Mating Theory

by Warren, Skye

Ashleigh

  I get to the old sugar factory by the time the sun breaks.

  Sugar should be sweet, but everything smells burnt here. Bitter and dark. Apparently the way you made sugar was to cook it to death. The window creaks as I pull myself through the bent frame and broken boards, the glass long gone.

  Opening my hands, I drop to the floor. Dust rises in a burnt cloud. I climb the wooden steps, carefully avoiding the weak spots, until I reach the top floor. Buildings crowd from every angle. Sometimes it feels like they’re leaning toward me. I like to be high enough to see the sky.

  This whole area used to be farmland. The sugar cane and corn were grown in fields around us, worked by prison labor after the civil war. The city ate through the agriculture land the way rust eats metal, leaving the factory an empty husk.

  It’s the place I call home.

  Sugar’s waiting for me at the top. She winds around my ankles, meowing so I know she’s mad about how long I’ve been gone. “I haven’t been on vacation,” I tell her. “I’ve been working.”

  An aggrieved meow doesn’t accept that excuse.

  “Don’t fuss. I brought you dinner.” I pull a can of cat food out of my bag and turn it over on the floor in the dark spot where I usually feed her.

  The irony is that she’s better equipped to survive than I am. She catches rats and birds with startling regularity. They show up on my feet while I’m sleeping, which is gross and a little bit sweet. There’s something very wrong when I envy a cat. Her food just wanders around, the slightest bit slower than her. She doesn’t have to smile at strange men and get on her knees.

  Then I fall on my worn pile of blankets. There’s my small pile of treasure—books I stole from the library. Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. A little Whitman for when I’m feeling intense. There’s a small selection of clothes I’ve gotten from the thrift shop FREE bin.

  I pull out my feast. Two-day-old hot dogs are the real prize of the day. I set one aside and eat the other in three bites. I’m slower working on a dented can of expired chili. It doesn’t smell much different from Sugar’s food. She licks the last bits from the floor with dainty care and then goes to work cleaning her mottled white-and-beige fur.

  Creaks from the stairs make her scamper away. I straighten, holding my plastic fork like a weapon until spiky blue hair peeks over the ledge.

  Ky has this lanky walk that makes him look carefree, even though I know better. He’s younger than me, but he’s been on the streets longer. He taught me what to charge, how to protect myself. Most of all he taught me how to please the men.

  “Something smells good,” he says, slinging one leg over one of the old desk chairs. It creaks beneath his weight, even though he’s skinny as a string bean.

  I hand over the hot dog without getting up. “Saved one for you.”

  He eats half in a single bite. And then the other half. His mouth is still full of dry sausage when he mumbles, “Some guys would pay money just to watch me do that.”

  My cheeks flame. “I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

  “Mr. Monopoly’s hostile takeover had some kind of urgent problem.” Some rich guy takes Ky to his penthouse for days at a time. He’s only been gone one night.

  “How much did you get?”

  He gives me a cheeky grin. “One thousand.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah, someone was feeling generous. He probably bought and sold Boardwalk since I saw him last.” A slight frown. “He looked tired though.”

  My chest constricts. “Don’t.”

  “I’m not getting attached. Don’t worry. Just making sure the money train stays running. Besides, this will keep us flush in cat food for—what? Two weeks. You don’t have to work.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “What? We have the money. So what’s the point in being miserable.”

  “I’m not taking your money. I’ll hold my own weight.”

  An eye roll. “It’s not like I suffered through it. Mr. Monopoly even sucks dick. Imagine that. I seriously doubt any of the assholes who take you into the alleyway are willing to return the favor. Don’t let pride keep you hungry.”

  Don’t let pride keep you hungry. That’s something he’s said to me before.

  Ky helped me so much. He’s the one who told me to stay near the Den. Other pimps and criminals don’t poach on Damon Scott’s turf. And he doesn’t take a cut from the whores on his street corner. That makes it a prime piece of real estate.

  “I’m not going to be hungry. I’m going to work. Like you.”

