by Zahra Girard
For as much as I only see him, he only sees me.
His eyes never leave me, his hands never leave me, his body never leaves me.
This is what love feels like, being wholly entangled in someone else, until you forget where you end and they begin.
“It’s time to go, love,” he whispers. Too soon.
My eyes drift over to the open doorway.
“Let’s go,” he says, taking my hand and leading me through the doorway.
It’s time.
Chapter Nineteen
Julian
I hate this man. Always have, always will.
I lead Melody into this VIP room that looks like Keith’s taken up residence. It’s a dirty den crafted to fit with his sickening tastes. I’m grateful the lights are kept low. Still, what little I can see feels like a blend between a Shanghai Whorehouse and the Spearmint Rhino.
Keith’s holding court in a wide booth encircling a stripper pole, with a gaggle of girls around him, some of which look like they’re straddling that line between looking like they’re underage and actually being underage. Vodka bottles litter the table and he’s got a lipstick-stained martini glass in his hand.
Melody squeezes my hand and I squeeze her back.
“Julian fucking Stone,” Keith says, slanted smile on his face and his slick accent squicking my spine. “It’s been too long since you and I tossed a few back. So good to see you again.”
“Good to see you too, Keith,” I reply.
Melody leans in to whisper to me, “this guy creeps me out. Do we really need to be here?”
“Yes. And he creeps me out, too,” I whisper back.
We sit down at the booth and I make sure to put myself between Keith and Melody. He’s got a ravenous smile on his face and a greedy look in his eyes — I’ve long since learned never to turn my back on the man. Every dirty rumor I’ve heard about him has turned out to be an understatement of his sickness.
“Who’s this? Is the famously-single Julian Stone seeing someone?” he says, and the tone of his voice says he’s plainly hoping Melody is not seeing me. He’d rather she be an offering, instead.
“My fiance,” I answer.
Melody raises her hand wordlessly, defiantly showing off her ring.
Keith looks noticeably surprised. He glances at me in disbelief and his smile goes from pervy-smarmy to shocked-smarmy. “Engaged? Did you suddenly get tired of the fun of the single life? There’s just so much to taste out there, how could you give it up?”
In a sweeping gesture, he points to the women he’s got draped around him, most of whom don’t look at all happy to be there. I wouldn’t be shocked if they’re all professionals.
“I found someone worth settling down for,” I say.
Melody smiles at me. It’s quick and shy, but beautiful.
“How boring,” he says. “I got tired of the married life quickly — which my wife was incredibly grateful for. Once a dog, always a dog, so I say.”
I occupy myself by pouring Melody and myself a drink: straight vodka. Whatever helps ease the pain of dealing with this dirtbag.
She looks grateful as I had her her glass.
“I wouldn’t know. But I’m not here to make an engagement announcement or deliver wedding invitations.”
He rolls his eyes in this exaggerated way that grates on my nerves. “Of course I know that’s not why you’re here. You’re after the same thing your mother’s after.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You talked to her?”
He nods, grinning. “Last night. She made a very long and exhausting argument.”
Melody makes a quiet gagging noise, and I feel a bit nauseous myself.
“What’d you tell her?”
“There wasn’t much talking involved. But she’s due to come by again tonight,” he says, running his finger slowly across the cheek of one the women draped over him.
Goddamnit. Not only is Victoria trying to undermine me, she’s coming here?
“You know she’ll run the company into the ground. She didn’t manage shit while my father was alive. The one good business decision she made was marrying my father and locking him in with a few kids.”
Keith gives me a sickly smile. It’s twisted, and it feels like a misnomer calling it a smile. There should be some other word for greedy, sleazy expressions like his. “You know I only care about two things: money and pussy. She’s giving me half, right now. And who knows, maybe she’ll be as good at running the company as she is at —”
I cut him off; I can’t take hearing any more. Being around this guy makes my nerves stand on end. “She wont. She doesn’t know the first thing about how to run Stone Capital. She doesn’t have a bone for business in her body, except those nights my father gave it to her.”
Keith chuckles. “Well, I didn’t ask her here because she’s smart. She’s just very dedicated. It’s nice to have a woman like that around… energetic, beautiful, eager to please.”
He gives Melody the kind of look that I can read like an open book.
I stand up and plant my clenched fists on the table. This guy’s walking on the razor’s edge of my patience and one more step out of line and his night will end early.
“Listen, can we stop talking about you fucking my mother? You’re not going to support her bid, because, as long as I’ve known you, Keith, for as much as you like women, you like money more.”
He holds up his martini glass, twirling it idly, letting booze splash out the sides and onto the table. “If you want to really talk business, then fine, let’s get serious. Enough distractions.” He snaps his fingers and dismissively motions for the women around him to leave. “You too,” he says to Melody.
“Don’t even think about talking to my fiance like that,” I growl at him.
He shrugs, and fuck Stone Capital I’m ready to kick his ass, but Melody grabs me by the arm. “It’s fine, I’ll wait outside.”
