since I arrived. “Please.”
“All right.” I struggle to think of something else to say, but Drake wraps his arms around me and pulls me into a tight embrace.
I close my eyes and hug him back. He’s larger than me, and physically so much stronger, but right now it feels like I’m the one holding him up.
For a moment, he lets us stay like that, then he hauls me up a little and kisses me. “Okay.” He shakes himself off physically, loosening his shoulders. “The board isn’t going to buy that Caroline was fucking with my schedule. We need—” he begins, only to cut himself off when he realizes Chase and Hunter aren’t there.
He gestures at them through the glass, and they come back in.
Drake takes my hand, tugging on it as he leads me to the couch.
He doesn’t let go of my hand for the entirety of our little brainstorming session.
Hunter and Chase have left, but Drake still has his hands on me. It’s not like he wants to do anything in particular, but more because he’s worried that I might disappear.
“We could get a nap in,” I suggest. “You look like you haven’t slept.”
Drake looks apprehensive, his gaze flicking from me to the door, then back. “You’ll be here when I wake up?”
“I came back,” I point out. “If I didn’t want to be here, I could just have stayed away.”
He slowly exhales, then nods. “All right. Are you hungry or anything? Hunter said you bought groceries—” He cuts himself off, and he has the grace to wince. He runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what you need, Mimi.”
“I bought groceries for my sister.” I look down at our hands, still twined together. “Although if we want to grab food, I might need my hand back.”
“Your sister,” he repeats. He doesn’t quite meet my eyes. “So she’s out? That’s good. Is she doing well?”
“Yeah.” I squeeze his hand. “Thank you for buying her out of there.” I let out a small laugh. “You didn’t even tell me. I was pretty impressed, Drake.”
He runs his hand through his hair again, tousling it even more. “I had the money,” he says, sounding awkward. “And I know she’s your sister and all, but that you had problems, so I wasn’t sure how you’d feel.” He lets out a bitter little laugh. “I wasn’t entirely unselfish. I expected you to leave me to go to her anyway if I told you.”
“I wouldn’t have known how to feel about it.” I sigh loudly. “It’s a mess. Both of us. I’m not in the best place mentally either. I wanted to lash out at her, to blame her for everythi ng, but… when she opened her door for me… The relief I felt. She was still there.”
Drake nods, and I’m still a little impressed he doesn’t brag about the money he apparently left for her, too. It hadn’t been enough to where she can live without a job, but even so. Keeping her apartment was a good start.
Baby steps.
“I think I told you my parents are dead,” he says. I remember. He’d been really fucking drunk — not that that had been anything new — but he hadn’t told me anything beyond that. “I don’t have any other family.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
He shrugs. “It was a relief,” he said bluntly.
I stay silent, not too surprised by the confession.
He amends, “Not a relief. The way they died wasn’t a relief. But I hated them, and they hated me, and I got to cut ties with everyone. I was like… twenty when it happened. Still in school, busting my ass in a dead-end job just to try to keep myself afloat. Then the fire happened.”
I wonder if I should be feeling something. But his story is reminding me of my own, and I push down all the emotions so I can stay calm. “They weren’t good people?”
Drake shakes his head. “No. Standard story, I guess. They were abusive pieces of shit, both of them. If one wasn’t yelling, the other was slamming their fist into the wall or something.” His smile is brittle. “Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?”
“Behaviors can have explanations, but they aren’t excuses,” I say, parroting one of my textbooks. Drake winces and tries to pull his hand away, but I hold tight. “Did it make you happy? To act like that?”
He stares at me, and I have no idea what’s going on behind his eyes. Then he shrugs. “I don’t know,” he mumbles. “Not really. It didn’t accomplish anything.” He holds up his hand, and I can see where he must have punched the wall himself.
“Yeah.” I run my fingers over his knuckles. “Do you want me to tell you what I think is going on with you? Or do you want to just go lie down?”
His eyes darken, but he looks away. “I wanted you to tell me… that night. I want to know, all right? I don’t fucking like this. At least if there was a reason, or a name, and maybe medication would help, I don’t fucking know—” It’s not really like him to ramble like that, and he cuts himself off.
“I’m not an expert,” I say quickly. “Just a student. I can’t diagnose you properly. But you have a lot of behaviors that are classic ADHD and BPD in men.” I hunch my shoulders.
