Lucky Neighbor

by Gage Grayson

  Maddie walks in, smiling luminously as always, carrying Ohana.

  “Hey, Josie,” she yells across the room. “Good evening, Mister Barrett.”

  It’s past 4:00 p.m. on a Monday. We just opened, and the place won’t get super crowded for another couple of hours or so.

  Maddie carries Ohana into the back office to do some daily bookkeeping. She is, not too surprisingly, better at that shit than I am.

  “Ohana.” Josie becomes lost in thought for a moment. “Isn’t that from a Disney movie or something?”

  “Lilo and Stitch. But it’s also from the Hawaiian language.”

  “Doesn’t it mean family?”

  “Well, yeah. We mostly just like the way it sounds. We’ll see if it sticks.”

  “Okay.” Josie nods. “Beats fuckin’ Lush Republic.”

  I shrug.

  “It’s a step in the right direction. What can I get for you?”

  “Tonic water.”

  “Tonic water and…”

  “Lime.”

  “That’s all?”

  “The night is young.”

  Josie’s our first patron of the day, and our second patron walks in while I’m making her drink. It’s someone I don’t think I’ve seen here before, an athletic-looking young man wearing Levi’s and a grey Rutgers sweatshirt. He’s not as fashionable as most of the patrons here, especially Josie…

  But, he walks right over to Josie and they kiss each other lustily on the lips.

  “Hey, have I seen you here before?” I ask.

  “No. This is my boyfriend, Michael.”

  Michael nods and smiles politely.

  “What can I get you, Michael?”

  “Beer.”

  “We have, uh…pilsner draught, coming right up.”

  It’s been a couple months since that night we saw Josie playing darts here on her own. Whether she was seeing this Michael guy then, I have no idea, but needless to say, a lot has changed.

  Maddie did an awesome fucking job negotiating with the landlord of this building. The guy makes a fortune renting the apartments above the bar, and he realized—shortly after the Lush Republic owners left—that the people paying thousands of dollars a month to live here wouldn’t be thrilled about having a tobacconist just below them.

  It would be one of the few places in the city they could still smoke indoors—if you’re wondering why they’d give a shit. This bar may still have an old-school feel to it, but nobody’s fucking smoking inside.

  The space was empty for a couple days before we signed a ten-year lease, which is standard for a place like this.

  More patrons start filing in while I’m serving Michael. Stacia, thank Christ, files in with them.

  I’ve been learning a lot in these first few weeks of owning and operating a bar. I mean, it would be a real fucking problem if I weren’t learning, right?

  Anyway, one thing I learned about this specific bar is that Stacia not only waits tables, but cooks most of the food herself.

  We’re still looking to hire a few chefs, along with a few more bartenders. This place certainly has the cash flow for it.

  Selling my apartment and investing in a few safe index funds didn’t hurt, either.

  As usual, these days, Maddie and I don’t get home until almost 5:00 a.m.

  Where’s home, you ask?

  Hey, if you didn’t, that’s okay. I’ll tell you anyway: Saint Mark’s Place, between First and A.

  We own an entire fucking building. A brownstone.

  It’s been renovated recently, and there are four bedrooms. It was easily affordable after the windfall from my apartment.

  “The Captain’s Demise is doing awesome,” Maddie says as we walk up to our bedroom.

  “I know, that’s half the drinks I serve every night.”

  “I guess you would know, Mister Bartender.”

  Business is booming at Ohana’s, and the fact we’re serving some of our favorite drinks from Hawaii is not hurting at all.

  Maddie and I kiss as Ohana huffs up the stairs in front of us.

  We’re not landlords—this building is meant for a single family, and it has four bedrooms.

  What’s going to happen with all of those rooms, you ask?

  Again, if you didn’t ask, I’ll answer anyway: I don’t know.

  We’ll have to wait and see.

  For now, we’ve got a nice, quiet building in the middle of the East Village. And, thankfully, tonight—or, more accurately, this morning—we’re about to get a few precious hours of sleep.

  Lying in bed, about to drift off, I realize that there’s a question haunting my mind, something I need to ask Maddie before she falls asleep.

  “Hey, Maddie…”

  “Make it quick, I need to fuckin’ sleep.”

  “Whatever happened to that checked baggage bill?”

  “What?”

  “When I gave you all those gifts in Hawaii.”

  “Oh…I actually got free checked baggage. Lifetime perk.”

  “Oh, right. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, love.”

  Yeah, my heart just fucking melted when she called me that.

  Also, I’ve been able to shed light on a lot of the Mysteries of Maddie now that we live together.

  Like, for one, now I know that she was briefly a flight attendant before attending grad school.

  I also now know about her asshole ex John, whom she caught cheating on her just before her Hawaiian vacation. Catching a long termer cheating like that, well, I understand why she was a bit guarded when we met.

  And what kind of fucking crazy person would cheat on Maddie? It beats me. But, needless to say, I’ve never been happier in my entire life.

  Not even close.

  We wake up early the next afternoon, and I make Maddie her favorite Sunday breakfast of red velvet pancakes and Hawaiian roll French toast.

