Chapter 2
Would she be someone my parents would approve of?
The young woman practically sprinted down the hall, her long legs taking step after step with surprising grace, considering the speed.
I shook my head and returned my attention to the matter at hand: getting away from my mother.
She couldn’t follow me into the men’s room, but she could send someone else after me.
Thankfully, I had the space to myself as I splashed cold water on my face, then stared at the man in the reflection. Thirty-four years old, decent-looking, so I’d been told, a growing financial portfolio that had made me a millionaire in my twenties, and yet still under the heel of my parents.
“Pathetic,” I whispered while the last of the water rivulets dropped from my jaw. I washed my hands, then dried them and my face before taking a deep breath and heading to the affair.
Mother and Father loved these sorts of things, but their reasons were different than my own.
I didn’t mind getting dressed up or the indulgence of it all.
More importantly, though, were the good deeds we could do at these events.
I was lucky to have had the privileges my family’s old money provided.
They might’ve seen the bottom line, the tax break, but I enjoyed the changes we could make with donations to charities such as these.
“Exactly. Stop moping about your fortunate lot in life, Luke,” I muttered quietly as I reentered the grand banquet room at the hotel. We’d been here several times for events. I was confident in my surroundings and in my image, if nothing else.
Head high, I caught Mother’s eye as she spoke with a group of older women who no doubt had daughters or granddaughters she was fielding for my future bride. She nodded once, as if to say yes, come here, and as much as I didn’t want to, I did. I followed. I obeyed.
“Darling, there you are,” Mother said, hooking her small hands around my elbow. To anyone else, she appeared maternal, loving, but we both knew it was so I wouldn’t scurry off too soon.
I kissed her temple, then nodded to the group of ladies.
“Of course, you all know my oldest, Luke,” she said to the smiling women. “Mrs. Walker was just telling us about her youngest daughter, Leanna, who graduated from Brown this last spring.”
A hint if I’d ever heard one.
“Yes,” the woman presumed to be Mrs. Brown said.
“We’re so happy to have her home. Her father and I hated her being so far away.
” She leaned toward the center of everyone and added, “A degree in political science won’t help her find a husband.
” As if it were a scandalous thing a man would find fault with.
I said nothing, of course. I was the ornament here.
“There, there, Celia,” another woman said with her nose stuck in the air. “Leanna is a lovely young woman. I’m sure the ideas floating in her head will fade when the right man sweeps her off her feet.”
On cue, they turned toward me.
“Yes, absolutely,” I said. “I’m sure the right man will be simply intrigued with Leanna’s conversation and educated mind.”
The women tittered as I blinked between them. With one discussion among Mother’s so-called friends, one would assume women’s rights had never happened.
“Where would a man be without a good woman behind him?” another woman said.
“Half as far, for sure,” another answered.
“Luke, when will you be settling down? You’ve been quite the talk for some time.”
Mother patted my arm, a silent gesture to keep me from answering. I wouldn’t have anyway. We’d done this far too many times for me to step outside the bounds.
“Don’t you worry, ladies,” Mother said. “I’ve made it my mission to see him married come this next June.”
The group shrilled their excitement and dove into discussing who, when exactly, and which venue Mother would choose with only eight months to plan.
I wasn’t needed for the conversation, nor for the decision, apparently.
Mother had been a leading force in my dating life since I graduated from college.
This was nothing new. However, she’d never been quite this …
aggressive. Setting a date like that? With this group?
No doubt this tea would be spread far and wide come tomorrow morning.
Mother was a crafty woman, to be sure.
Fuck this. I’d done my part. I’d been seen. I’d helped turn the wheels of my own engagement news and made her the center of attention in her group of old biddies.
“Excuse me, Mother,” I said.
She nodded slightly, a sly grin spreading her barely wrinkled face and the glitter of gossip lighting her eyes. Father stood with his own collection of friends, mostly businessmen and connections, but I turned for the bar.
“Old-fashioned,” I said to the older attendant.
I didn’t dare approach the younger one. He was far too handsome.
I wasn’t sure if I had a type—I’d never allowed myself to explore it—but classically handsome rarely drew my attention.
Something different sure did, something unique.
A crooked smile. Unforgettable eyes. Tattoos.
What I could honestly say was not my type—and I would only say this to myself—was women.
“Thinking to drown your mother’s nagging in that glass?”
I cocked my head and raised my brow just as William, my closest friend, pivoted to stand shoulder to shoulder with me. He’d been to as many of these things as I had and knew the drill because his mother did the same.
We’d gone to private school and college together.
His family came from money. His father was a senior partner at the law firm that had his last name on the letterhead and where William also worked right out of law school.
We had our entire upbringing in common, but in truth, I genuinely liked him.
He didn’t know my secret, but thank fuck he resembled a young Robert Redford, and I was not attracted to him in the least.
I glanced at my glass, surprised it was half-empty.
I wasn’t supposed to drink it. Not that I had anything against drinking, but if the glass was empty, it’d look weird toting it around.
A man needs a glass in his hand, Father had preached.