I lean to whisper in her ear and give her a kiss. “I’m sorry you even had to meet this asshole. I’ll try and make this quick.”
She nods and kisses me back.
I watch her leave, savoring every second I get to see her hips sway as she walks out the door. It’s a sight too hot for words and makes my body blaze with desire.
I turn back towards Keith.
“Let’s talk business.”
Chapter Twenty
Melody
I feel like I’ve stepped out into some kind of completely foreign world. Being around Keith Henrickson made my skin crawl, but at least Julian was by my side to keep me anchored. Out here, I’m alone, drifting. I can’t even see Mike.
He’s probably off somewhere with that blonde from earlier.
Good for him.
Even though I’d rather have someone I know around to talk to instead of being alone in this mass of people that are so not my type, I’m glad that at least he’s probably having a good time. Despite having what I think is the typical Stone brother’s cockiness, he’s good-natured and seems more to care about making sure the people around him are having a good time than anything else.
I make a note to give him a high five next time I see him.
“Vodka and soda, with lime,” I say to the bartender as I take a seat at the bar.
The drink arrives and is halfway gone almost before I realize it and I wave for the him to start making me a second.
It’s when I finish the last of my first drink and eagerly start in on my second that I realize I’m nervous for Julian.
I know he can handle himself, even with a perverse shark like Keith Henrickson. But I’m worried that he’s so focused on getting the man’s support for his bid to take over Stone Capital, that he’ll make a deal with the devil.
I don’t want him to give up any of the good that’s inside him just to make this deal happen. I love him for who he is.
Drink two goes down just as easy as the first.
I’m feeling a little less nervous and a lot more buzzed.
“H
ey, is my brother around here?”
I start. I was kind of hoping to remain anonymous and alone in this crowd. Still, I’m not disappointed to see Mike finally show up.
He’s got lipstick on his collar, and his neck, and his cheek, and a giant grin like a kid on Christmas morning.
“No, he’s still in there,” I say, nodding towards the VIP room and then waving for the bartender to bring me drink number three.
“Still?” Mike says.
I nod.
He makes a face. “Damn.”
“Has that Keith guy always been like that?” I say.
“By ‘that’ do you mean acting like a guy who owns a fleet of windowless vans?”
“Yeah.”
“Yep. And you know he does, right?”
“Does what?”
“He actually owns, like, eight vans. I asked him about it, once, when I was stuck in an elevator with him for a few floors. He says it’s because he owns a small moving company, but I looked into it and, yeah, there’s no moving company.”
“Gross.”
I take a sip of my vodka soda to keep myself from puking.
“Yeah. So I don’t envy my brother.”
“I’d rather talk about something else right now. Something not involving pervy old men or shady business deals.”
“You know that writes off most my family, right?”
I roll my eyes at him and fumble in my hazy brain for a conversation topic.
“I was looking around Julian’s house earlier today and I found some interesting stuff — “
“Did you look under his mattress?”
“No, what’s under the mattress?” Then, I think for a second and realize there’s only one thing guys keep under their mattress. “I don’t give a shit about his porn.”
“Then what did you find? Unless you’re talking about the dead bodies my brother buried in the back yard or the dozens upon dozens of anime schoolgirl costumes — which happen to be specially tailored to his size — that he keeps in the attic. Otherwise, there’s nothing strange on the property. And really, who are we to judge what’s strange, anyways? One woman’s skirt is another man’s cosplay.”
“How much have you had to drink?”
He shrugs. “A lot.”
“Maybe you should have some water for a while. But, anyways, I didn’t find anything creepy. I just found some old storage closet. There were a bunch of old photos of you guys, but none of you with your parents,” I say, looking down and realizing I’m nearly done with drink number three.
Mike nods. “That’s not a shocker.”
“Were they really that bad?”
“What do you think?” he says. “Mom was hardly there, and, when she was, it was obvious she was just there for a paycheck. Dad cared more about his legacy than anything else. If you stepped out of line, did anything that could embarrass the family, you were in for a bad time and a lot of bruises. That old bastard could be a fiend.”
It’s hard to imagine a family like that, and even harder to imagine that any of the Stone brothers would come out of that as decent people.
“There was a box in there with ‘LA’ on it and some old tapes…”
Mike’s eyes light up and he gets this smile on his face that is brimming with nostalgia. “Are you kidding? He’s got the tapes?”
“Yes, what are they?”
He shakes his head, slowly, and runs his hand through his hair. “Our grandparents knew everybody. And I mean everybody. They were nice, too. Sometimes. I think there’s some rule that says that, even if you were shitty parents and raised a shitty son like Garret Danforth Stone, when you become grandparents you instantly get like three times nicer.”
Mike finishes his drink and orders a water. “But, anyways, those tapes. They were more of an Alex and Julian thing. They’re old concert tapes of people that grandma and grandpa knew personally. Sinatra, Dean Martin, Louis Armstrong. They used to watch them together when they were little. I’ll bet if you looked at the Louis tape, it’d be so worn out.”
“Why his?”