  He doesn’t say anything, but the doubt is clear on his handsome face. He found me huddling in basement stairs after my very first john, shaking from shock and horror and pain. I don’t think I would have survived the night without him. Since then I’ve been unable to do it again. I really would let pride make me starve. My life isn’t worth so much, after all.

  Ky is only a couple years younger than me, but he’s wiser by centuries. He studies me with soft brown eyes. “It’s not always like that. You pick them like I taught you.”

  Rich. Horny. Those are the primary things he looks for. What you never want, he says, is someone who looks bored. Uninterested. That’s someone who’s gonna have to hurt you to get off, he says. “I’m going to. Tomorrow night, I’m going out. I already decided.”

  He reaches into his back pocket. A handful of hundreds lands on the blankets in front of me. “Go out. Don’t go out. I don’t fucking care.”

  I stare at the money with my stomach roiling. God, it would be so easy to let him take care of me. But I can’t fool myself. He works for that money exactly as hard as I would have to. Maybe more. It’s not right to let him do it for me.

  Rich. Horny. Like the guy I found on the roof two weeks ago. Except he hadn’t wanted me. He’d given me money. Like Ky. Pity money. I nudge the money off my blankets with my toes. If I get any closer I’ll probably snatch it up. “Tomorrow.”

  Chapter Three

  Sutton

  The Den is a gentleman’s club, which doesn’t mean there are strippers. Backroom deals and plenty of alcohol. A high-end bar for the elite of the city.

  At least, there aren’t usually strippers.

  I’m not sure what Hugo has in store for this bachelor party. I should have been the one planning it, but he’s my friend, and he knew that I couldn’t manage it myself. Well, I definitely couldn’t have hosted a goddamn party. I’m not even positive I’ll be able to attend it.

  “Coward,” I mutter when I’m still standing on the pavement.

  I should be inside the building, happy that two people I love have found their happy ending. I’m not jealous. That would be too easy. I’m despairing. I’m lonely. I’m goddamn afraid that I’m always going to be this way. There’s something inside me that doesn’t know how to love, not truly, not deep. And Christopher? Harper? They could tell that about me.

  I find Hugo inside the Den.

  “Now what do you have planned for this shindig? So that I can pretend I give a damn, that is. Pin the tail on the donkey? A pinata?”

  “A pinata? No. I didn’t think your heart could take much more of a beating.”

  I study my empty glass, brooding. “Strippers?”

  “That would have been too easy. Christopher said no to strippers.”

  My eyes narrow. “You talked to him.”

  “Someone had to.”

  The accusation doesn’t have any heat behind it, because Hugo knows how much this cost me. Christopher showed up at the ranch, wearing his suit, authentically Italian, his loafers shiny against the dusty brown backdrop of my land. I want you to be my best man, he said, and God, fuck, no, never, I can’t, it will break me, I’m already broken.

  It would be an honor. That’s what I said instead.

  A very European one-shoulder shrug. “He understood why I contacted him, but he was very firm on the matter. No strippers. Besides, he does not seem like the type.”

  “The type of man
who likes tits and ass, you mean?”

  “The type of man who likes to pay for them.”

  I’m not sure how you tell them apart, but if anyone knows, it’s Hugo.

  There are only so many ways a man without a dollar to his name can turn pure ambition into a fortune. As a blue-eyed roughneck, construction workers welcomed me into their fold. They were all too happy to send me in to speak to the foreman, to the project manager, to the investors, when the schedule had to be delayed—and the schedule always had to be delayed. They sent me because they knew I would have him sign on the dotted line, with a smile on his face while he did it.

  Hugo had a slightly different path.

  He worked as a male escort to wealthy women who wanted an orgasm once in a while. It’s not like their rich husbands were doing the job in between screwing the nanny at home and the secretary at work.

  “An ice bar,” Hugo says, inclining his head. “The bar made from ice, the bottles. The cups. The whole thing. It’s already set up in the back room. We’ll have to wear parkas.”

