by Tara Brent
And with that, she was gone.
Easton stared straight ahead, bewildered and infuriated. He pulled out the Yamazaki again and poured himself a bigger glass than he should have, proceeding to guzzle it down. He shuddered slightly despite the high quality. Her words smoldered in his ears, while her beauty taunted his mind’s eye.
He suddenly snapped and hurled the glass against the wall, shattering everywhere and spilling what little remained of the whiskey.
Nancy burst into the room. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah… I’m fine,” said Easton. “Just felt like smashing something.”
“So, no deal then?”
He snorted. “All in good time. She wants to think about it. I just got ahead of myself, started thinking past the deal instead of focusing on the move at hand. That whole thing about thinking three steps ahead in chess? Not sure if it’s a good strategy for me.” He sighed and sat down on his desk. “Come over here,” he patted his lap. “And close the door.”
She hesitated. “I’m not sure if—”
“Here. Now.” He insisted firmly.
She obeyed, closing the door and made her way towards him, fidgeting with her hands but suppressing a slight smile.
Easton rested his hand on her inner thigh and caressed up and down.
“You know we shouldn’t,” she whispered.
“Do I strike you as the kind of man who gives half a shit about what I should or shouldn’t do?” he demanded. He felt flames in his veins as she kissed his neck. Moments later, he lifted her into the air. She gave a quick squeal before finding herself on her back on his desk, barely noticing that her panties had found their way across the room, lying among the shards of glass and drops of whiskey.
***
Easton fidgeted with the steering wheel of his 2017 BMW i8 before finally building the willpower to get up and head into the hospital. He had changed since earlier, wearing a hoodie and sunglasses. He was aware that he was dressed in some twisted Unabomber chic, but this was one situation in which he did not want to be recognized.
He went inside, discreetly signed in, and made his way to where they were giving the chemo treatment to his half-brother, Hayden.
When Easton was just shy of three years old, his mother passed away. His father, Chet, went on a bender. New women came and went every night, or so Easton had later been told. One of them was a Filipino model whose name Easton didn’t even recall. The result of the encounter was another son. After throwing lawyers and money at her, Chet won full custody, and none of them ever saw her again—not even in the magazines in which she used to flaunt herself.
And that’s how Easton got a baby brother and best friend in the making.
A best friend who was now sitting, scrawny and exhausted, having medically approved poison seeping into him while he read We the Living.
“Hey buddy,” said Easton.
Hayden grinned through sleepy eyes, folding the page of his book. “Hiya bro. How’s your day been?”
“Bit of a mixed bag,” he said. “Totally botched a deal that could have changed the company forever. I have a second chance but it’s not looking great. On the other hand, I banged my secretary on my desk, so, there’s that.”
“Typical Easton. You get laid and you still manage to sulk about life not being completely perfect.”
“Hey, not all of us have your sunny outlook on life!” They laughed.
“Yankees are on,” said Hayden. “I was wrapped up in my book now that you’re here, care to watch a few innings?”
Easton smiled. “Sure, buddy.”
As Easton reached for the clicker, Hayden began to have a coughing fit. Easton dropped to a knee and grasped his brother’s hand. “You’re ok pal, just settle, breathe slow, breeeeaaathe,” said Easton. After a minute, Hayden finally settled down. “You scared me there bud,” said Easton, trying to hide how shaken he was.
Hayden too refused to show any fear or anxiety. “It’s whatever. Just put the game on and let’s chill.” And so they did.
But even as they cheered on their team and snapped in frustration whenever an error was made, Easton’s mind kept going back to the look in Alex MacTaggart’s eyes as she dismissed him, and he knew that he no longer just needed to have her store.
He needed to have her.
Chapter 3
“Ah, you sliced right,” mused Alex’s best friend, Lionel, staring at her golf ball soaring through the air.
“Shut up,” pouted Alex, “or I’ll slice you!”
Lionel laughed. “You have always been a sore loser.”
