Vince turns his knowing eyes to me and says, “Asher is like my son. He moved into my home soon after I met him, and he lived there, even when he went to Wilton.”
When Bastian’s face turns into a snarl and he says, “Yeah, and his piece of shit ‘parents’ didn’t even realize he was gone until he started making money, and they wanted a piece of the cut,” I realize that he loves Asher, too.
I didn’t know love until that moment. Maybe I thought of love as a weakness because I’ve never felt it. The only relationships I’ve seen have been nasty, parasitic and volatile parodies, bastardized by the endless stream of foster parents I’ve had. Until now, I didn’t know what it’s like to love and be loved. This… the way these three look at each other, interact, and treat one another…
It’s magical.
It’s the strongest thing I’ve ever witnessed.
And I want it for myself.
Badly.
Chapter Twelve
Courage is knowing
what not to fear.
Plato
I wake up to the sound of a woman’s voice. It’s angry and confrontational. I definitely don’t want to get involved with that drama, so I keep my eyes closed and breathing even, pretending to still be asleep.
“Why is she here?” The voice is shrill and fuming.
Asher sighs. “I’m not explaining this again, Monica. You work for me, not the other way around. I shouldn’t have to have this conversation with you.”
“But—”
“You’re pissing me off. Stop.”
She’s silent for a moment. “Fine, but I don’t like it.”
“Noted,” Asher says dryly. “Do you have what I asked for?”
I hear a ruffling of a bag, probably a purse, before the woman, Monica, says, “Here.”
“Thank you, Monica. You may see yourself out now.”
It’s a dismissal, and my body relaxes when I hear her leave. Asher’s footsteps are eerily silent as he approaches the bed and throws something onto it beside me. It’s heavy.
“Here,” he says.
I peek an eye open slowly, pretending to just wake up. He rolls his eyes at my theatrics.
“How’d you know I was awake?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer me, and I don’t bother asking again. I haven’t forgotten about his time as a fixer. With his super ninja skills, he’s probably able to count my heartbeats from a mile away like Edward Cullen or something equally cool and predator-like.
Instead, I look at the thing he threw at me. It’s a black, nondescript binder, unlabeled and about an inch thick.
“What is it?” I ask.
“It’s full of paperwork and activities for marriages involving a noncitizen. Green card marriages. They use these activities and questionnaires in preparation for their interviews with immigration officers.”
“And you thought we could use these to get to know one another,” I finish.
He raises one of his hands, showing me an identical binder. “It’s a quick and efficient way, yes.”
I moan and nod. “Fine, but let me brush my teeth first.”
When I’m done brushing my teeth, I find Asher on the bed, sitting crisscross applesauce. Bare chested and in jogger sweats, he looks mouthwatering and almost… approachable. He has a pen cap in his mouth and has already begun filling out his questionnaire.
He glances up at me as I approach him, perching myself on the other side of the bed. I catch the pen he throws my way, open the binder, set it comfortably on my lap, and start my questionnaire.
We sit in comfortable silence, the only sound coming from the scribbles of our pens. The questions are simple at first, just general background questions… But the problem is that my background is shady at best. My name isn’t even my real name.
I answer the questions as best as I can, filling out my legal name and being truthful about my birthplace. I leave my biological parents’ names empty, because answering those lines will just lead to more questions about why I have my mother’s last name and not my father’s. If the rest of the questions are like this, this is going to be a long day.
By the time an hour has passed, I’ve only answered a handful of questions, skipping about ninety-nine percent of them.
I groan, finally deciding to give up. “This isn’t going to work.”
Asher studies my face, lingering on the light sheen of sweat on my forehead. (Some of the questions made me nervous. Sue me.)
“Why not?” he asks, his tone even but annoyed, which I find typical.
I settle for a half truth. “Because I’m a foster kid. I don’t know a lot of things about my past, and what I do know is complicated. Like the parents section. Am I supposed to list all the foster parents that had a hand in raising me? There’s a lot of them.”
