Chapter 3 #2
Sunbern motioned for her to put it on the table. “Fuck it. This whole deal is a racket. What sort of pimp takes a fifty percent
cut?”
Lola rolled her eyes. “The sort of pimp who is your favorite cousin that vets your clients for reasonable hotness and sanity,
plus makes them sign NDAs. Also I don’t beat you.”
She had a point. Lola had turned a throwaway comment—“Oh my gawd, I would PAY good money to fuck your iconic AF cousin!”—from a girlfriend at an otherwise tiresome Las Vegas bachelorette party half a year ago into a burgeoning business for the two of them.
Even if Sunbern had been canceled, he was still the heartthrob of many a woman’s teenage dream nostalgia.
And like their entrepreneurial ancestors, Lola never missed an opportunity to make a buck.
Her opportunities were just a tad spicier.
The baby of their generation, twenty-eight-year-old Lola Sun was the younger daughter of George Sun, the only brother of Roses,
Iris, and Sunbern’s mother, Hyacinth. This meant that traditionally speaking, she was one of the very few people in their
family that could legitimately claim their powerful last name, at least as long as she stayed unmarried. But like her big
cousin Sunbern, Lola had elected early on to live her life outside of the Sun Clan’s domineering control, cut out of their
financial protection but in turn allowed her freedom.
Yet unlike Sunbern, she seamlessly wove in and out of their clan’s haywire dynamics with panache and ease. She had not been
spiritually disowned like him and was in fact mostly embraced and even rewarded . . . because in one clandestine way or another,
she had proven herself useful to each member of the family.
Yes, baby cousin Lola rarely had to burn a bridge. But that was because everyone knew that her bridges were booby-trapped
with their secrets, some as explosive as napalm.
Lola suddenly saw a flash of color peeking from under the scoop neck of Sunbern’s loose white shirt. “Um, what is that?” she
demanded, pointing at his chest.
Sunbern covered the spot with his hand, but he was already reddening. “It’s nothing,” he muttered.
In a flash, Lola descended upon him like a bird of prey. Before he could react, she was on top of him and pulling his shirt
up over his head. She leaped back to gawk at the massive tattoo on his chest, still scaly with fresh scabs.
“Sunbern!” she bellowed in a terrifying rage, her freckled face scrunched up in horror. “What did you do to yourself!?”
They both looked down at his sprawling new ink, splashed from one of Sunbern’s sculpted pecs to the other: the name SHANNON in hugely bold lettering, surrounded by oval-shaped clusters of vividly violet flowers.
Sunbern shrugged, trying to look casual. But already he was scooting back away from his petite cousin in his beanbag, ready
to shield himself from Lola’s infamously fiery temper. “So I got kinda drunk, so what?” he replied lamely.
Lola threw his shirt at him as he ducked. “I don’t know if you’ve grasped this yet, but your body is literally a commodity!
Who the heck wants to stare at your ex-girlfriend’s name when they’ve paid for a Sunbern experience?”
“Ex-fiancée,” Sunbern muttered to himself.
Lola was not done ranting. “What even is that douchey font? You look like Maroon 5’s idiot brother!” Unable to tear herself
away, she leaned in closer to inspect the densely packed flowers framing Shannon’s name. “Big cuz,” she began and winced,
“what sort of flowers are those? Are those—oh man, I don’t even want to say it—are those hyacinths?”
Like an Oedipal bouquet of cringe, Sunbern’s ex-fiancée’s name was shrouded in his mother’s namesake flowers. Needless to
say, it was a lot to unpack.
“Okay, show’s over.” Sunbern stood up, pulling the shirt back over his head. “I’ve taken enough abuse today.” His lower lip
was already quivering.
“Aw, jeez,” Lola groaned as tears began to streak down Sunbern’s cheeks. Since they were kids, she could not stand to see
him cry, especially when she was the cause. She got up and stood next to him, though he towered above her, and reached up
to awkwardly pat him on the shoulder as he buried his face in his hands, sobbing.
“I just miss her so fucking much,” Sunbern wept. He let Lola lead him to his kitchen table and sit him down. If he had looked
up, he would have seen his cousin gnawing on her lower lip like she did whenever she had an epiphany.
“Okay, you can stop crying now,” Lola ordered. She pulled the envelope out of her leather jacket, handing it back to him. “Here, take it.”
Sniffling, Sunbern looked at the five hundred dollars inside, then back up at her in surprise. Lola was never one to easily
part with money. “But this is your share,” he wondered. “Why are you giving it to me?”
Lola grabbed her helmet from the table. “Because I can’t listen to you whine about Shannon anymore. Take the money and take
her out. Be a man and win her back.” She plopped the helmet onto her mass of hair and headed to the door, leaving Sunbern
staring at the money.
Lola bounded down the exit steps of Sunbern’s apartment in great spirits. It was true that Lola rarely parted with her hard-earned
money. But she saw the five hundred dollars as an intriguing investment, with high risk yet an astronomical reward.
In all the years she had known her, Lola had always considered Shannon Shoo to be the human equivalent of gas station sushi,
but if Sunbern could convince her to come back to him . . . There was an unexpected play to be made here, one that no one
would see coming. And that was precisely what Lola needed.
As the constant keeper of her family’s secrets, Lola already knew exactly what her Aunt Roses was planning, thanks to a trusty
informant in Malibu. And Lola intended to be a player in Roses’s audacious game, and she intended to win.
The reward? An inheritance called the Sunfang Trust, which contained such extreme wealth that the true sum was the stuff of
Sun Clan legend.
As Lola saw it, legends aside, the reality was that the Sunfang Trust was rightfully hers by birthright. If her weak father
was not willing to fight for it, it was up to her. On their own, the men in her family had always failed Lola, but Lola had
figured out how to play them to her advantage long ago, and Sunbern would be no exception.
As Lola Sun mounted her matte-black Harley-Davidson, she suddenly thought of Wayward and felt a twinge of guilt. Whereas Sunbern was always on the outs, her other boy cousin was in too deep, in every way possible.
No thanks to her. Why had she been so careless with him?
Lola sped down Wilshire Boulevard into the night, shaking off the dregs of regret. Besides, she thought to herself grimly,
it was already too late for him.
Wayward had long since sold his soul to the devil.