  “That must have cost a pretty penny.”

  “I used your credit card. You don’t mind, do you?”

  That earns him a wry look. “Anything for the happy couple. What about the Ferrari out front?”

  “Not street legal, but we have some off-duty cops keeping a route empty through downtown.”

  “Are you also using my credit card to pay them off?”

  “Cash only. There can’t be a paper trail.”

  I have a hazy memory of handing over my last hundred-dollar bill to the guy delivering my pizza. Don’t fall in love, I told him. That’s what I’m telling you. Don’t you dare.

  Nothing like advice from a drunk.

  The party has already hit a feverish pitch. Alcohol flows in amber pours and crystal glasses. In the center of the room Christopher stands in a crowd of men, all of them vying for his opinion, his attention. He’s a goddamn prince of the business world, and the funny thing is, he doesn’t particularly enjoy it. The numbers, that’s what he likes. Making them add up the way he wants. This part, the people part, this was my job. Even from twenty feet away I can tell he’s uncomfortable.

  This is the part where I save him. Always, I saved him.

  When we were friends.

  Before we became, so briefly, lovers.

  In that hairsbreadth of time when there were three of us. Instead of two.

  His eyes meet mine, and relief flashes through him. An instant of relief too soon replaced by wariness. Well, that’s about what I deserve. I head toward him in slow, direct strides. Men and women move aside for me, curious about whether I’m going to congratulate my best friend. Or throw a punch. Tell the truth, I wasn’t sure which one it would be when I showed up.

  Christopher doesn’t take a step back. Maybe he’s willing to take that punch.

  Or maybe he knows me better than I do.

  I put out my hand. “Congrats,” I tell him, my manner easy. “The best man won.”

  A rumble of laughter. Everyone around us knows we fought over the woman he’s going to marry. What they don’t know is that we held her sweet body between our own, making her come with our fingers and tongues. They don’t know that I loved Christopher before I loved Harper.

  He clasps my hand back, and he pulls in for a brief, impersonal bro hug. The warmth of his hand doesn’t make my stomach flip. Maybe the alcohol has made me permanently numb. “Nah,” he says, his tone as casual as mine. “I’ve never been the better man.”

  The words are simple, meaningless. Empty, if you didn’t know there was an apology inside them, wrapped up so tight it can barely breathe—but there it is, from a man who never explains himself to anyone. People wander away, and then it’s the two of us.

  “You came,” he says.

  This close I can see the fine lines fanning from Christopher’s eyes, early for a man so young. He’ll look distinguished before he turns thirty. That comes from working late hours, always with something to prove. “Of course I came.”

  “Of course? I figured Hugo would have to drag you here.”

  Which is exactly what happened. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  That earns me a snort. “You don’t have to stay long. I’d leave early if I could.”

  My mind flashes on a girl with honey-brown hair and endless Bambi eyes. I do want to leave early, but it’s not to go home. Not to drown myself in a bottle. I want to leave early and find her. “Is Harper having a bachelorette party?”

  “Don’t worry. I made her promise not to paint tonight.”

  Harper St. Claire has a penchant for using art as a medium for protest and society change. Which means there’s a decent chance she could end up arrested the night before her wedding. “Maybe she’s somewhere making a statement about the shackles of marriage, painting a life-sized Mary Tyler Moore across your brand-new building.”

  “Don’t give her ideas,” he says darkly.

  A rueful smile. “That’s about all I can do now.”

  We stare at each other, marking the moment in time, from one second to two, passing over the space where we were best friends. It won’t ever be the same. Harper changed that. Even knowing that, I can’t resent her. Want her, love her. Go mad with goddamn jealousy. I can’t wish that she never showed up though. It would be as insincere as wishing away the sun.

  “You nervous?” I hope not. It would be a hell of a conversation if I have to convince him to man up. Still, most grooms experience jitters, don’t they?

  “No.” The word is soft and sure.

  “You always did know what you wanted.” There. I don’t even sound bitter about it.

