Chapter 1 #2
Naked, Beanz stood before him, hands on her hips, making her case.
“Look, you may not need love—some people are perfect without it—but you, more than anyone, will need a hot trophy wife for business and ... children, of course. Maybe you’ll want hot monkey sex in the middle of the night without all the emotional crap that goes with it, or maybe you just want someone to go to the theater with or to Peter Luger’s for a steak and cocktail.
I can give you whatever you want, and you can be assured, I will never seek your heart or give you mine.
I’m not now nor will I ever be in love with you. You’re too much of a grouch.”
“How nice.”
“It’s a promise. We’re emotionally safe from the other’s hang-ups and all the starry-eyed trappings that inevitably end in a broken heart.”
“You can’t guarantee that. I thought she was safe, too.”
“I can guarantee that. Look, maybe you’re not romantic partner material, but you have needs and your father has ridiculously insane expectations.”
That hurt—not that he planned on falling in love again but because his childhood friend was cutting into the empty hole where his heart once occupied, implying he wasn’t deserving of love or even unlovable to begin with.
After the dissection he received from the supposed love of his life, a man could only take so much rejection.
Hell, he may not have been partner material yesterday—or today—but maybe one day .
.. Nah. Although unkind, Beanz was right.
Like war, what was love good for? Absolutely nothing. “What are you saying?” he asked.
“I’m saying we should forge an agreement between friends. A pact. Not immediate, but maybe to take place a year from now when you’ve recovered from the bitch.”
She wasn’t a bitch, she just convinced herself that she wanted a different direction in life—without him, somewhere in Paris.
Walking to him, Beanz stopped between his legs. Her pebbled nipple inches from his mouth repulsed him.
“Let me think about it,” he said, attempting to set her back from him, but instead she reached down between his legs.
“Think about it while we have one last go before things go back to the way they were ... friend.”
He removed her hand from his dick. “Get dressed. Last night was an anomaly that will never happen again.”
She pouted, giving those puppy eyes she was famous for. “Just once more?”
“No.” He stood. “Things have to change, and I can’t thank you enough for opening my eyes to seeing that I’m off the rails.” Walking to the bathroom, he said, “See yourself out. I gotta get myself together and get out of here.”
Again, she snorted, “You’re hungover. Where could you possibly go at one in the afternoon? The liquor store?”
“Not funny. I need a triple espresso, and then I’m going to work. Let’s plan to meet up on Wednesday with my answer about your crazy proposition.” He’d made a pact, once before—with his ex—and that was all blown to shit now.
“Sure, text me where to meet.”
“I tossed my phone a couple of months ago. I got tired of everyone’s annoying intervention texts. Like half of them should talk and that includes your nosey sister.”
“Ah, so that’s why I couldn’t get in touch with you, and I’ll ignore that comment about my sister. She’s super stressed out.”
“Marriage to the wrong person will do that to you. Let’s plan to meet up at The Campbell, Wednesday at eight.”
“Are you paying?” she asked.
“Don’t I always? It’s the least I can do after last night.”
“You know, if I had any money, I would treat you after last night. Man, no one has ever made me co—”
He slammed the bathroom door.
The Moment Before the Regrettable Moment
Darcy sat in the club chair, looking at the midnight view of Midtown Manhattan from his condo’s floor-to-ceiling window.
In the dark, he was lost in a thousand-yard stare at the city lights and raised the rocks glass to his lips.
Otis Redding sang from the Alexis on the bar.
Yeah, the guy really knew how to sing out pain.
But tonight, he had a hot date with a bottle of vodka that would treat him with respect.
In fact, vodka was his woman of choice these days, but who was he kidding?
Bourbon, tequila, or whisky would do in a pinch.
At this late hour though, memories of her were always at their worst, and Stoli was the best bang his money could buy on the fly.
Within minutes, she’d be banished into the recesses of his mind as his past slipped into oblivion.
He glanced at the photograph of them together on the media console.
“An epic waste of romance, time, and money,” he slurred, attempting to buoy himself as if the latter two things truly mattered to him but, apparently, she thought they did.
Maybe once they mattered, but not since meeting her.
She was never a waste of his time or money.
He would have given her the world because he loved her with an ache so deep that it would never dissipate.
She was the one, and he’d planned to ask.
He burned for her despite her brutality in the end, and the ungifted engagement ring still in its box on his dresser as a reminder to never fall in love again.
If he let himself, he would cry. Instead, he took another sip, comforted by the Russian woman whose liquid cruelty would surely come hours after their assignation in the abyss.
A knock to the apartment door startled him from his thoughts, and if it hadn’t grated his last nerve, he would have ignored it.
But maybe she had returned with tail between her legs, begging for forgiveness and her heart open to him again.
“I made a terrible mistake! I love you! I want you! Please forgive me!”
