Sweet Success: East Coast Sugar Daddies: Book 2

by Bates, Austin

  Maybe Timothy would be available. He does enjoy fine music…

  I reached for my phone to text the omega, scrolling through my contacts. Already I was imagining what I would wear and the dinner we’d have afterward, with plenty of wine, of course, and maybe even…

  I stopped scrolling, my thumb hovering in place over the contact list. Timothy’s name was gone, and now I remembered. Only a week ago he asked me to delete his number and told me he wouldn’t be seeing me again, that he’d found someone he wanted to go steady with.

  I stopped breathing and dropped my phone on top of the desk. The strange twisting ache in my chest grew more painful with this realization. I was happy for him. Really. He was a nice guy and very polite, a precious ball of fluff in a world that could often be so cruel. His new alpha would protect him, shelter him, cherish him.

  His new alpha would take over the role I once had the ability to occupy whenever I wanted.

  My wide, wide expanse of options had just gotten smaller. And this wasn’t the first time. The omegas I spent my time with were always finding steadier, more emotional relationships. They left me behind, again and again and again, the career bachelor who’d missed out on his chance for the same things they would be experiencing.

  Well, it had happened before, so, it didn’t matter. Shit, I’d even forgotten he told me that. I could find someone else to take with me.

  Before I had a chance to start brainstorming, a new email appeared in my inbox.

  The sender was Logan Bryce.

  Maybe Logan would like to go? I smiled at myself. Logan didn’t need me to spoil him. He was almost as wealthy as I was.

  I clicked on the email and saw it was short and to the point. He wanted to meet up to discuss the deal he’d made not all that long ago -as friends, not as client and broker. We went back for years and I’d been advising him the whole time, so it was only natural our relationship had eventually turned professional. I handled all of his investments.

  And the deal he’d made was…

  I wracked my brains, trying to remember. Some sort of app? I couldn’t recall anything else. Too much happened every single day for me to be able to remember the details of individual consultations.

  I picked up my phone and called Logan, figuring he could help jog my memory since he wanted to talk about it anyway.

  Logan picked up on the second ring. “Hey, Win,” he greeted me. His voice was silky-smooth and as calm as always, but I could tell he was excited about something. The deal with the app must be going rather well. “You got my email?”

  “Yeah, I did.” I spun in my chair and stood up, feeling the urge to pace while I talked. “You wanted to meet up? Are you free right now? Janet’s not here, but I can close up here and meet you somewhere.”

  “I’m a little tied up right now,” he explained. “I barely had time to send that email. I didn’t want to wait on it too long, though.”

  We rich businessmen could be a superstitious bunch. I followed my gut, and Logan held to the belief that if good news wasn’t shared, and opportunities weren’t discussed, then it was a bad omen and bad luck would follow.

  “Want me to call back?”

  “No, we’re here now, we might as well talk. When we meet up later, we’ll keep it purely personal. How about that?”

  “Sounds good to me.” I pressed the button on my remote control, opening the curtains just enough to let me look out at the city, the silver towers against a background of deep blue, cloudless sky. I wondered if Logan was doing the same, if we’d be staring into each other’s eyes if only we could see far enough. “What did you want to discuss, then?”

  “The Almega dating app you helped me transfer funds to.”

  And that was all I needed to hear. Memories came surging back about how he had discovered the Almega dating app over on the West Coast, a highly-successful method of connecting older alphas to younger omegas. Even in the beta stages, the app had been making the news with talk of its success rate and where it could go in the future.

  Where it had gone was right here in NYC after Logan invested his money into it, but with a twist. NYC wasn’t Seattle. There was no end to the sexual opportunities here, if a person knew where to look. A dating app, even with a purpose like Almega, wasn’t going to cut it, so he’d proposed the development of an alternate version with a distinct big-city flavor.

  The opportunity had been too good to pass up and I’d given him my approval, helped him with the funding so the developer he’d hired could get to work.