Then he can’t shake hands. And a man who can’t shake hands is too busy to be bothered with it. A busy man is a successful man.
Sure, Father, tell me all about how to be a man.
A man certainly didn’t want to fuck other men.
Not that he’d said it in such words. I supplied that one myself after all the remarks about how one couldn’t trust a queer with money.
And that was my job. Father owned an investment firm, where I worked as a senior financial advisor.
If I couldn’t make sound decisions about my personal life, why would anyone trust me to grow their wealth?
And that brought me back to tonight’s old song and dance.
The one where Mother assessed the potential marriage market for me since I’d dragged my feet about it for far too long.
Her words. I wasn’t dragging anything. I was adamantly staying a bachelor.
Better that than trying to fake it with a wife.
Hell, I wasn’t even sure if I’d be physically capable of having sex with a woman.
I gestured to William’s glass. “You’re doing the same, I see.”
He chuckled. “Yeah. If I’m drunk enough, my mother won’t approach me. She’ll set up some covert dinner and a reason to have the girl over. I’d rather that anyway. Just tell me when to say I do. Why does it matter?”
I bumped his elbow and snickered. “Maybe stop looking at the girls and find a woman.”
William’s eyes sparkled with his grin. “Can’t blame me for liking them young and eager.”
No, but … “I think everyone would blame you for liking them illegal.”
He snorted into his glass, then lowered it. “You know I didn’t mean that young, you sick fuck.”
We shared a strained chuckle. It was far easier to make light of it than try to change it. Arranged marriages were alive and well, though people didn’t see it. Old-money families still did the marriage shopping, and us bachelors knew the drill. Shut up, sign the prenup, and keep the mistress quiet.
“Seriously, though, there are a few pretty ones here tonight. If not a bit on the younger side too,” William said and scanned the room for one such unicorn.
I stared at my friend for a moment, then joined him. “Are you actually thinking of settling down?”
Two words that made us visibly cringe: settle down. A gentler way of saying imprisoned, locked into misery. The old ball and chain was a saying for a reason.
“I dunno.” He shrugged. “Maybe. Sometimes I figure it’d be easier. Or maybe I just want to find my mistress before my mother finds my wife.”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head. This wasn’t the first time William had mentioned giving in to his family’s demand of the right woman while keeping his idea of the right woman on the side. Two of them? Sounded like a fucking nightmare.
“How about her?” William nodded toward a small group of young ladies. “Marilyn Monroe. You like blondes, right?”
I shrugged, because hair color didn’t matter.
The blonde was pretty, objectively speaking, but the slim brunette beside her, the one I’d crossed paths with in the hallway, made my lips twitch.
She’d seemed … different. The interaction had only been seconds, but in that small window, she’d scanned me with a refreshing directness in her mischievous eyes.
No coy puzzle to solve; she’d liked what she saw.
Something I rarely let myself notice, but she’d caught me off guard.
“What about the brunette in black?” I said to do my duty and chime in as if I were truly interested.
“Nah, too skinny.”
I judged the others, but only in comparison to the brunette. Not that I found her sexually appealing, but I didn’t hate women. I could find beauty in them, but as with men, I fixated on uniqueness over typicality.
“Don’t you find the brunette more interesting? She doesn’t seem to be participating with words while the others run their mouths. Do you wonder what she isn’t saying?”
“Nope. I’m horny. My only wonder is how she looks on her knees.”
I snorted and sipped my drink before cursing myself. Don’t finish it. “I think that’s textbook chauvinistic pig behavior.”
“Heh, you know I’m teasing. Mostly. What guy doesn’t like getting head?”
I laughed to play along, wincing internally, but in all honesty, I had no clue.
Sure, I liked the idea of getting head, and giving it, and I sure as fuck enjoyed watching blow job porn, but that was where it ended.
I was a thirty-four-year-old virgin. The most I’d done was kiss a woman’s cheek.
A polite gesture at the end of a forced-upon-me date that didn’t suggest an interest that simply wasn’t there to be had.
I’d known I was gay since my teenage years, but I’d buried it, thinking if I could lie to myself enough, I’d believe it one day.
I was still waiting. In the meantime, I’d never allowed that part of myself out of the closet.
Not even a little because I wouldn’t be able to stop once I opened that door.
Now, twenty years later, I couldn’t even find the door.
Maybe in another twenty, I could will myself straight.
“Don’t look now, but your mother is heading this way with a piece of ass that has your name on it.”
No matter his warning, I looked. Mother chattered with a smile as the simple but pretty woman walked with her. This would lead to only one thing: Mother inviting her over for dinner. And end with only one thing as well: me taking her on a few dates until hopefully my disinterest made her lose hers.
I joked about it, but I was sure one day Mother would just invite me to my own wedding and be done with it.
She wanted grandkids. She wanted to show off how perfect a mother she was and how her children’s lives were better because of it.
As the oldest, I needed to do my duty and set the standard for my younger sister and brother to follow.
“Better be quick about it,” William said.
There were seconds left to me. Either wait for Mother to descend or find a diversion.
Eh, fuck it.