He reaches out and grabs my binder. A frown graces his face as he scans the pages, presumably annoyed by all the empty blanks. He sighs. “We’ll have to do this verbally.”
Great.
Now I have to lie convincingly aloud.
I nod reluctantly. “How do you want to do this?”
“We’ll go question by question, taking turns to answer them.”
“Okay. You go first.”
“My name is Asher Aaron Black, and I was born on May 17, 1991.”
He snorts when he catches me taking notes on the Quizlet app of my phone. I make sure to set my profile to private first. I don’t want people to wonder why I have flashcards on Asher’s life, like I’m a stalker or something. I wave for him to continue.
“I was born at Mount Sinai Queens Hospital to a junkie mother and a pimp father. No siblings that I know of.”
I wince at how casually he said that, my fingers hesitating on my iPhone screen before completing the flashcards.
Mother’s occupation? Junkie.
Father’s occupation? Pimp.
Asher stops talking and pulls out a slip of paper from the back of his binder. He places it in front of me. It’s a nondisclosure agreement.
I skim through it, as he says, “You need to sign this before I continue.”
I nod and sign it after reading the whole thing. It’s pretty straight forward. I don’t have to give up the blood of my firstborn or anything… but under no circumstances can I disclose anything about my time with Asher in relation to the fake nature of the relationship. I am also not allowed to discuss any sensitive information regarding Asher or his businesses with anyone other than him or any other relevant, involved parties. Basically, I need to use some common sense when talking to people about Asher.
After I hand the signed NDA back to him, I begin my turn:
“My name is Lucy Ives.” Currently true, previously false.
“I don’t have a middle name.” False.
“I also don’t really know much about my biological parents.” False.
“I don’t know where I was born either.” False.
“Someone dropped me off at a fire station.” Truth.
“And social services came to pick me up.” Truth.
“As for my foster parents, there have been way too many to count.” Truth.
“I’ve had a lot of foster siblings, too, but I was never close to any of them.” Truth.
“I never stayed anywhere for more than a few months anyways.” False.
“Should I name all of my foster dads, moms, sisters and brothers? I really don’t want to.” Biggest Truth I’ve told yet.
I don’t want to open up the Pandora’s Box that is Steve and my name and, most embarrassingly, the way I ran away from my problems rather than facing them. It’s also disconcerting how much of my life is a lie. Asher may have a dubious background, but so do I. I have no right to be alarmed by him when my history has just as much gray matter as his.
There’s a contemplative look on Asher’s face before he shakes his head. “If it comes up, I’ll just say that you bounced from foster home to foster home, never staying anywhere longer than a few months.”
&n
bsp; I nod, hiding my relief behind a trite smile. I’m happy to be done with my round of lies. Honestly, I’m wondering why I didn’t go into politics. With all the lies I’m used to telling, I think I would be pretty good at it. Politifact would probably give me a pants on fire rating on their Truth-O-Meter™, but that seems to propel careers rather than damage them.
I’m picturing myself in a stuffy pantsuit, speaking at dozens of campaign rallies, when Asher gestures for me to continue. I do, endeavoring to be as truthful as possible from here on out. Because, honestly, who am I kidding? I can’t pull off a pantsuit, I’m afraid of public speaking, and I usually fall asleep within the first few minutes of a lecture, let alone hours of congressional hearings. The only political trait I possess is a thoroughly sculpted affinity for telling lies.
“The foster homes were in the High Desert of California, above the Inland Empire. It’s a pretty poor area with a high crime rate and ridiculously high temperatures.” I wince. “You can probably guess what type of place that was.”
Not all of it was bad, but it certainly wasn’t safe or fun. It’s the meth lab of the nation. From what I remember, there are a lot of trailer homes there that house meth labs. It wasn’t unusual for a home to suddenly go up in flames, and when that would happen, everyone knew what type of home that was.
