by Melinda Minx
Eric is so fucking honorable that he projects that sense of honor onto everyone else, me included. He thinks I will honor the terms of the bet like some kind of “gentleman” from a bygone era.
If he thought things through, he’d see the danger coming right for him. What do I get if I win the bet? I get to see Eric and Ruth publicly humiliated and disgraced. Yet if that is my goal, then I don’t need to wait until the contest to achieve that. I can humiliate them publicly right now. I only had to wait for them to gain enough of a public profile, and the recent brawl in Central Park has put them very much on the radar.
Maya is my pawn, and I’m ready to sacrifice her. There’s a big party tonight at the Fixed Gear, which will give me the opportunity to put my plan into motion. It would be ideal if Ruth were at the party, but based on what Maya has said, she almost never shows up for these things.
“Get dressed,” I snap to Maya.
She stretches and whines. “Why don’t we just stay in tonight and fuck?”
Simple girl.
“Get dressed,” I say, my voice even more commanding.
I’ve already established with her that I hate repeating myself, and I see the fear hit her.
She jumps out of bed. “Relax, I just need to slip a dress on. I won’t even wear panties or a bra.”
She smiles wide at me, as if that should somehow please me.
“Don’t be late,” I say.
I go into the living room and look out the window, surveying the skyline and the park. I can see Eric’s penthouse from here. I wonder if Ruth is there with him now. He’s trying way too hard to make me think he doesn’t care about her. I know better.
I still can’t believe he fell for the girl I picked out. He thinks I picked her because she was hopeless, but I saw the way he looked at her and knew. I knew I could ruin him, and I took the chance. I’m rarely wrong about these kinds of things, and my plans rarely fail. Eric will go down.
We work in the same office, ostensibly for the same “cooperative,” but it’s relatively common to make moves like this. Destroy someone within the cooperative, and you can acquire a large share of their assets. Publically shaming Eric won’t completely destroy him, but it’s likely he’ll lose a good chunk of clients, and I’ll be there to swoop in and eat them up.
“I’m ready,” Maya says, stretching and yawning behind me.
Her nipples are poking out through her dress, and her hair is barely combed.
“Everyone is going to be so jealous of me,” she says, looking me up and down.
I’m wearing a white shirt and blazer with no tie. My brown shoes are polished to a sheen, and I look so much better than Maya that it’s almost an injustice that I’ll have to have her dangling off my arm like some kind of embarrassing and crass fashion accessory.
I get my driver to take us downtown, and we arrive late enough that the shop is already packed with people. I see a huge crowd gathered around that idiot Fat Mike and his fat friend whose name I can’t even remember. They’re telling the story of what happened with Eric in the park, and everyone is laughing.
I scan the room discreetly, and I see that neither Eric or Ruth has showed, as expected. Still, I don’t need them here to put my plan into motion.
“Want a beer?” Maya asks.
“I want shots,” I say, forcing a smile.
I get us tequila shots, complete with limes and salt. Wilson is acting as bartender. The dirty counter where they put bike parts has been converted to a bar for the party.
I get three or four shots into Maya, but she decides she wants to stop drinking for a while. I push her against the wall, grab her ass, and jam my tongue down her throat. She drinks when she’s horny, and after I go into the bathroom to wash my hands clean of her, I come back out to see her taking another shot with Wilson. Good.
I look toward the door and see two women hanging up their coats. One is rather plain, but the other is striking. I find myself staring, and then it hits me: It’s Ruth.
She’s had some kind of major makeover done. If not for those glasses, I probably wouldn’t have recognized her from this far away. I see Maya with another shot, but I snatch it away from her and drink it myself.
I never would’ve imagined Ruth could clean up so well. She looks like a woman who is above this filthy bike shop party. She looks like someone who belongs with a billionaire.
“Is that Ruth?” Maya whispers into my ear.
I nod.
“God,” Maya says, “She looks good—amazing, actually. I’m actually like, totally happy for her.”
