Page 40 of Vicious Arrangement
She nods and leaves. Then I head out too.
On Washington Street,there’s a bar: Every Second Sunday, I like to go and drink. It’s dark woods and narrow, no nonsense with low lights. And it’s quiet, a neighborhood place where I could be the hottest movie star on the planet and no one would blink. I slide into a seat at the near empty bar and Jenny comes over, one of the bartenders.
“How’s it hanging, Noah?”
“Somewhere between hell and the dark beyond.”
“That good, huh?” She takes down the top-shelf bourbon, Black Dirt, and pours me a glass, adding a single ice cube the way I like it. “The usual.”
“Thanks.”
All the staff know me here, and it’s out of any kind of spotlight. I never bring women here. Jenny leaves me alone to drink in silence, correctly judging my mood.
I take a deep swallow, letting the warm liquor wind through me and ease the tension throb in my head and back of my neck.
Regardless of how I know I did today, of how I handled it all, it was also my first real day as the president of the company. Not the CEO, the president.
It’s insane to me thinking that’s where I am by birth. No matter that I still worked fucking hard to get here.
And it’s just as insane that I fought my way to CEO, and nothing, but nothing would make Oscar move me from third in line to second. Nothing.
Incompetence hangs like a specter over me. I can’t rid myself of it, even though I’m far from that. I’m good at what I do. I might party hard, but I work harder. Even the times I’ve rocked in late, I’ve worked three times as hard as others. I’ve delivered each and every time.
But there are a lot of people waiting for me to fail, starting, I’m more than aware, with Mark Wilson, the vice fucking president.
I’m pretty fucking sure my grandfather promised him the position of president. He expects it either way, and he was livid when my name was announced. What did he expect, the heir to move aside?
But I’m more than aware that on top of the wedding, to keep the position of president—I’d still reap all the rewards if I wasn’t, which isn’t the fucking point—I have to comply all the way with the will and show I can do it. If I fail the marriage part then he gets the job and I stay either CEO or rich boy on granddaddy’s dime for life.
Neither of which sits at all with me.
Not now. Not ever.
And the prick is waiting, watching. Poking.
I don’t need to move my glass for Jenny to take it and refill it before moving back to conversation with the woman at the other end of the bar.
I take a smaller sip, going slow on this one because I don’t want to get wasted, I just want to unwind for a few hours, so I need to pace myself.
But it’s hard. I know what people think of me. How they see me.
To the world, I’m a fuck boy, a player who cares more about having fun than hard work. But that’s not who I am anymore. And when it comes to work, it’s not who I’ve ever been.
And really, I’m not sure I am the player I made myself into, either. Sure, I had fun, but each time left something in me a little colder and reaching for more to try and warm that spot.
Only one person has warmed it, and she’s in my space with her creature from hell.
Christ, I’d drink hard, fucking do cocaine to sober up and show how great a party animal I was and fuck all the pretty, eager, and willing women, avoiding people who meant something because it was all I was good for.
The drunk fuck boy mess helped me forget I’m such a fuck up my father was a monster to me and my mother and that all ended in blood and death. And my grandfather… He looked at me like I was nothing more than my father waiting to happen. He hated me, I know it. He liked others. Not me.
So there must be absolutely something wrong with me.
But now he’s gone, and I’m not interested in getting wasted and doing drugs. I’m not interested in fucking a different girl each night if I chose to. So where the fuck does that leave me?
There are kink clubs online, kink meeting places. I like tying someone up, but I keep myself from that and other things I fear I might like in case the girl tells the media.
And that was before I got myself the prettiest fucking, sharpest tongued, smart girl around. One that’s hot as fuck.