  “Right, right,” I said, the flash of memories abating enough for me to speak. “How’s that going?”

  “Fantastically, actually.” I heard a grin enter his voice. “Even in the beta stage and having to adapt the algorithm to the exact opposite of its original purpose, Aaron is getting amazing results.”

  “That’s great! I’m happy about that. Remind me what you decided to call it again?”

  “East Coast Sugar Daddies.”

  “Blunt,” I noted.

  “Truthful,” Logan countered, and I had to agree about that. It was definitely truthful, if a bit too on-the-nose. In my experience, the general public preferred double-talk and euphemisms. “Do you know how many people casually wonder if having a sugar daddy would solve all their problems? They’ll flock right to the app, no questions asked.”

  Alarmed, I asked, “You aren’t promising that, are you?”

  “Of course not. But you know that’s going to be the major draw. With Aaron’s skills, he’ll be able to weed out all the scammers and give people the connections they always imagined. Everyone’s needs will be satisfied. It’s going to be huge, Win. Take my word for it. We were not wrong on this.”

  Sugar daddy…

  For some reason, the term resonated with me, catching in my thoughts and bouncing around inside my head. I knew the special change Logan made to the app’s function was to make it more specific. People in this city loved their niche products. Instead of pairing any old alphas and omegas together, the point was to match wealthy alphas with omegas who wanted to be pampered. Sex was implied, although individuals were expected to sort out the parameters of their relationships themselves. At the time, I hadn’t thought much about what that meant, except to be in favor of it.

  Now, though, considering the problem I was facing, I wondered…

  “I wasn’t just calling to tell you that, though.”

  “Oh?” My heart pounded for a reason I didn’t want to think about. Excitement? Fear?

  “Yeah, the thing is, Aaron’s always looking for people to sign up for the app. The more, the merrier. He’s been asking me if there’s anyone I know who would like to sign up. I know you enjoy doing this sort of thing on your own time. Why not sign up and help a friend out?”

  I closed my eyes, my heart beating even faster as I finally identified the emotion I felt. Excitement. This could solve my problem. Instead of having to constantly search for an available omega to spend time with, I would have this app to do the searching for me, through a pre-determined database of handsome young men who’d all been deemed acceptable and trustworthy. Maybe I would find someone I clicked with, someone I could spend more time with, spoiling them more often. Anything, anything at all to avoid experiencing that low, throbbing loneliness again.

  “Sign me up,” I said.

  3

  Theo

  I was able to crunch some numbers and find a few extra dollars to spend on food. I loaded up on rice and beans and expired bakery bread, and ate like a king for the next few days. It wasn’t exactly the best sort of stuff for a dancer to be eating, but it was food, glorious food, and having my stomach full did a whole hell of a lot to improve my mood and my dancing ability.

  Christie noticed and made small approving comments that told me she really had been worried about me, and even our instructor praised me.

  “You must be feeling inspired today,” he had said. “You’re dancing your heart out!”

  And I had
laughed and agreed, and then I had cried in the shower after class, my heart aching from how awful it was to have to pretend to be okay when everything was just not. It didn’t matter that I had food right now. It didn’t matter that my stomach was full. It didn’t matter how hard I danced or how often I did, because I wasn’t going to get some sort of miraculous break, and this kind of food wouldn’t sustain me for long, and I was going to get fat, and…

  Every second, with every passing heartbeat, I knew my life was coming closer to ending before it had even started. The weight was so terrible, so crushing, sometimes I froze up and stared off into space without realizing it, which meant I was losing even more time. The only reprieve from dread was at class, in the middle of dances, when all my focus and attention had to be on my body and the movements I made. Everything else seemed unimportant during those routines, because I was dancing, reveling in doing what I loved most. My muscles stretched, my spine curving like a willow tree, my arms and legs flowing like wind and water.

