The Guru (Trillionaire Boys' Club Book 6)

by Aubrey Parker

  He preaches detached, guilt-free sex not because he believes in it per se, but because in detached sex, he’ll never be vulnerable to the barbs of love.

  Every time Anthony tries to reach me, I yearn to reach back. I miss him more than anything. But I can’t encourage our connection until Anthony recognizes the problem on his own.

  It’s not that he hesitates to love.

  It’s that he fears love.

  It’s not that he wants companionship to augment his already-solid life.

  It’s that beneath the surface, Anthony needs as badly as anyone in his audience … yet has no idea just how terrified his heart is of admitting that need.

  I see him and I think, Guru, know thyself.

  But Anthony Ross — helper of the world — does not know he’s in need of help, too. He doesn’t realize that just as his friends needed love, so does he. He doesn’t realize that as broken as they were, so is Anthony himself.

  He doesn’t get that what he thinks of as a strength — his supposed self-reliance — is actually a weakness.

  Anthony wants me. But he doesn’t realize that part of him needs me.

  I try to move on.

  And I miss him every day, with every fiber of my being.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  ANTHONY

  “NO,” AMBER SAYS.

  I TURN to face her. I haven’t asked a question. I haven’t even said a word. I’ve merely climbed into my car, which we hired from a service for this go-round. It’s not quite a limo, but it’s decked out inside to the nines. Black and chrome outside, black leather inside. It looks like an S&M lair with rosewood accents and a full bar.

  Amber was already inside. I’ve just slid into the seat beside her, no words spoken before that one.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Okay,” she says. “Go ahead and say it.”

  At first I don’t know what she’s talking about, but then I almost want to groan and fire her. Perry and Tracy did this same thing to me yesterday, albeit with a different script. I kind of wanted to fire them, too.

  “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

  “Come on. Just ask your question. My morning won’t be complete until you do.”

  I look out the window. “Fine. Have you heard from Caitlin?”

  And Amber repeats, “No.”

  I grumble.

  “It’s sweet,” Amber says. “It’s not annoying. You keep right on asking.”

  “It’s not your job to make fun of me.” I don’t say the rest: that it’s not even a little bit funny. They should know me by now — especially Amber, with her new husband. She spent a long time single. She’s been dumped. She has to know that even though I pretend to have moved on, I’m actually full of shit.

  “It’s part of my job.”

  “What do we have today?” I ask, ignoring her, glancing toward Amber’s tablet.

  She looks at me. Her eyes soften, and I wish I’d just played along with the Caitlin ritual like I usually do. I don’t need pity. It only makes me feel worse.

  “Look—”

  “Just the schedule, Amber. I just want to hear the schedule.”

  “I only joke because you joke. You told us to joke. You said you wanted us to help you reframe things with Caitlin, so you could learn to respond differently.”

  “I’m serious, Amber. Schedule.”

  But Amber’s undaunted. She knows I can’t get mad. She took a two-day honeymoon when the company unexpectedly needed her. You can’t yell at employees who believe the company’s mission so strongly, they refuse to take time off. She’s earned some capital in my account, and now she means to cash it in whether I want to discuss this or not.

  “Maybe I’m not good at reframing your pain as a joke.”

  “It’s reframing a stimulus. You can’t reframe pain.” I pause. “And also, no, you’re not very good at it.”

  “I told you it was a bad idea.”

  She did. And I agreed the first time I innocently asked my staff about Caitlin after instructing them to help me “reframe.” But it’s not like I can admit the idea was bad or ask them to stop. If I do that, I’d be admitting that it gets under my skin … and isn’t that what I’m trying to reframe?

  The logic is convoluted. Lack of sleep is making me stupid.

  “The reframing just hasn’t had time to work,” I say. “The idea is sound. It’s not like I can pretend Caitlin doesn’t exist. She’s Jamie’s best friend. I’m going to hear stories whether I like it or not. And she was a friend first. I’m mature enough to change my association, rather than sticking my fingers in my ears and screaming la-la-la-la when people say her name.”

  Amber is thoughtful. She sets the tablet aside. “You want my opinion?”

  “No.”

  “You’re still too close to the breakup. It’s okay to feel bad, Anthony. You don’t have to try and reprogram things so quickly. You don’t need to handle everything perfectly, no matter how bulletproof you want to seem onstage. It’s okay if life sometimes kicks you in the crotch, and all you can do is to suffer through the rough spots until things are better.”

  “It’s been three months.”

  “Exactly. It’s only been three months. And you really cared about her. I’m a smart girl, Anthony. You weren’t fooling me with your ‘it’s only physical’ bullshit.”

  I say nothing. I won’t deny that, but I’m certainly not going to admit it.

  “If I could be so bold—”

  “No,” I say. “You can’t. Please don’t ‘be so bold.’”

  “Sometimes, it’s okay to feel the hurt.”

  I don’t look at her. I look out the window.

  “‘Hurt’ is just an association I’ve made. Associations can always be changed.”