At Asher’s silence, I continue, figuring it’s safe to mention my social worker, “My social worker’s name is Mary Peters. She was my social worker from the time I entered the system to the time I aged out. She’s good people. She’s probably the closest thing to a parental figure I’ve ever had, but even then, we’re not really close. I haven’t talked to her since the day I aged out.”
I really should talk to Mary, but I’m too ashamed of myself. I ran, even though she’d advised me not to jeopardize my future like that. She told me we could do something about Steve, but I didn’t believe her. I still don’t, but I do feel bad about losing touch with her. She went above and beyond for me. There’s no denying that.
As we continue, I’m relieved and amazed to see there’s no judgment in Asher’s face. He just nods and internalizes the information I give him, easily memorizing it with that savant brain of his. Me? I have over a thousand flashcards by the time we’re done with the questionnaire. I now know way more than I ever expected to know about Asher.
I have flashcards full of mundane stuff, like:
Name? Asher Aaron Black.
Favorite color? Black.
Childhood pet? A black Pitbull terrier named Dog.
Beverage of choice? Water or black tea. Nothing else.
It’s very subtle, but I think Asher really likes the color black.
It’s when we delve into the darker aspects of Asher’s life that I realize how honest he’s being. The courage to speak about painful life experiences is foreign to me, so seeing it in Asher is as impressive as it is alarming.
“Where did you learn to fight?” I ask, remembering how he beat Bastian when he was only fifteen.
We’ve slowly steered our way from the questions on the worksheets to unexpectedly easy conversation. I’m genuinely curious about him and his past. This is more than learning about things to use against him.
“My parents didn’t have a lot of money, so I grew up in a pretty shitty area. There were a lot of gangs. I didn’t join one, but I did have to learn to fight and defend myself. I ended up signing up for MMA classes at a local gym.” He laughs, unashamed. “I stole the money for the classes from my mom’s drug fund. I’d mix her drugs with sugar water, so it’d last her longer. Then, I’d steal the money it saved and use it on classes.
“One night, I was finished sparring, and some chick comes up to me. We end up fucking in the locker room. We get caught, and it turns out she’s dating Bastian. A week later, he comes at me with a baseball bat, and I fight back. Beat the shit out of him, too.
“I should have been put down after that, but the capos were impressed. So, Vince took me in. He didn’t have kids of his own, and for some reason, he wanted me. I moved into his house on the Upper East Side, and he enrolled me into a private prep school nearby. After that, I went to Wilton. Vince could’ve paid my tuition, but he already did so much for me, so I didn’t want to ask. I ended up working out a deal with the family, and well, you know the rest.”
As for my part of the getting to know you, I lie about what I have to and tell the truth about what I can. I don’t think Asher is suspicious of me. My foster care upbringing makes it easy to divert attention from my lack of a personal life growing up, and I’m able to parrot the same theme over and over—that my childhood sucked but was typical for a foster kid in a poor area.
Blah, blah, blah.
To be fair, that’s pretty close to the truth. Because that’s my past—a whole lot of blah.
But now? Even though this whole situation is really messed up, it’s still exciting.
I feel like I’m living for the first time, and I have Asher to thank—and blame—for that.
Chapter Thirteen
The courage of life is
often a less dramatic
spectacle than the courage
of a final moment; but it
is no less a magnificent
mixture of triumph and
tragedy.
John F. Kennedy
“What do you want to eat?” Asher asks.
We’re currently taking a break, because my stomach won’t stop growling. The questionnaire took longer than we originally thought it would, so we ended up skipping breakfast. The hunger has been torturous given my love for food. I even listed eating as my biggest hobby. Asher’s is MMA.
I smirk. “You tell me, Lucy Expert.”
I’m becoming way too comfortable around Asher, but I genuinely trust him not to hurt me. I actually like his company. It’s better than what I normally do on a Sunday, which is homework. And if I’m being honest, I can see myself enjoying this whole fake fiancée thing.