His expression is blank. “I don’t know what BPD is.”
“Borderline Personality Disorder,” I explain. “It can get confused pretty easily with Bipolar Disorder, which is why I don’t want to tell you it’s a firm diagnosis — that’s a psychiatrist’s job. One’s a personality disorder; one’s a mood disorder. They…”
His eyes are starting to glaze over as I explain.
I shake my head. “Anger, aggression, substance abuse, poor impulse control,” I list off.
Drake grimaces, but he doesn’t argue with me. “Okay. So what do you do about it?”
I pin him with a hard look. “Therapy.” He opens his mouth to argue, but I go on, “There are medications that can help with the ADHD. Not so much with personality disorders.”
He falls silent, and I watch him, my expression softening as he goes through the expected reactions of being hit with a reason — not an excuse, which he’ll have to fucking learn — for his more problematic behaviors.
“It’s probably good you didn’t tell me that on the yacht,” he says reluctantly after a few minutes have passed.
I nod and gently stroke his palm. “If it makes you feel better, I bet your friends have mental health issues too. Especially Hunter.”
Drake snorts. “Do they still consider ‘psychopath’ a mental disorder?”
I stifle a smile. “No, but for Hunter I’m sure they’d make an exception.”
Chuckling, he stands up, clutching my hand tight. “C’mon. Let’s go try for that nap. I feel like I ran a fucking marathon.”
I follow, and we walk to the bedroom.
My eyes ar e drawn to the dog crate in the corner, and I tense. “Drake…”
Drake follows my gaze and grimaces. “I’ll get rid of it. Right now, even.” He slowly lets go of my hand, hanging on to me as long as he can before going to the crate.
I watch him as he starts to fumble with it.
“Do you like me for who I am?” I ask. My voice is uneven, and I hate myself for the uncertainty I feel. “If you never got to fuck me ever again, would you still want me here?”
He startles, looking up at me. He’s silent for too long, long enough to where I hate myself even more for asking a question I think I already know the answer to.
But I don’t want it to be that way.
“I like you enough to give up sex,” Drake finally says. “But if you try to cut me off from masturbation and porn, I will riot.” He half-smiles at me, but his expression looks just as wary as mine feels.
I laugh and shake my head. “I wouldn’t do that. I don’t even want to never have sex again. But I just want it to be clear that I’m my own person. That I exist outside of you too.”
He finishes breaking down the crate with a clatter, then props it up against the wall. “I know you are. I…” He averts his gaze, staring at the floor. “I hate that you aren’t adventurous. I won’t lie. I know it makes me a terrible person and whatever, but I like new things. A lot.”
“Adventurous?” I ask, confused. “Why do you think I’m not adventurous?”
Drake frowns at me. “Because you don’t like the things I like? And you said something about May not rubbing off on you.”
“What? Drake, you said May was a hardcore masochist. You know what I went through. Me not wanting to get whipped or caned doesn’t mean…” I let out a frustrated sound. “Anyway, I offered to peg you. I don’t know how that’s not sexually adventurous.”
He snorts. “I guess we’ll have to… negotiate or whatever. Figure out what we’re both okay with?”
“When we’re not both feeling like shit,” I say. I sit down on the edge of the bed and clasp my hands. “There are a lot of things we need to negotiate, but they can wait until after w e’ve saved your job. Because you’d be literally unemployable and destitute if they kicked you out.”
“I wouldn’t be destitute if they kicked me out,” he huffs. “I’m one of the richest men in the country.”
I give him a pointed look.
“Which you already knew, right. Sarcasm is sooo funny, Mimi.” He sighs, then flops down on the bed. “In the meantime, I guess we really should sleep.” His eyes close, and I think I hear him mutter, “And I may take you up on that offer. After we negotiate.”
I shuffle over to his side and draw the blankets over us. He puts his arms around me, pulling me close.
I wait a few seconds, then whisper, “I’ll peg you so fucking hard, Drake, you won’t be able to sit for a week.”
A shudder runs through him. “I still have to go to work,” he protests, but it’s weak at best.
“Good thing I’m not doing it right now, then. You’ll just have to not think about it until this mess is sorted.”
I smile when he groans and close my eyes.
Coming back was probably a mistake.
But why shouldn’t I make a few messy mistakes with my own life?