  I’d know; I’ve nudged thousands of terrified people past their fears over the years. The brain is like a computer, controlling everything that happens. If you don’t like your situation, your brain is most of the problem. And if you don’t like your brain’s state, including its emotions and responses, you must change its programming. You need new associations — something that’s done through discipline and repetition.

  “May I venture,” Amber says, “that keeping this particular shitty association about Caitlin — namely, the fact that thinking about her breaks your heart — makes you a better person?”

  “How does that make me a better person, exactly?”

  “It makes you more human.” Amber sighs, and I know that whatever she’s about to say, she’s considered many times before. “You come across as unbreakable, Anthony. That’s not something most people are, not something most people understand. But when we see that even the great Anthony Ross has flaws, it makes you relatable to the rest of us mortals. It’s hard that you’re always so unflappable and perfect. I know it sucks for you, but seeing your pain reminds people that you’re like everyone else — and if you’ve been able to accomplish what you have while being human, so can others.”

  I shake my head, knowing she’s right, frustrated by it. I don’t like being breakable. I don’t like the feeling of this particular flaw.

  “If you don’t want to hear about Caitlin,” Amber says, “then why do you ask at every city we visit whether or not she’s sent an answer to your invitations?”

  “I’m following up, is all. I don’t like loose ends.”

  Amber’s not buying it. She’s on a roll and unwilling to stop. “Every time we hit a new city, you start asking if Caitlin has responded to your invitation to attend the event. At the same time, you go out of your way to instruct us all to joke with you about her. ‘Make me laugh,’ you say, so that you can change your associations. What do you think is going to happen, Anthony? Of course we’ll mock you for asking over and over — hell, we probably would have started by now even without your permission. You keep banging your head against the wall. If she hasn’t responded in the past twenty cities, why would she suddenly respond now?”

  “You neve
r know. It doesn’t hurt to ask.”

  Amber waits until my gaze wanders near her again, then hooks me with her eyes until she’s staring right into my soul. Then she speaks with the firm voice I use on my seminar attendees: tough love, required for stubborn fools.

  “She doesn’t want to see you anymore. I’m sorry that it hurts you to recognize that, but do you really think you’ll stop being triggered when you keep asking, when you keep telling us not to hide mentions of Caitlin from you, but to try and reframe it all as jokes instead?”

  “I need to move on.”

  “So move on. Let it go. Do your work. Don’t pretend it’s all okay, because it’s not. It sucks. It hurts. Believe me, I know what it feels like, and I don’t envy you. But denial solves nothing.”

  “I’m not denying. I’m going out of my way not to deny, asking all of you to—”

  “Oh, honey. You are. You don’t see it, but you are.” Now she sounds almost sad. “This ‘reframe’ bullshit? It’s like using humor as armor, pretending you think the things that bother you are funny. And the way you keep inviting Caitlin to your events? It’s—”

  “Brave? Proof that I’m willing to still be a friend rather than holding a grudge?”

  I get the sweetest, most pitying smile. “I was going to say, it’s even worse.”

  “How is it worse?”

  “Anthony. I love you. But … inviting your ex to a seminar as a way to try and make up?”

  “I’m not trying to make up; I’m trying to—”

  Amber interrupts me again, but this time it’s with a question that slices right through my worldview and stabs me in the chest. It’s so on-point — and its implication so obvious — it might as well be in neon. I don’t know how I could possibly have missed it before.

  “What would you tell someone in your audience, if they told you that?”

  My mouth is open. It slowly closes. For a few moments, I have no idea what to say. Fortunately, Amber says it for me.

  “If you want Caitlin to know you care, you have to open up for real, Anthony. If you need her, then tell her you need her. If you want to be there for her, then be there for her. Just you. Just her. Don’t invite her in only so long as you can keep a seminar full of strangers between you.”

  “That’s not what I’m …”

  This time Amber doesn’t interrupt me. This time I just trail off.

  Because she’s right.

  Just like Caitlin was right.

  I’m the world’s guru, but somehow I’ve never realized that I need a guru, too.

  Guru, know thyself.

  Caitlin’s words.

  I’m truly hearing them for the first time, now that it’s too late.

  My head sags. I feel a soothing hand: Amber’s, on my back.

  “She’s not going to come, is she?” I ask. “Ever.”

  Amber does me the kindness of not replying. I’ve taken enough of a beating today.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  ANTHONY

  PARIS.

  MUNICH.

  LUXEMBOURG CITY.

  BANGKOK.

  There’s nothing.

  Back to the states, beginning in Hawaii. We have a wonderful compound on Maui, in which I’m a half-owner. We sell out the hotel. On the final day, some of the attendees wear swimsuits under their clothing.

  Los Angeles, just up the coast from San Diego, from Del Mar.

  But still nothing.

  Tulsa.

  Chicago, two events back to back. My invitations are still out there, because I queued them all in advance. Part of me is trying to forget what Amber said while the rest of me is busy being embarrassed that I’m still making a fool of myself with these unrelenting invitations to the opposite of intimacy. And still, I had deep-mind hopes for Chicago. Caitlin has friends there who she visits often. The seminars are both on weekends, both in a city that’s cheap and easy to fly into. Easy trips for anyone who wanted to come.