“You are?” I ask, “Why?”
My voice comes out much more angry than I intended. I’m losing my cool.
Maya shrugs. “People deserve to be happy. I think Eric really likes her too.”
“Do you?” I ask. “Shows what you know.”
Her mouth drops open. “What do you mean?”
This was my plan all along. To tell Maya and hope she gets loose-lipped. Eric will know it came from me, but what Eric knows doesn’t matter. The important thing is that the rumor will spread like wildfire, and no one else will know that I was the one who started it. If my timing is right, it won’t come to a head until the party at Viktor Copeland’s. Ruth and Eric having it out right there in front of all the movers and shakers in New York... I get hard just thinking about it.
“Didn’t I already tell you?” I ask.
“Tell me what?” She says.
“Ha,” he says. “It must have been another woman I told. Eric and I made a bet.”
“A bet?” She asks. “What did you bet on?”
“Eric told me he could make any woman into someone worthy of New York’s Best Couple. I told him I didn’t believe, him, so he told me—and I quote—‘Pick the worst woman you can find, and I’ll win even with her.’”
Maya’s eyes widen. “You mean... you think Ruth was the worst? And Eric did too…”
“He just wants to win the bet,” I say, waving a hand. “He doesn’t really care about her. Obviously you can’t tell Ruth this.”
The way her eyes move away from me and toward Ruth tell me that she will tell Ruth. She considers Ruth a friend, and Maya is a generally guilty person. She is jealous of Ruth, and it’s coming partly to her as a relief that Eric made a mean-spirited bet, and that Maya is the only one who is really with a handsome billionaire.
“Let’s get some more shots,” Maya says, turning absently back toward me.
“Good call,” I say.
I notice that Ruth arrived alone. I need to make sure Eric isn’t coming. If he is, I want to get Maya out. I don’t want it all to explode tonight. No one important is here, and it would spoil all of my plans.
“Ruth,” I say, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You look incredible.”
She smiles nervously. “Thanks, Dmitri.”
“Where’s Eric?” I ask.
“He had to work late,” she says. “He couldn’t make it. This is Tracy.”
The nobody who is with her smiles, and I fake a smile and shake her hand. “Dmitri.”
“He’s dating Maya,” Ruth says.
“Oh,” Tracy says, visibly deflating.
“Well, uh, nice seeing you Dmitri,” Ruth says, “You going to the thing tomorrow?”
“Of course,” I say.
“That bathroom is the size of a closet,” a man says, walking toward us.
Dmitri elbows him. “This is my associate, Aiden.”
24
Ruth
Aiden is a huge guy, tall and wide, and next to Dmitri’s cold, calculated stare, Aiden looks warm and compassionate.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “We needed all the space we could get for the bikes.”
Aiden laughs. “It’s fine. So you’re Ruth?”
“You heard about me?”
“I think most people have by now,” he says. “I’ve been on business in Ireland, I just got back in tonight.”
“You work with Dmitri and Eric?” I ask.
So, he’s a billionaire too?
“I don’t do quite as well as them,” he says, grinning. “Hopefully I’ll get there one day.”
Dmitri grins smugly. I can tell that Dmitri is exploiting Aiden somehow. He probably works for Dmitri in some capacity, and Dmitri keeps a lot of the profit that Aiden generates. It might be the kind of thing where if Aiden wants to do as well as Dmitri, he’d have to bring the man down. Like a Sith Lord killing his master.
But Aiden is no Darth Vader. He seems like he’d probably be happy to just make a fraction of what Eric and Dmitri do—hell, I know I would.
“So slumming it in Brooklyn is becoming the new rich guy fad?” I ask, somewhat—but not entirely—sarcastically.
“It’s more real here,” Dmitri says.
I roll my eyes. “You realize that housing costs here are like way higher than almost anywhere else in the country. Just because it’s affordable compared to Manhattan or downtown San Francisco doesn’t mean you’ve really stepped out of your bubble at all.”