“Which is why I never lose,” she clapped back.
“Only at golf,” he murmured snarkily.
“What was that?” Alex demanded, eyeing him with annoyance.
“Hmm? I said nothing! I merely said ‘Oh my, a wolf,’ but then I realized that my eyes must have been playing tricks on me.”
Alex rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I’m in a bad mood.”
“Still?” queried Lionel.
“What do you mean ‘still?’”
“I mean it’s been a week since you met with Easton Cooper and ever since you’ve been… I’m sorry, English isn’t my native tongue, what’s a better word for ‘bitchy’?”
Alex suppressed a smirk. “Bite me. And I have not!”
“You have so! Also, quiet a minute, I need to focus.” Lionel licked his finger to test the wind and lined up his shot.
Midway through his swing, Alex coughed out “Haiti sucks!” His ball hooked left. As he scowled at her, she smirked and said: “Aw, such a bummer.”
“You are a cruel woman, Alex MacTaggart,” he replied, smirking in spite of himself.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she laughed, “and besides, you still love me anyway, Lionel Baptiste.”
“Could you two lovebirds get a move on?” came a voice from behind them. “Some of us are waiting.”
Alex turned to see two preppy yuppies in ill-matching outfits standing impatiently. Lionel cocked an eyebrow. “Lovebirds you say? I’m sorry, mesmerizing though she may be, she isn’t my type.” He scanned the one who spoke from head to toe. “You might be, though.”
The speaker stiffened up and all three of them went red; him from embarrassment, the one on his right from righteous fury, and the one on his right from failing to suppress his laughter.
“So sorry to sully your course, little boys,” said Alex. She took Lionel’s arm and sauntered off, sighing with a grin, letting the heat from the sun wash over her face. “Nothing rattles uppity white boys’ more than strong black women and confident black queers,” she said fancifully.
“I take exception to that term,” said Lionel. “I much prefer the term ‘Puff,’ as it reminds me of my Hogwarts days.”
Alex snorted. “Yeah, you are definitely a Hufflepuff,” she conceded. “Patience, kindness, loyalty, hard-working, tolerance, you’ve got it all, babe.”
“I have to be tolerant if I’m going to stay friends with your Slytherin ass,” he responded.
“Hey!” she snapped defensively. “Pottermore is totally rigged. And besides, what’s so wrong with determination, ambition, resourcefulness…”
“Moving back to reality and speaking of uppity white boys,” interjected Lionel, “I want to know more about this whole Easton Cooper situation.”
“There’s nothing to talk about!” she cried back. He pursed his lips at her; she groaned. “Okay fine. There’s not that much to say; I mean, he’s another entitled prick who looks at me and doesn’t see me as someone who could possibly run a company on the scale that I do. A young black woman in charge of a major business he wants to buy? It’s beyond his wildest imaginings.”
“Maybe,” said Lionel, “or he recognizes that the system is rigged in favor of people who are white and have penises… so long as those penises don’t interact with other penises. Seventy percent of senior executives are white men. Five percent of CEOs are women, and four percent are people of color.
He probably grew up waiting around outside his dad’s office, bored out of his mind, and when the meeting ended—late as usual—who do you think poured out of the room?”
She crossed her arms. “A bunch of white dudes. But come on, that’s no excuse!” She began to list on her fingers. “It’s 2018.” (One.) “He knew he had a meeting with Alex MacTaggart at noon.” (Two.) “Alex on its own is a gender-neutral name, and I showed up at noon.” (Three.) “While I certainly keep a low profile, someone with his resources looking to buy my company should have done his homework.” (Four.) “Even when he figured out who I was, he was still rude and dismissive. And that’s five and I am getting too irritated to move on to my other hand!”
Lionel moved behind her and massaged her shoulders and neck. “Settle down sweetheart. I’m not saying that he’s Prince Charming or Sir Lancelot—”
“Why not, they’re both white assholes too,” muttered Alex.