  “When it came to business, yes. When it came to Harper, I spent a long time in denial.” He cuts himself off with a quiet curse. “I know I have to apologize.”

  My eyebrows rise. “For winning her?”

  “God, no. I won her fair and square. I won’t apologize for that.” It’s so Christopher that I can’t help but smile. That’s what I love about him. Love. My smile fades. He meets my gaze. “I’m sorry for not seeing what you felt… about me. I was—am—your friend. I should have known.”

  “I didn’t want you to know.”

  A wry twist of his lips. “I didn’t even know you were—”

  “Bi?”

  “That.”

  I got my ass kicked by my dad until I was old enough to punch back. I got my ass kicked at school for being my father’s son, before I learned to throw a right hook so hard the person had to go to the hospital. When I realized I was turned on by both men and women, it wasn’t something I was going to share with the world. “It’s not something I talk about much.”

  A glint of amusement. “No. Hell, I would have been afraid to tell you if I were gay. You always seemed like such a Southern boy. Hunting and fishing and fighting.”

  “I’m a pacifist mostly. Except I do like fishing. The fish have it coming.”

  He looks away, toward the throngs of men who fill the space, the drinking and the gambling. The pretense that we aren’t being watched. “Who the hell are all these people?”

  “Friends. They’re friends, Christopher.”

  “No. They’re business. Whether we worked with them in the past or they’re hoping we work with them in the future, they’re here to make a buck. You were my friend. Maybe the only one.”

  “I’m still your friend.”

  “Are you?”

  Unfortunately. Unfortunately, I’ll always be his friend. Unfortunately, there are knives carving the inside of me, writing patterns of loss on the slick side of my skin. “Yes.”

  A roar goes up through the crowd, and I turn my head to see a group of women. They’re wearing colorful, sequined dresses—a night on the town. Harper’s in the lead, wearing a white sheath dress and a tiara that probably has real diamonds. She’s also holding a giant inflatable penis, which she’s augmented with a Sharpie, drawing a smiley face on the plastic and the outline of a tuxedo
.

  The bachelorette party has descended on the Den.

  The men are more than happy to welcome the girls, ordering rounds of shots and breathing in their lush, sweaty scents. Christopher only has eyes for his bride. His dark blue eyes deepen as she approaches. He grasps her waist and pulls her the rest of the way. Their kiss is so intimate, so raw, so loving, I have to look away. When Harper pulls back, her eyes are dazed.

  She sees me, and she grows wary. “Hey, Sutton.”

  “Hey.” And the Oscar goes to… Sutton Mayfair, who sounds like a human being instead of a seething mass of envy and stupid self-pity. “Having a good time?”

  A relieved smile. I’ve fooled her. Human, she thinks. “The best time.”

  “I like your friend.”

  She gives the giant inflatable penis a squeezing hug, making its Sharpie-drawn eyes bulge. “Dick is our chaperone. It’s not safe for young women to be on the streets alone, you know.”

  This is Harper—effervescent and irreverent. Being around her, you can’t help but feel lighter. Christopher is the very opposite. He makes everything more serious. More weighty. They’re perfect for each other, and I… well, I don’t belong here.

  The silence underlines that fact.

  I see her ask him without words: did you ask him yet? I see Christopher answering without words: no. I’ve watched him do a hundred negotiations. So I know the precise moment he decides this is the time. There’s cunning in the air, like electricity before a storm.

  “Do you want to come over?” he asks. After. Oh God. A threesome.

  That’s what he’s offering right now. Like I’m a gift he’s giving her. Here’s your last chance to fuck someone else before we get hitched.

  Or worse, it might continue after they say I do. I’d be like a living, breathing vibrator in their marriage bed. The sick part is how badly I want to say yes.

  I can almost taste her salt sweet skin. I can almost feel the bristle on his jaw. My body’s taut with hunger. Yes, I’ll come over. Yes, I’ll eat her out and suck your dick and do whatever you want. I’ll leave whenever you want.

  Bile burns my throat. “No, thanks,” I say, the words stiff and staccato.