  And then, inevitably, I’d have to stop, and reality would come crashing in again. It never got any easier to face the re-realization, and I even started to dread classes, all the while knowing I’d keep attending them and keep putting myself through the cycle of peace and pain because there was nothing else I could do.

  Today had been another cry-in-the-shower kind of day. I could feel myself breaking, my spine not curved, but bending, about to snap from the strain piling up on top of me. It didn’t help that I’d been so distracted that morning I hadn’t heard my fucking alarm and Christie gave up on me and left without me. I’d had to go through the extra exercises, the pointless poses, the stupid movements, while everyone on the other side of the room perfecting a new step. And that meant I hadn’t had a chance to do the same, and I’d fumbled that part of the routine, and messed it up for everyone else, over and over until the instructor got fed up and told us to break.

  Everyone had stared at me, glared at me. Even Christie. I’d just stood there and bit my lip to hold back tears until break was over.

  Now, I was leaving the academy and even though there were a lot of people all around me, heading for their cars, no one said a word to me. No one waved at me, or even looked in my direction.

  I tucked my head down and walked faster, letting my feet guide me. I couldn’t bear to look up. I couldn’t bear to let the world see how useless I was…

  Tears rose in my eyes, threatening to spill. My sinuses prickled, the back of my throat tightening around a sudden lump until I couldn’t breathe. My vision blurred and I reached out, grabbed a nearby light pole and leaned against it.

  “Damn drunk,” someone muttered in a disgusted voice as they passed me.

  I’m not drunk, I wanted to plead. Just drowning.

  Stumbling over my own feet, I pushed away from the pole and forced myself to keep going. The word around me was nothing more than indistinct shapes and colors, a hazy nightmare landscape.

  My pocket buzzed suddenly, violently, startling me. I slapped my hand on my thigh and blushed, thinking how stupid that must have looked to the people walking by. My heart in my throat, I walked faster and pulled my phone out to see who was calling me.

  Aaron Gray.

  I started, staring at the name. I knew I was still walking, but I wasn’t consciously moving my legs anymore. They were on autopilot, while the rest of me had been swept away into the past.

  The near past, not like 100 years or anything, but still.

  Aaron and I had been friends ever since we were kids. We even used to live in the same town. His dad had relocated to the city for better job opportunities -something I often thought my own dad should have done- and took Aaron with him. We had still met up every now and again for birthdays and such though, and that was how I’d wound up falling in love with the city.

  I hadn’t been in touch since I’d told him I was moving here. Too busy. Too tired.

  I knew I shouldn’t answer, that I wasn’t really in the right condition to have a friendly conversation, but screw it. I deserved a break from feeling like shit, and talking to Aaron always had that effect on me.

  I answered. “Hi, Aaron.”

  “Hey!” he said, his voice like a pat on the back. Friendly, casual. Some of the tension dissolved from my muscles and I relaxed, which made me aware of the awkward, slouched position I’d been forcing my muscles into. Not good. “Theo! How have you been?”

  “I’ve been living,” I answered. I forced myself to sound chipper, so he’d take it as a joke instead of an admittance that I hadn’t been doing anything except existing and taking up space. “What about you?”

  “I’m great. I’ve been working on this huge project.”

  I frowned, trying to remember what he did as a job. “For your dad?”

  “No. I quit working for him. This project, it’s kind of a… Well, it’s hard to explain over the phone. It’s been keeping me busy though, for sure. I meant to call you sooner.”

  “That’s okay.” I glanced both ways before crossing the street and then hurried out through a gap in traffic. Even though I was clearly paying attention and not blindly jabbering on my phone, the driver of an oncoming car flipped me off anyway. That didn’t bother me like it used to. Guess I had bigger problems now to put things like that in perspective. “I’ve been really busy, too.”

  “How’ve your classes been?”

  I grimaced, my stomach twisting. “Dancy.”

  Aaron chuckled. “You never change.”