“—I’m just saying that you’re judging a man’s entire character based on one bad meeting wherein he was, justifiably or not, caught off-guard. Like you, he is an uncharacteristically young CEO. And you did your homework too, right? You know that, while at first glance he may seem like a trust-fund brat, he and his brother got emancipated from their father, right? No inheritance. Sure, his name and lineage carried weight and helped get him where he is now, but that doesn’t change the fact that he put in a grand abundance of ferociously hard work to become the man he is now.” Lionel cocked his head to one side. “You two aren’t as different as you may like to think you are.” He paused, and stroked his chin, smirking. “Plus, he’s quite hot.”
“Oh yeah no he’s completely gorgeous,” she admitted bluntly, “no doubt. I just wish that he could have done something to prove me wrong. I head over to his building thinking ‘well this one is from my generation, maybe he’ll be different,’ but nope! More of the same crap I’ve dealt with my entire damn life.”
Lionel shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe he’ll prove you wrong.”
“I hope he does,” she said. “I’m certainly giving him the opportunity. I just hope he takes it, but without making it seem like he’s trying.”
“You are a difficult woman to please,” said Lionel.
“Slytherin sore losers with a chip on their shoulder and way too much to prove usually are,” she laughed. “All right, it’s your stroke.”
“Okay, but no yelling this time. I am warning you!” He said, his Creole accent poking through a bit more than usual.
She made a “zipped lips gesture,” and he readied himself. She thought back on her encounter with Easton. He was one hundred percent a prick through and through, but she still sensed something in him. But until he revealed what that was, all she had to fall back on was faith in humanity, and as she had to duck out of the way of a golf ball one of the yuppies had apparently hit her way, that was not something to have served her well throughout her 29 years of life.
Chapter 4
The nights bled together for Easton Cooper and… he was bored of it.
“Oh my god are you Easton Cooper?” the nameless woman cooed in his ear as he put his drink to his lips.
He stared ahead. “Nope,” he replied.
“Well,” she said, “Even if you’re not him, you’re about as sexy and you can afford a drink in this place so I imagine you’re the next best thing!”
He sighed. “I appreciate women bold enough to come up to me,” he said, “and let’s be honest: any other evening, I’d have you sitting on my face within the hour. But tonight? Keep imagining.” He pulled out a wad of cash and left it on the bar. “That oughta cover my tab, your next cocktail, and a fat tip for the bartender. Don’t steal any of it; it’s unbecoming.” He marched out, leaving her speechless.
The night air hit his face with such crisp freshness that the effects from his far-too-many cocktails momentarily seemed to wash away. Then he took another step forward, stumbled slightly, and decided that driving wasn’t going to be an option tonight. Well, crap, he thought. Now what? “And how have I not hired someone for stuff like this?” he murmured absently to himself. Easton could easily have a car ready to pick him up in minutes, but that meant leaving his own car unprotected in the middle of a metropolis in the dead of night; not something he was especially keen on doing. Scowling, he made a point next time he was sober enough to just fully embrace cliché rich-boy nonsense and hire a damn butler or something.
He finally decided to take a walk, hoping to sober up. Nothing like city air and fast food to offset whiskey, he thought, pensively amused.
Unfortunately for Easton he made a left instead of a right and found himself on a particularly bleak avenue. More unfortunate still, he wasn’t alert enough to realize that he was in any immediate danger. So rather than keep his eyes up and focus, he elected to pull his phone out of his pocket. He googled “Alex MacTaggart” and then clicked on News. He abruptly stopped walking, reading intently. “Son of a gun…” he murmured to himself.
Suddenly, his phone was knocked from his hand.
Easton felt an adrenaline spike as his fight-or-flight went from zero to a hundred, but between the alcohol and the surprise, neither really worked, so he just ended up standing there, clumsily awkward, a gun in his face. “Wallet and watch!” snapped the surprisingly youthful voice.