Rising with a drink in hand, he barely walked a straight line to the door, which oddly moved from where it was two hours ago.
Wrenching it open, he was surprised to see his good friend at the threshold, wearing a black faux fur jacket, black skinny pants, and high heels. She looked like a hooker.
“Beanz,” he said.
“Finally! I’ve been trying to call you for a week. Where have you been?” she scolded.
“How did you get past the doorman?”
She didn’t respond.
Not that far gone to notice the tears streaming down her face, he stepped aside to let her in.
“I’ve had the worst week of my life and don’t appreciate you ghosting me when I needed you most,” she said, storming past him.
Unable to resist a vodka-influenced smart-ass remark at her thoughtlessness, he attacked, trying not to slur lest she think him a drunk. Her father was a drunk, and her sister was nearly one. “Where have you been for the last three months of my misery? Some friend you are.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been out of the loop. I was ... busy. Jeez, why are you listening to Otis Redding and drinking in the dark?”
“Because I like it that way.” The light burns my eyes.
“At least it’s not that country crap she makes you listen to. For sure, that shit’ll make you blow your brains out,” the queen of pop complained.
He’d roll his eyes if he could.
“What are you drinking?” Beanz asked.
He looked at the glass in his hand. “Vodka. I think.”
“Good. I’ll have one, too,” she said walking to the window and city view, then dropped her massive handbag onto the floor, followed by her jacket.
Struggling to fill the glass without missing the rim, he asked, “What’s going on with you?”
Plopping into the chair, she looked up at him staring down at her, holding out the full glass. “It’s such a God-awful mess! I’m such a jackass.”
“Sometimes you are.”
“Another one bites the dust.” She took a drink, then looked back up at him. “I did exactly what you cautioned me not to do.”
His cocked eyebrow got her talking.
“I slept with George, dated him, sorta-kinda moved in with him, then three nights ago found him in our bed with some slut.”
“I’m not surprised. And tonight? Is he the cause of your tears?”
Unable to face him, she looked out the window, then downed the vodka in her glass.
“Let me guess, you went back for more,” he said, refilling the drink.
“How did you know?”
“Because I know him too well, and he probably made you feel like it was your fault and took you back by the goodness of his heart.” That was the most lucid thing he’d said in the last forty-eight hours. He felt no pity for her situation. “I told you so.”
“That’s not what I want to hear. Some friend you are.”
“Hey, I’m the best damned friend you ever had. For once, shomeone gave it to you straight and you shit on my advice as gratitude. Now you show up looking for shympathy? I’m all outta compassion for everyone else’s problems. I got my own shit to deal with.”
Stunned, her jaw dropped, but he continued, “You should have listened to me. The guy’s a dick, thinks with his dick, and will always be a sh-yphilitic dick,” he slurred, and then grasped the back of the chair to keep from toppling over.
Hip to his condition, she looked up at him, examining his face. “You look like hell. Why are you so miserable? You’re the one with the charmed life.”
“You didn’t hear the goship?”
“No. I…”
Sitting on the floor with his back against the window, he finally whispered. “I’m not so charmed. She dumped me.”
“Right before Valentine’s Day? Oh, that’s epic bitchery.”
“Yeah.”
“What the hell happened? She was totally into you, and you had that ginormous rock all ready to go. Did you ask and she said no because ... you know, you being you and all?”
“I never got to ask her.” He drank from the bottle, then admitted, “I don’t even remember all she said, just that we wanted different things in life.
Hell, I thought we were on the same page.
I wouldn’t have blown a hundred grand on a ring if we weren’t.
You know I wouldn’t have.” He paused, dam cracking.
Dropping his chin to his chest, he blubbered like a first grader, flowing out all his pain.
“I’m lost ... so fucking lost without her. ”
All pride disappeared as he cried embarrassing tears. The room spun. Beanz’s dangling earrings appeared to flash groovy colors, and Redding now sang “Pain in my Heart.” That damned guy knew just how to twist the knife into a broken man’s chest.
“Oh shit. I’m so sorry, boo. I didn’t know. Why didn’t you call or text me?” She slid down the chair and knelt beside him.
Beanz had never been a demonstrative girl, but when she touched his face, he looked up into her compassionate eyes. “I loved her. I ... still love her. I can’t get her outta my head,” he whispered.
“You’ll get over it. I warned you that she was all wrong for you. She’s a total asshole, just like George,” she said removing the bottle from his hand. She took a swig from it, then set it on the floor. “I’m here now. Come tomorrow morning you won’t even remember her name.”
“She doesn’t love me after all,” he wept. “She’s ... my ... air.”
“Ssh ... It takes time to understand you, William. She never understood you.”
“Don’t say that. She did. She knew me better than anyone, even you, maybe even more than my mother. She was ... amazing…
Her lips came so close to his and in that moment, in the dark, he was with her, needing her so badly.
He kissed her…
… and she kissed him back.