  Afterwards, it’s time to take Ohana on a nice, long walk around the neighborhood before we get ready to open the bar.

  “Man, it’s about time for spring to finally…spring, right?” Maddie tilts up her face to take in the sunshine.

  “So much for April being the cruelest month.”

  Maddie shakes her head. “T.S. Eliot may have known a lot about cats, but he was a shitty meteorologist.”

  It’s a beautiful, warm day here on Saint Mark’s Place. This area has changed a lot over the years.

  Or, maybe it’s just the way I see it. That’s part of it, at least.

  It all seems so much nicer than it once was.

  Warmer.

  Friendlier.

  I can’t wait to see what the future brings.

  Inside Job

  An Undercover Billionaire Romance

  By Aiden Forbes

  Copyright 2018 by Third Base Press

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental. This work intended for adults only.

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  Chapter 1

  Katy

  It’s a small apartment―shaped like a box, in fact―but it has two windows and a closet, and I don’t really need that much space anyway.

  I can see the entire place no matter where I am in the room. Sometimes I sit on the toilet, put my feet up on the bath tub, and watch television. I mean, I don’t do it a lot, but I have done it.

  My computer is balanced on a narrow, blue folding table that I picked up from Goodwill when I first left the group home. It was my first piece of furniture. My computer and that small blue table are the two only things I might not actually be able to live wit
hout.

  My coffee finishes brewing, and that last exhale of steam knocks me out of my revelry. My eyes turn away from my tiny room to focus on the screen.

  “Where the fuck is everyone?” I say out loud.

  Two short steps, and I’m back at the desk, sitting at the wooden stool.

  I fold up my body, my shoulders slouching towards the screen, and I rest my coffee—black, always strong and black—on my knees. I check the desktop clock, making sure I’m on time.

  I boot the DDoS window.

  Hello, I type. Anyone there?

  No reply.

  Assholes? Bueller? I type.

  Nothing.

  “Fuckers,” I mutter.

  I take a sip of the coffee. The jolt of caffeine works like magic―it immediately calms me down and makes me less anxious.

  I open the bank’s website again, going over the plan in my head.

  “This will work,” I say out loud. “We’re ready for this.”

  The chime of the DDoS chatroom sounds. I switch windows.

  Hey, the message appears.

  It’s from AnansiBoy, one of the other planners of this hacking mission. The two of us have worked together for years, but I can’t really tell you anything about them.

  I don’t know where AnansiBoy is from, and I don’t know where the rest of the people I work with is from, either. And, more importantly, they don’t know me.

  We all disguise our IP addresses and bounce our connections out of various countries in Eastern Europe. We should be impossible to find—or, more accurately, nearly impossible to find.

  There’s a whole crew of us who work together to take down banks, bloated conglomerates, hedge funds, and corrupt tycoons. We take their money and channel it to employees’ bank accounts or NGOs. Kind of like a modern Robin Hood mafia.

  We don’t tell each other much about ourselves, though. Take AnansiBoy for example, who is the closest I have to a friend in this world.

  The only thing I know about them is that they smoke and that―I assume―they like reading African folktales. Anansi is the trickster Spider-god, after all.

  Wait. Now that I’m thinking about it, I know this other thing about AnansiBoy: they’re not to be fucked with.

  I’m serious. If you look at this goddamn hacker sideways, they’ll take to their computer and destroy you. They’ll erase your identity, steal every cent you have, tarnish your reputation beyond repair, and then hire someone to kick your dog.

  All while whistling, if I may add.

  But they’d also do all that if someone even looked at me cross-eyed. It’s like having my own personal army.

  Hey, I type. What’s happening? Why is everyone late?

  It’s hard not to feel occasionally paranoid and nervous in this line of work. There’s no way of knowing if anything wrong has happened to the person on the other side of the screen.

  Before AnansiBoy can respond, however, the virtual room fills with people.

  shrug, comes the reply. Everyone here now?

  Looks like it, I type.

  Good…let’s get these fuckers.

  In my small, shitty Brooklyn apartment, I holler, whoop, and then switch screens. The rest of New York goes about their business, oblivious to the fact that there’s a small cadre of hackers attacking the Bank of the United States at this very moment.

  I count down to the moment before we get in.

  Three. We take down their firewalls. Two. We pick at each defense they put up to try and keep us out. One…

  “Fuck yes! I’m in,” I exclaim.

  I switch back to the DDoS window to tell the others. We decide to go replenish the bank accounts of people who were wiped clean by the housing crash. They won’t be filthy rich after, but a few million people will have enough for a small nest and then pay for a few years of Obamacare or whatever.

  And then when that’s over, we begin transferring funds to the low-level employees the bank laid-off during the last merger. The bank had it coming. You don’t just kick out a bunch of people who have been working years to keep your goddamn building going.

  Told you it’s a Robin Hood thing.

  I check the clock on my laptop. The BofU’s computer security team―most of whom are sell-out ex-hackers―should be realize we’re in the system by now.

  We have to move, AnansiBoy types.

  I don’t reply. Instead, I attack faster and harder, moving funds into one stranger’s account after another.