Easton tore his eyes away from the gun to look his assailant in the face. There was little to see in the darkness, particularly with the hoodie pulled over his head and sunglasses over his eyes.
“You see okay in those?” Easton blurted out; even in his inebriated state, he immediately suspected that was a mistake. He quickly had that suspicion confirmed when the gun slapped across the side of his face, knocking him to the pavement where he bumped his head.
“Did I stutter? Wallet! Keys! NOW!!”
Easton touched his cheek where the gun struck him and winced. It was already getting swollen, and he could feel blood on his hands. He suspected he was bleeding from the back of his head as well but decided this was not the ideal time for a self-examination.
He pulled out his wallet and threw it forward.
“WATCH TOO!”
“Yeah yeah I’m working on it,” muttered Easton irritably, fidgeting with his wrist. “Here. It doesn’t even tell time well you little—” but he was cut off by a kick in the ribs. The sharp pain was very, very nasty and he fell to his side. He watched the mugger pick up the discarded phone, seemingly unbothered by the cracked screen, and run off into the night.
Easton laid on his back and breathed painful gasps, staring up at the night sky and wishing the city’s light pollution didn’t blot out the stars so badly. Eventually, he rose to his feet, even more wobbly than usual, and staggered down the street. After several excruciating minutes, he reached a more populated area and saw a welcome sight: the golden arches.
Easton made his way inside the largely deserted McDonald’s. There was an obese mom with a kid in a stroller eating a 20-piece McNuggets with a double quarter pounder with cheese (complete with a large fries and large soda) sitting at a counter by the window; a homeless person who smelled like he was wearing eau de urine slumped over a table to his right; two kids in their late teens waiting for their order at the front. Easton made his way to the counter. The cashier, a portly, elder Hispanic woman, looked him up and down, raised an eyebrow, and then said, “May I take your order?”
Easton grimaced. Guess there’s nothing she hasn’t seen before.
“Well, I just got mugged, and I was hoping someone could call a ride for me, or even give me a ride home.”
“I drive, you pay lots,” she said.
Easton let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you! As soon as we’re back to my place I promise to pay up.”
“Money first.”
“I don’t have any money,” he said, and then laughed to himself. “Huh, never thought I’d say that… but I don’t have anything now. But I’m good for it! Do you know who I am?” Her response was little more than a b
lank stare. Getting agitated, he said, “Listen, pull out your phone.”
“No phone on shifts.”
“Oh please, nobody follows that rule. Come on, take it out and google ‘Easton Cooper.’”
“Easton Cooper??” she replied, eyes wide. “You bad boy! Very very bad boy!”
“Yeah well, don’t believe everything you read,” he said, flustered. Ow! My face really hurts! “But you see, I just got mugged, and I’m tipsy, and I need a ride home. I don’t have any money or my phone or anything
“No! You womanizer! You bring me to your sex dungeon like Christian Grey!”
“What? No!”
“What? I no good enough for sex dungeon?!”
“I DON’T EVEN HAVE A SEX DUNGEON!”
“I’m just messing with you,” she finally said, her voice relaxed and silky. “Yeah, I’ll give you a ride when my shift ends. As I said, it’s not for an hour though. So: may I take your order, por favor?”
“I don’t have any money.”
“I’ll pay for your meal dummy you just pay me back later. Preferably in your sex dungeon.”
“Um… I don’t know if…”
“GOD you are gullible. Just give me cash when we get there.”
“Oh, right, yeah, no problem.
“And one more thing…” She pulled out her phone. “I want you to look into the camera and say ‘I’m Easton Cooper, and Camila Sanchez saved my life tonight, hashtag working-class-heroes.’”
Easton looked at her with sulky eyes. “Seriously?”
“I want to be Instagram famous! Now, camera’s rolling.”
He sighed. “I’m Easton Cooper, and Camila Sanchez saved my life tonight.” He pursed his lips, and finally muttered, “hashtag working-class-hero.”