“You know, I asked Julian the same thing one time. He said he liked them all the same, but that Louis had this way of singing and this great big smile that, even when you were feeling like everyone around you hates you, there was at least one other person out there that was kind,” he says, then he shrugs. “It was a rough time for each of us until we got old enough to go out on our own. I have fonder memories, as a parental figure, of the guy who trimmed our hedges every two weeks than I do of either of my parents. Jorge was the guy who gave all of us — Alex, Julian, and me — our first beer.”
We let the conversation die off a bit. I don’t know how Julian went through the kind of childhood he did and still managed to come out reasonably well adjusted. But I can see why he’s so fiercely loyal to his brothers — they were his only rocks to cling to in a stormy upbringing.
Mike’s phone starts buzzing and lets out a quick chirp. He sits up, smiling. “That’s the blonde from earlier. And her friend. Will you be alright here? I doubt Julian will be much longer — nobody likes spending time with Keith, not even the people he pays.”
“I’ll be fine,” I say, smiling and feeling much better.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wad of bills, which he lays out on the table. “Drinks are on me. Have a good night, Melody.”
I wave. “You, too. Though I doubt you’ll have any problem with that.”
He grins, sheepishly. “Yeah… I do alright.”
Mike leaves and I get back to contemplating my drink.
“Is this seat taken?”
A woman’s voice jars me out of my thoughts like a slap. Her voice is refined, like a blatant declaration that she’s come from money, and there’s a sharpness to it that’s as cutting as a razor’s edge.
I look up, then motion for her to sit down.
“No, go ahead.”
She grabs a napkin from the bar and dusts the seat off before primly taking her place. She’s older, though it’s hard to place her age with the plasticity of her features. Her most defining feature — aside from her condescending expression — is a top that exposes a lot of skin, including a pair of breasts that are just defiant.
Without a care in the world, she takes a few of the bills Mike left on the table and slips them into her purse. “The bartender will never notice,” she says.
I’m speechless. So I turn back to my drink and do my best to ignore her.
The woman orders something top-shelf, some kind of French-sounding drink in an ornate copper cup, and pays with a few of Mike’s bills.
I take the chance and order myself another round. I’m going to need it.
I try to keep to myself around her, but every so often I catch sight of her out of the corner of my eye, checking me out.
Eventually, it pushes me more than I can handle.
“Can I help you with something?” I say, trying to manage a tone that distinctly says I don’t want to help her, unless helping her involves pointing her to the nearest exit..
She smiles acidly. “I just wanted to get a look at the whore my son was fucking.”
I’ve never been in a bar fight before, but with her, I get the distinct feeling that maybe I should try it out. “You’re Julian’s mother.”
“I gave birth to that disappointment, yes. Thankfully, that’s where the relationship ended,” she says. “And you’re Melody Chadwick?”
I nod.
“From Portland, so you said?”
I nod again. But there’s an edge to her question that sits uneasy with me.
“How much is Julian paying you, darling? I can’t imagine it’s very much. He always did like diving in the gutter and poor girl like you, I’ll bet you were happy to give it up for a paltry bit of cash,” she sniffs. “You certainly don’t look like you belong here, even with the clothes you’re wearing. But then, you know what they say about lipstick on a pig.”
There’s bile surging inside me. I kno
t my hands into fists. Actual fists.
“What the fuck is your problem?”
She sips her drink, calm as anything. “My problem is, whore, that I spent over thirty years as the wife of Garret Danforth Stone. I rode that cock for all those years and I expect to get something out of it now that the asshole is dead and buried.”
I can’t even comprehend how someone can sink this low as a human being, and, when she finishes talking, there’s this second where neither of us is saying anything, because I’m just staring in utter awe at how much of a bitch she is.
Then snap out of it and throw my drink in her face.
Then my fist.
It’s a terrible punch. I don’t think I’ve ever even punched someone before. But I make it count.
Thud.
She tips backwards off her chair and into the crowd. I think for a second about letting that be the end of it, but then I realize that’d be better than that bitch deserves.
I follow her down. I straddle her. She’s still got that smirk on her face and I want to wipe it off her with the back of my hand.
Crack.
People clear a space around us. Someone shouts ‘Fight’. Another someone — a guy who sounds a lot younger — yells ‘Chick fight’.
A few people whoop.
But I hardly hear them.
Victoria hits me back and I feel my brain bounce around inside my head.
Ouch.
We lock in some kind of death-grip with each other, shaking, shoving, and ready to tear each other to pieces.
“Break it up,” this inhumanly deep voice bellows.
Bryce.
A giant hand lands on my shoulder and another lands on Victoria’s. He pulls us apart like we’re children.
I take a deep breath.
My body is surging with adrenaline and, as much as I’m trying to calm down, part of me wants Bryce to let go so I can finish the job. Victoria’s got this look on her face that she won and I am just itching to turn her face black and blue.
There’s a shout and Julian pushes his way through the crowd and comes to my side. His face is dark like a thunderhead about to let loose.
