Page 24 of Our Broken Pieces
I could go on and on about hard work and repeat the bullshit speeches I’ve given over the years, but I was driven by a much darker force. I worked myself sleepless to stay ahead of my demons and it didn’t hurt that my IQ was 127 either. Now, while I wasn’t intelligent enough to find the cure for cancer, I was smart enough to create millions out of nothing. And that nothing came in the form of a shattered soul that even my mother, with all her psychiatrist experience, couldn’t help me with. And she tried.
Lord, how she tried.
However, all she got out of the deal was a son who still spoke to her on occasion, even though she called a few times a week. Now, don’t get me wrong. I loved my mother; I loved her so damn much. But my love for her couldn’t drown out the misery that consumed my life. Sure, on paper, I was everything a successful man should be, but darkness was what drove my ambitions, not love.
As for my father, I stopped speaking to him the day I graduated high school. He and my mother were still married, but as far as I was concerned, I only had one parent. I hated my father something fierce, and I made no secret of it as I’d grown older. He also downplayed it for my mother because, the second I had left for college, he quickly realized he couldn’t control me anymore. He knew he had no more leverage to use against me, other than my mother’s happiness and my love for her.
We were engaged in a cold war. I didn’t speak to or about him, and he extended that same curtesy. And my mother stopped asking questions years ago.
Sitting down, I pulled up the Darwin report, and did my best not to groan. Lawrence Darwin needed an investor for his battery longevity creation, which wasn’t a bad product. However, the more I met with the man, the more apparent it was that he just wanted money from someone to make his dream of being rich come true. He didn’t want a partner or an investor really. He wanted someone to lend him all the capital, and in the event his battery was successful, he’d pay it back and just walk away with one hundred percent of the profits.
Yeah.
That wasn’t how it worked.
My cellphone rang, and I saw that it was my best friend, Lorcan Cavanaugh. I answered as he was one of the very few people that I answered the phone for. Unless I was expecting a very specific phone call, I let most of my calls go to voicemail. I didn’t have time for bullshit, and it was near impossible to get someone off the one once they got me on the line.
“What’s up?”
“Where are you?” Before I utter a word, he answered for me. “Oh, never mind. I’m sure you’re at work as always.”
“Empires don’t build themselves, asshole,” I scoffed my retort. “As you should know.”
“They also don’t crumble if you take just one fucking night off, assface,” he tossed back. Little did he know that they could. At least, for me, they could.
“What do you want?”
“Molly’s having a party and I’m supposed to invite you,” he answered.
“A party for what?” Molly was Lorcan’s younger sister and the girl felt that every steppingstone in life deserved a party and I wasn’t a party person. I attended galas and social functions because I had to as CEO of SFH, but that didn’t mean I liked to.
“She got a new job and-”
I couldn’t stop the weighted sigh that rushed out. “Jesus, Lorcan,” I groaned, “a new job?”
Luckily, he also thought Molly’s penchant for throwing random parties was ridiculous, too. “I know, Gage,” he mumbled just as frustrated. “It’s completely stupid, but it’s not like I can stop her.”
I met Lorcan in college, our sophomore year, when he had walked in on me screwing his steady pussy from behind. At the time, I hadn’t known she was his steady pussy, and I hadn’t been keen on fighting with my dick out. But instead of losing his shit, Lorcan had unzipped his pants and had rammed his cock into her mouth. We had used her like the cheating slut she was, and after that, we had ditched her, but had become friends. It was the only time we had ever shared a female, and our life-long pact to call dibs had been made the next morning, and we’ve stuck to it so far.
Lorcan’s been my only real friend since then. I stopped talking to Chance the day he stood with Margot in keeping me from Mystic all those years ago.
“Well, you can quit inviting me,” I suggested, getting back to the subject at hand.
“Fuck that,” he scoffed. “If I have to go to these horrible parties, so do you.”
“You don’t have to go,” I reminded him. “If it’s her birthday or she pops out a kid, fine. But a new job? A hard pass, my friend.”
“Come on,” he pled. “How about if I make her promise not to try to set you up?”
I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn’t see me. Molly’s goal in life-besides living in a puddle of confetti-was to see me and her brother married off to one of her insipid, annoying friends. “Still a hard pass, my friend,” I repeated. “Besides, I’m busy this weekend. I gotta work.”
“I haven’t even mentioned which weekend,” he deadpanned.
“Doesn’t matter,” I threw back. “I’m busy every weekend. For the next few years, as a matter of fact. Actually, probably for the rest of my life.”
“You’re a dick,” he announced as if I already hadn’t known this about myself.
“Maybe,” I conceded. “But I’m a dick who doesn’t have to go to his little sister’s party and make nice with her annoying friends, so I’m thinking I’m okay with that.”