  You won’t be saying that in a few months. Big changes ahead, Aaron. You probably won’t even be able to recognize me soon.

  Just thinking of what was going to happen to me…

  I tasted bile on my tongue and swallowed hard.

  “Anyway, what are you doing tonight?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Me neither, for once. You want to meet up for dinner? I know this diner. Joe’s Grill. I go there at least once a week. It reminds me of home.”

  Home. The last thing I wanted was to be reminded of home, and Dad, who had endured this same fate as me.

  “Sure,” I lied. “It sounds great. I need like half an hour to get home and shower, first. I’ve been dancing all day and I don’t think they’d let me in.”

  “It’s a diner, not a five-star restaurant.”

  “I know,” I said, and made an exaggerated sniffing sound into the phone. “That’s how bad it is.”

  Aaron laughed. “Okay. I’ll text you the address. Meet you there around 7?”

  I agreed and hung up before I could consider backing out. I had to take the chance to have fun while I was still able.

  Now that I had a purpose in mind, I was able to pick up my pace and make it back to my apartment. I dumped my bag on the bed and stripped off my clothes. Heading into the bathroom, I turned the shower on and hopped inside. Warm water hit my skin, soothing my strained muscles and washing away the stress I’d been feeling. I stood there under the spray for a minute, just breathing. Steam wreathed in the warm air, white curls of vapor that rose from my skin.

  I wished I could stay in there forever, not thinking, just being, with the sound of the spray in my ears blocking out the rest of the world. If only I had the money to afford that kind of water bill.

  Opening my eyes, I leaned back and wiped my eyes, since some of the water streaming down my cheeks tasted suspiciously like salty tears. I grabbed the bottle of shampoo off the shelf and squeezed a tiny dollop into the palm of my hand, trying to stretch the contents as much as I could. I washed my hair, the sweet clean scent perfuming the humid air.

  I rinsed out my hair and picked up the body wash, pouring some onto a loofah and working it to a lather. I started washing, letting the foamy soap run down my body, but when I got to my stomach, something inside me paused. My flat, smooth, muscular stomach, the product of a lifetime of self-care and healthy habits. My skin was softly tanned from all the time I used to spend outside, without a single blemish or scar. A trail of thin, so
ft hairs led down from my belly button to my groin.

  If the pregnancy test was to be believed, and I knew it was, a microscopic bundle of cells was in there right now, growing and growing. I could keep my flat, firm tummy for a little while, two months, maybe three if I was lucky. I was too slim to expect to hide my pregnancy any longer than that. My dance clothes wouldn’t fit by that point. I’d be blowing up like a balloon, gaining fat and slowing down while my stomach doubled, tripled in size, stretching my skin. My perfect, flawless skin.

  I swallowed hard and put my hand on my stomach. I didn’t feel anything except my stomach and felt stupid for even trying.

  I hurried through the rest of my shower and hopped out, and got dressed in record time to avoid anymore disassociation moments with my own body. A flashing light on my phone told me I had a new message, which turned out to be the address Aaron promised. Joe’s Grill was close to my apartment, I realized, a little shock going through me. It was even closer than the dance academy, just in the opposite direction. I loved diners. Loved them. I hadn’t even known this one was there and that saddened me. It wasn’t my intention to come to the city and be so busy I never had time to explore.

  Shaking off the sadness as best as I could, I went back down to the lobby and set off in the direction of the diner.

  Be happy. You’re going to see your friend. Your best friend at this point, probably. You’re going to walk in there and you’re going to smile and crack a terrible joke. Everyone in the restaurant will laugh. And things will be okay.

  I repeated the words like a mantra, each step a syllable.

  The sun was setting as I reached the diner, the sky ribbonned with streams of filmy gold and pink. Back in the country, this would be the perfect time to find a spot under a tree and watch the shifting colors turn moody and purple with twilight. The first star of the night always appeared at that time, on the cusp between light and dark.