This is a nice place to live, I don’t have to pay for food and housing, I’m closer to the heart of campus than I was before, and I can sleep through the night without waking up from Aimee’s snores or the sound of someone drunkenly stumbling through the hall.
Asher playfully shakes his head at me. He seems less annoyed with me now. “Chicken Pad Thai?”
I nod. “If we’re doing Thai, you’ll get the Pad See Ew with Beef and Shrimp.”
I bask in his look of approval at my awesome memorizing skills. Truthfully, my skills aren’t as good as Asher’s, which I suspect is the result of him having an eidetic memory. Me, on the other hand? I’m a pig. I just never forget anything food related.
Asher picks up his phone to call Monica, who I learned is his assistant, for the food order. According to our questionnaire led conversation, she’s been having an attitude problem lately, but Asher’s reluctant to fire her because she’s been working with him since he started the company while at Wilton.
It’ll take too fucking long for him to train someone else. His words, not mine. Personally, I don’t commend her for working for him for over half a decade without a promotion. What is she thinking? No wonder she’s so crabby.
While Asher is talking to Monica, I decided to turn my phone off airplane mode. My phone vibrates for a solid minute with a bunch of incoming texts before stopping. I have 27 unread texts, all from Aimee, and a voicemail from her, too. They’re all from around 4 A.M. on the night we went to Rogue, except the most recent one, which is a lone text from last night.
Aimee: Ur at Asher’s???????????!!!!!!!!!
Aimee: Did I read that right?
Aimee: Hello?
Aimee: Lucy! U can’t just drop a bomb like that and not reply!
Aimee: I hate u.
Aimee: Omw home. Safe and sound no thanks to u.
Aimee: Eating all ur Starbursts if u don’t reply in 3…2…1…
Aimee: All ur red Starbursts are in my tummy. Pink next.
Aimee: Pink gone. Yellow’s turn.
Aimee: Seriously? Not gonna reply? Not even for Starbursts?
Aimee: I hate u so much! Don’t leave me hanging! ASHER BLACK?!
Aimee: U guys better have sex.
Aimee: Take a pic of Little Asher. I need to know.
Aimee: How big is he?
Aimee: I bet he’s reallllllyyyyy big.
Aimee: U guys have to have babies.
Aimee: And get married.
Aimee: He won’t poison u, I promise. I won’t let him.
Aimee: If u don’t fuck him, I will.
Aimee: Lucccyyyyyyy, I need to know.
Aimee: Ur the worst roomie ever.
Aimee: I ate all ur Starbursts.
Aimee: I’m sleeping on ur bed. The only way u can stop me is by replying.
Aimee: Grrrrrrr….
Aimee: I’m calling the cops if u don’t text back…
Aimee: Ugh… U suck.
Aimee: I’m giving u 24 hours to text back, then I’m calling the cops. I mean it, Loosey Goosey!
I roll my eyes. Those texts have pretty decent grammar and spelling given how drunk Aimee probably was when she typed them. I open my call log and tap the voicemail button. I click play, pressing the phone to my ear and plugging my other ear with a finger to hear well.
When I glance up at Asher, he’s staring at me, no longer on the phone with Monica. I mouth Aimee’s name as the beginnings of the voicemail start to play. Asher takes the phone from my hands.
“Hey!” I say, watching helplessly as he puts the phone on speaker and restarts the voicemail.
I wait in mortified anticipation as Aimee’s message commences, her drunken voice crisp and loud on the speakers.
“Loosey Goosey! You better answer your phone. What happened to bros before hos?” She pauses. “Or is it chicks before dicks?” There’s some rustling. “I’m eating all of your Starbursts, Lucy. There are only oranges left for me to eat, while you’re at Asher’s, probably enjoying his yummy cock.”
Oh, gosh.
My hands cover my face. I can’t even look at Asher.
Asher Black: A Fake Fiance Mafia Romance Novel (The Five Syndicates Book 1) Page 11