  But there’s nothing.

  I finally tell my team to shut down my invitations. Throw away the queue. It’s been close to four months since we broke up, and I need to knock it the fuck off. Save some dignity. Be honest about what happened: I blew it with Caitlin because I didn’t think I needed her. Of course I’m not whole without her. Of course I’m no different from the other driven men I know, who seem to need a good woman’s love to change them.

  I’m just as broken. Just as vulnerable. And now, just as hurt as anyone.

  Amber sees. She says nothing. It’s kind. The joking has stopped. These days nobody mentions Caitlin, because they know I’m being irrational rather than perfect. They know I’m in pain. I’m not bulletproof or unbreakable.

  I look in the mirror after the Detroit show and I tell my reflection, “Everyone needs someone, and you’re no different.”

  My reflection doesn’t reply.

  New York. Philadelphia. Boston.

  In Raleigh, I help a man whose parents were heroin addicts. He didn’t realize it was still affecting him until I point out that his perfectionism — his childhood overcompensation — is killing his personal life even as his work life explodes all around him.

  I tell him that if he doesn’t admit that he needs help, he’ll never get any.

  Myself, in the mirror at night.

  I sleep horribly.

  And the next day, Amber greets me in our luxury car du jour with a smirk. “You look like shit.”

  “You don’t have to be so happy about it.”

  “I always look like a frog when I wake up,” Amber says. It must be a lie; she’s 5’4” with a pixie haircut and porcelain features, absolutely adorable. “It’s nice when Superman isn’t quite as super for once.”

  There are days where in a split statement like that, I’ll joke with the speaker about the insult. Today I’d rather be a little self-deprecating, dealing with the implied comment instead.

  “I’m hardly Superman.”

  “You’d better get your energy up, Superman,” Amber says, undaunted. “Today is a full roster. You’re packed wall to wall.”

  I grunt. I’m usually a morning person, but … fuck.

  “Bad news, though. We’ve had to co-opt your SM time.”

  That snaps me awake. Nobody’s supposed to touch my self-managed time, not ever. It’s mine. I give myself to the world every day, so what’s self-managed has to stay my own.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “It was unavoidable.”

  “What did you co-opt it for?”

  “Seminar stuff.” She shuffles papers. “You’ll have to ask Perry.”

  I shake my head, annoyed. I haven’t had a block of time to myself for weeks. Here, finally, in this one city, I’d made sure to carve out an hour. Just one hour that my team couldn’t schedule for me … but of course, now they have.

  “Cheer up, Superman. I’m sure something else today will turn out awesome to balance the universe.”

  It’s true, of course. My events, once I get rolling, are always gangbusters.

  But I don’t say that. Instead I repeat what I’ve already said: “I’m not Superman, Amber.”

  And Amber says, “That’s the spirit.”

  The venue today is the Benchmark Terrace. It’s supposed to seat 1800 but we’ve sold nearly two thousand tickets due to an error on the venue’s part — probably the efforts of an overenthusiastic manager trying to land our gig. We’ve done our best, but this is close to standing room only. It’s too warm in here with all these bodies and the A/C isn’t entirely keeping up. I’ve already left my jacket backstage. My tie is loose, my collar open.

  I step off the stage, moving into the crowd. They stay seated but I watch all their eyes following me. I see adoration. It makes me uncomfortable. Like I told Amber, I’m not Superman. I’m only a person, like everyone else.

  I look toward Maria, one of Tracy and Perry’s mic runners. This part probably looks random, but it’s not. We won’t call on anyone who doesn’t ask, but everyone is screened ahead o
f time. No point in me selecting a person who’s having mild difficulty quitting smoking when there’s a suicidal person in need of more help three rows farther back.

  Still, I call for volunteers. I ask people who have a problem they’d help with to raise their hands. I watch as Maria scans the crowd to locate potential pre-screened people, touching her earbud to hear Tracy or Perry’s instructions. She begins to move.

  One hand is higher than the others. The hands around it lower, all of us realizing Maria has her target — an attendee who submitted an application, was chosen by either Perry or Tracy in advance, and who I’m just now realizing Amber neglected to brief me on while I was busy being grumpy and feeling sorry for my shitty night’s sleep.

  But hey, I can handle this without a brief. I’ve walked on tightropes without a net many times in the past.

  I point and say, “You. Please. Go ahead and stand up.”

  She does.

  And it’s Caitlin.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CAITLIN

  NOBODY KNOWS WHY ANTHONY’S FACE has gone pale. Nobody knows he already knows me.

  The girl who handed me the microphone knows, I think, because she seems to be repressing a smile. And when I follow Anthony’s glance toward the back of the auditorium, I see him stare down his event managers, who obviously know as well because they set this up. They’re also smirking. I don’t know why. I’m not planning to rush into Anthony’s arms or anything so adorable. I came to do Anthony a favor in the only way Anthony seems willing to understand. This is that way. He lives in the spotlight. Sometimes, it seems to me that he barely exists outside it.

  He needs to hear what I have to say. He didn’t listen in person, or when I said it over the phone. He didn’t listen in emails, or when I declined his first few invitations.