Page 158 of Rage

Happy Hunting

By: Molly Briar

Chapter One

Jazz

“Imust, respectfully, decline.” I spoke with as much dignity as I could muster as I stared at the large diamond he thrust towards me.

The atmosphere was glorious. The Grand Kintyre always was. The food was amazing, but Feldon’s proposal was complete shit.

The ring was beautiful. But I detested diamonds.

Why did he have to do thishereof all places? Why did he have to make his move over appetizers? Couldn’t he wait until the digestif, at least? Then he wouldn’t have soured my appetite.

The Grand Kintyre was one of the few places in the city with a decent adobo, and he wasruining it!A sin that was, frankly, far more egregious than his proposal, and certainly worse than the infidelity that was pushing him to bend the knee.

I wouldn’t give money to the Green family if it weren’t for the food. The Greens had a choke hold on New York that was hard to crack, but wehadto crack them if we were to put a toe hold in the city at the center of the universe.

“Jazz, it didn’t mean anything.” Feldon Lauder, my soon to be ex-beau, reached out to touch my hand. I withdrew. “It was a mistake. You and I? We’re the real deal!”

Did he know that he’d been caught? Probably. Photos surfaced of him with a young broadway starlet surfaced on Page Six. I’d quietly revoked his privileges to enter the Barkada building, as well as the Barkada Tower, where he’d been staying rent-free for the past year.

A place that he’d brought his conquest to. I wasn’t offended. I was astonished at the audacity.

“Dom Papa Rum,” I ordered from the waiter as he brought me my entree.

Feldon had been too flustered to look at the menu and had ordered what I had. Now he scrunched his nose at the savoury, vinegar and soy sauce stew, draped over a beautiful dome of white rice.

I hadn’t confronted him. I was here, with him, because it was in the books. And I would never cancel on food from my home country that had earned Michelin stars.

I picked up my fork and took a deep inhale and groaned in delight.Just like Mama made it…

“Listen, we don’t need to change anything,” Feldon said, with an earnest smile.

Did he have any fucking idea how annoying he was?

Hope flickered in his eyes.He really thought things were going to go his way.

Again, the audacity!

Feldon Lauder had been exactly what I had wanted. A pretty fool. Not too smart, not too dumb. Dull. Weak. Nothing that could distract me.

Even his infidelity was boring.

He did nothing that would tax my overburdened brain.

I groaned, as I speared a small bite of chicken skin into my mouth, drooling at the familiar flavors. In the saltiness, I could taste the bittersweetness of the past; the melancholy ache of memories.

“Well?” Feldon snapped his fingers in front of my face.

Rude. It was clear that I would be unsatisfied today, in probably more ways than one.

“Well, what?” I sighed.

“Is that all you have to say? Just…” he wrinkled his nose, before he mocked, “I respectfully decline?”

I wished I was as stone-faced as my eldest brother, Jareth. He could shake a man’s hand, and stab them in the heart without so much as a blink.

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