  Ok, time’s up, FateisFurious, AnansiBoy types. Finish them.

  That’s me. That’s my screen name.

  Know what else is furious? My fingers, flying across the keyboard, as I begin to shut down their site.

  My last task tonight is to corrupt their databases and erase all traces of our presence―the equivalent of dousing their systems with kerosene. In a few more keystrokes, I will have lit the proverbial match that will take down their entire system.

  I’m buzzing. Adrenaline is shooting through my system. I’m grinning ear to ear.

  And then I hesitate.

  A list of places flash in my mind suddenly—the soup kitchens, children’s homes, and shelters that fed me and took me in when I was small.

  Shit. How could I not have thought of that earlier?

  Should I? It’ll only be a few more seconds, and then I’ll have their accounts swimming in cash. God knows they deserve it.

  But every second we spend is crucial. Shit.

  I can feel the sweat dripping down my spine and between my breasts.

  Are you out? AnansiBoy asks in the team’s chatroom.

  Then to me, privately: Is everything ok? What the fuck is happening?

  Seconds tick by.

  Another message: Haven’t heard from you. What’s going on?

  For a split-second, I feel it. I’m starving.

  People think they know what starving means, but they don’t.

  Not until you have absolutely nothing left. Not until you have to beg.

  I wouldn’t be here if not for the kindness of a couple of strangers.

  It’s a no-brainer, really.

  I go through with my personal mission―a thank you to the people who raised me and kept me alive.

  Every second counts…but so did every meal they fed me.

  A minute later, and I’ve lit the match. I watch the site dissolve into pixelated nothing.

  The bank has gone ka-boom.

  For now.

  It’s done, I type to the team.

  Jesus Christ, AnansiBoy says. You trying to kill us with suspense?

  Nah. Just took a little longer than I expected, I reply. But everything is done. Their system is in tatters. It will take them months, if they’re lucky, before they can get it back to any working order.

  Good to know, AnansiBoy says.

  And then it’s all over. The team breaks down our virtual headquarters with a promise to put up an ad on the dark web with coded information for our next attack.

  Just like that, I’ve taken down a bank, stolen billions, given a good number of people a shot at survival―all before my coffee’s even gotten cold.

  Grinning, I slam my fist on the table. “Take that, bitches!”

  I love this: that heady feeling of being completely untouchable. Like I’m a demigod playing in the human world, causing mischief and teaching them lessons along the way.

  I run both hands through my short hair. “I deserve a drink,” I declare, bending over my laptop to see out the window to the bar across the street. They’re open.

  I grab a black-and-white hounds-tooth scarf that’s crumpled on the couch and then wind it around my neck. I grab my keys and wallet and shove them in my black backpack. Then I pause at the mirror to see what I look like.

  My cheeks are flushed, and my hazel eyes are shining. I swipe some lipstick across my full lips and muss my hair so it looks more like sex-hair rather than bed-head.

  Smirking at my own reflection, I feel fierce and powerful.

&
nbsp; Time to get into trouble IRL.

  A few minutes later, I’m holding a glass of Jameson and flipping through the jukebox selection. The bar is starting to fill with people.

  Happy chatter fills the bar. Everyone has someone tonight―groups of friends or coworkers looking to drink the stress of the day away.

  I watch a couple talking a few feet away from me. She’s laughing, and he can’t take his eyes off of her. They clink their glasses together before downing their drinks.

  I push the buttons to keep flipping through the album choices.

  The selection is barely registering, and that celebratory feeling―that extraordinary rush of the past hour―it’s gone.

  Suddenly, I don’t feel victorious anymore. I just feel desperately lonely.

  Sure, I just helped thousands of people get back on their feet.

  But I’m alone.

  What kind of a celebration is that?

  Shaking my head to ward off the sudden bout of loneliness, I push a couple buttons, teeing up tracks by the Clash, Prince, Fugazi, and Elvis. Then I spin on my heel and walk back to my barstool.

  I catch the bartender’s eye and extend my forefinger towards the ceiling, a signal for him to bring me another round. The bartender is giving me a single nod when I feel someone brush up next to me.

  “Hey there,” he says. “Are you using this stool?”

  I turn my head slightly so that I’m looking over my right shoulder at a middle-aged dude with wiry blonde hair and tortoise-shell glasses that have slid halfway down his greasy nose. He’s sporting a mustache-less goatee and a cocky smile.

  I shake my head. “All yours,” I say before I turn my attention back to my drink.

  “Great,” he says, as if I welcomed him into my family. He sits down with an exhausted exhale.

  “Such a long day,” he says. I don’t know if he’s speaking to me or the bartender or someone else. I don’t much care. I sip from my rocks glass, enjoying the warming sensation of the whiskey as it slides down my throat.

  He tries again: “I really love this place.”

  He is talking to me, I realize. But I don’t want to talk to him, so I don’t say anything.

  I finish the last of my drink and signal for yet another. Somewhere in the background, I hear The Clash’s Mick Jones asking if he should stay or if he should go now. I laugh under my breath, because I’m wondering the same thing.