“How far would I have to go to get out of the bubble then?” Dmitri asks. “Because I’m not going to Long Island.”
Aiden looks at me and rolls his eyes. “I stayed on a farm in Ireland. I just commuted into Dublin every morning.”
“Here he goes,” Dmitri says, sighing. “I’m going to go find Maya before I have to hear about the goddamn farm again.”
“I’d usually get back to the farm around three or four in the afternoon,” Aiden says, just to me now. “I’d get a few hours to help and work with my hands before the sun went down.”
“I doubt you were really all that helpful,” I say. I didn’t mean for it to sound rude, but it comes out that way.
Aiden laughs. “Well, I grew up on a farm in western Pennsylvania. It’s not like a cow in Ireland is much different than one in Pennsylvania.”
I smile nervously, “Sorry, I was just thinking about what would happen if I tried to help on a farm. I’d just get in the way.”
He shrugs. “At first you would. But anyone willing to get their hands dirty can help soon enough. It just felt really good to be back in there. Eating something you helped to harvest, or drinking milk you squeezed yourself gives a sense of satisfaction like nothing else.”
“Then why are you here with Dmitri?”
He shakes his head. “Sometimes I don’t even know. You’d think that buying... say... a yacht with money you earned yourself would be the same feeling of eating potatoes you spent months tending, just amplified a million or so times.”
“Is it?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I think I realize that ultimately I’m just shifting imaginary money around. I’m not working any harder than a farmer—hell, I’m working way less than the farmer I stayed with in Ireland. Probably his daughter does more real work than I do in any given day.”
“So just quit,” I say, sipping my beer.
“I decided I’m going to,” Aiden says. “I’m going to make as much money as I can over the next two years, then I’m going to buy my own farm somewhere upstate and just live my life.” He points to my empty beer. “Want another?”
“Sure,” I say.
He comes back and hands me a White Russian.
“This isn’t a beer,” I say.
“These were buy one get one,” he says.
“I’ll just have one then,” I say, taking the drink from him.
But somehow I don’t just have one. I have three—or at least that’s how many I had before I lost count. Everything that happens from there is lost in fragments.
I remember going out to eat somewhere with Dmitri, Maya, and Aiden. I remember laughing, and I remember Aiden trying to get too close. I remember pushing him away, but I also—unfortunately—remember him in my bedroom.
I wake up alone, for what it’s worth. Guilt overtakes me as I struggle to piece together the previous night. One stupid haircut and fancy dress and I forget who I am?
I look down and see I’m still wearing the damn dress. Relief floods me, if Aiden had taken advantage of me, he wouldn’t have put the dress back on.
There’s a folded note right by the mirror. I grab it and open it, praying it will absolve me of any wrongdoing.
“Hey,
I think you had a bit too much to drink last night. Dmitri showed me where you lived, and I just helped you inside. The dress didn’t look comfortable, but I didn’t want to uh, you know, so I just made sure you got your shoes off. Then I wrote this note... and then I left.
If you’re struggling to remember last night, just know you didn’t do anything stupid or embarrassing.
-Aiden.”
“Fuck,” I whisper.
Getting blackout drunk is embarrassing in and of itself. And I can taste the acidic bile in my throat, so I must have vomited at some point. But thank God nothing else happened. I don’t think I would ever have let Aiden touch me, not with Eric in the picture, but I never get so drunk I can’t remember what happened. I don’t know what could happen in that kind of state. Thankfully Aiden was a gentleman. I imagine what might have happened if it had just been Dmitri alone with me.
I shudder.
25
Eric
“I’ll pick you up,” I say.
“No,” Ruth says. “You’re right there already, and I’ve got a surprise for you anyway.”
“A surprise? I ask.
“Mhmm.”
Her voice sounds a bit rough and hoarse.
“You’re not getting sick, are you?” I ask.
“No, no,” she says. “The music was really loud last night, and I had to shout to be heard.”
“And you probably drank something,” I say, laughing.
“Or more than something,” she says. “Make sure I take it easy tonight.”
“Alright then,” I say. “And you’re sure you don’t want me to pick you up?”
“No,” Ruth says. “I need to get some stuff done in Manhattan anyway, I’ll meet you there.”
“It’s a date,” I say.
Work drags on. It’s not that I’m particularly excited about the Copelands’ damned party, but it feels like I haven’t seen Ruth in forever, and I want to see her again.
Aiden is back, talking about his damn farm.
“From the way you describe it,” I say, “it sounds like you went there just to work on the farm, and not to secure us Lionbridge.”
“I secured them though,” he says, grinning cockily.
“You going to the party tonight?” I ask.
“I’m surprised they even invited me,” he says. “But yeah.”
“Why wouldn’t they invite you?”
“Ah, I mean, you know.” Aiden shrugs. “I’m pretty low on the totem pole here.”
He spins his pen in his fingers. It’s a habit he has when he’s nervous.
“Spend more time with your head in the game, and less time dicking around on the farm,” I say, half-joking. “And we’ll carve you in higher on the pole.”
Aiden is Dmitri’s mentee, so I don’t have any real say in what he does, or in what kind of chances he’s given. Considering that Aiden has to do exactly what Dmitri wants, I shouldn’t really trust him at all.
I wouldn’t put it past Dmitri to use Aiden as a tool against me, but I trust Aiden for whatever reason. He’s a good guy who got stuck with an asshole, I shouldn’t hold that against him personally.
“I’ll have to introduce you to my girlfriend tonight,” I say. “Dmitri’s not coming, right?”
Aiden smiles nervously at me, and he spins his pen around two or three times. “I’m not sure. I don’t think he said anything about it.”
He gets up and finally pockets the damn pen. “Well, I gotta review all the Lionbridge stuff. There’s a mountain of paperwork.”
“I’ll let you to it,” I say, keeping a poker face.
When he’s gone, I realize that something is up. Mentioning Dmitri’s attendance at the party got
him nervous, and I’m pretty sure he was lying to me when he said he didn’t know if Dmitri was coming tonight.
Dmitri probably told him to lie to me, which means that he very likely is coming tonight. Just fucking great. I can’t wait until this damn contest is over. I have no patience left for these bullshit games.
I finally get my work done after forcing myself to concentrate on it and push everything else out of my mind. I go home to change into my tux. Of course the Copelands insist on overly formal dress—everything they do is made to emphasize what ‘big shots’ they are.
I realize I probably should have asked Ruth if she needed help getting a dress. I don’t really care if she doesn’t wear some designer bullshit, but I’m worried she felt obligated to spend a lot on her dress to fit in.
I should have thought of that and taken care of it. I’ll offer to reimburse her later if she ended up breaking the bank.
I laugh then, realizing that Ruth is very unlikely to fret too much about a stupid dress.
Even though the run-in with Aiden made me a little bit nervous, I decide I’m just going to enjoy myself, and if Ruth and I lose the damn contest—thus losing me the bet—I’ll just let Dmitri do whatever he can to get back at me. Maybe he’ll cut me some kind of deal where I just help him find some clients, or I just agree to another compromise that hurts me and helps him. Ruth is all I really want, and losing money and business doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. As long as I have her.
My only regret is not coming clean about the bet earlier. As soon as I realized I liked her, I should have just told her. I still remember that turning point—I should have told her then. I probably could have owned up to my mistake and held onto her there. If I told her now though? No, not an option. It would be all over.
The party is only about six blocks away, so I decide to just walk. The Copelands’ place is on the park too, another penthouse of another high-rise. When I reach the building I see a woman standing there, and I feel guilty because she grabs my attention. My eyes lock onto her ass and run up her body, all the way up to her raven-black hair.
