by R. S. Elliot
I waited until she was out of sight and then covered my face as the grief hit me in waves.
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Chapter Five
Aiden
Present Day
The sun streamed through my windows and onto my face, stirring me out of a restless night's sleep. The girl beside me in bed stirred, letting out a soft moan as she pushed her long black hair out of her face. I couldn't remember her name, but as the sheets slipped off her shoulders to reveal the full curve of her breasts and the smooth expanse of her stomach, I remembered the connection we had shared in the bar last night. Weighted glances had turned into exchanged words which had turned into furtive touches in the back of a taxi and desperate, passionate sex in my king bed. I think she worked in journalism or PR. It was hard to keep these things straight.
"Hey," she said sleepily, nuzzling up beside me. She started rubbing a cool palm in circles on my back, but I hardly glanced over. I had already plucked my phone up from the bedside charger and was flipping through the news headlines and any work emails that had come through while I was asleep.
"Morning," I said politely. "Sleep well?"
"Oh yeah," she said, stretching luxuriously. She arched her back a bit, showing off her tight figure. "Hard and deep."
"Good," I said, tossing off the covers. I had slept in a little longer than I intended to, and there was plenty to be done before I started my workday. I had anticipated logging some overtime hours from home last night before getting distracted by a nice pair of legs and pretty brown eyes at the bar, and I was eager to make up for the lost time.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up but was stopped by a pair of manicured hands sliding around my waist and up my pecs. My bedmate kissed a little trail up my neck, her breath hot on my skin.
"Heading out so soon?" She asked, a little pout in her voice. I resisted the urge to tell her that if she was going to be a good houseguest and observe the etiquette of one night stands, she would be the one eager to clear out in the morning.
I turned back to her, trying to find some gentler way to tell her that I was a busy man and that this had been fun, but I really had to get back to business as usual, but then she was kissing me, open-mouthed and earnest. I managed to remove myself from the situation only to have her kiss a lazy trail down my chest and stomach before taking my cock in her mouth. I tensed at the warm wetness of her mouth, feeling myself harden at her expert touch, but this wasn't the direction I wanted the morning to go in.
I gently lifted her head and kissed her one more time, a swift kiss of finality, and then stood to get ready for my day.
"I'll have the valet downstairs call a cab for you. Thanks for the company."
I didn't turn to see her expression as I went into the bathroom for my shower. I'd found that being direct with people was the best way to get them to leave in the morning. If she had any sense, she would be gone by the time I got out of the shower.
As it turned out, she didn't have any sense or the ability to read the room. I found a sticky note on the kitchen counter with her name and number, which I knew I would never call.
A glossy new issue of Forbes was waiting for me on the kitchen counter when I finished dressing, along with my mail and a steaming cafe latte from my favorite bistro down the street. Bryan, my personal assistant, had already been by that morning to make his usual delivery. He would be on his way over to the Carrier Solutions building now to set up my calendar and appointments for the day. He worked ten hour days most weeks, making himself available to my every whim and need, but that seemed appropriate since I often worked twelve. If he kept up his work ethic, he might make something great of himself someday.
I flipped through my magazine as I nursed my coffee, scanning the table of contents for names and companies I knew. I would do a more thorough read later, pouring over the articles for insight into industry trends and who the new thought leaders were, but for now, I was just trying to absorb a little news before heading to the office.
I saved my article for last, flipping the magazine back over to look at the picture they had captured of me for the cover. It wasn’t the first time a magazine had featured me; I had been featured on the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in previous years and in plenty of other regional business magazines. Rolling Stone had even interviewed me once about my collection of vintage private planes. But this was a full multi-page write-up about my rise to fame, charting my ascension from a nobody with no college degree and no industry connections to one of the most influential names in sports management. I skimmed through the article extolling my cooperation with sports teams and marketing companies in order to get the best corporate partnerships for the athletes I worked with. It never got old, seeing my name in print next to the names of some of the greats, the people I had looked up to while I was working my way up to their level. But there was a certain level of satisfaction that came with the cover spot, with dominating a magazine devoted to the most aggressive and successful people in the business world. Winning felt good. It always did.
The magazine had a romanticized view of my life, sure. It was enamored with the private homes all over the world, the cars, the planes, and the game-changing corporate mergers that had shaken the stock exchange. Most of all, they were interested in the fruits of my labor, not the process it took to get there. There were a few throwaway lines in the article about me being a workaholic, about how I rose before the sun and was often one of the last people to leave my office at night, but they still didn’t grasp the back-breaking work and honed power of will it had taken to make a name for myself in this industry.
Graduating high school with no college plans and no job prospects had been rough. I had gone to work under my uncle who ran a small, struggling independent contracting business, and he could barely keep his doors open, much less pay me a living wage. But I had busted my ass dragging his business up to standard, and soon after I started working there, it was in the black and making a profit. Even though contracting had almost nothing to do with sports management, the basic principles of running a business were the same, and I had devoted myself to learning everything I could about becoming successful as an entrepreneur during my tenure under my uncle. At the same time, I crammed my brain with everything I could learn about the business end of sports, and I took coaches, sports agents, players, and sports marketers out to dinner to pick their brains about how they had established themselves in their field.
Once people realized how serious I was, they were eager to pass on their sage advice. Through much trial and error, a lot of my own money sunk into the startup costs associated with becoming an LLC, marketing my services, and getting a website up and running, I had started to take on small local clients. After that, it had been exponential growth. More and more teams started to inquire about my services, and I was able to bring on staff and expand my operation into offering an even better package for the clients interested in working with us. Within a few years, I had achieved something I had only ever dreamed of before; an up-and-running office in New York City with me in charge, and enough flowing revenue to afford the overhead with plenty left over to spare.
The papers and the magazine interviews like to present success as something that came naturally to me, as though good luck and high profits were just drawn to me like bees to honey, but I knew that wasn’t true. I fought and bled and sacrificed for every single client I had won and every single dollar I had made. Nothing about success was easy, but that made it all the more satisfying at the end of the day when I ended up holding all the cards. People often hypothesized that I was single-minded and work-obsessed, and they would be right. There was no room in my heart for anything else, and I didn’t give my attention away to anything
that didn’t give me some material benefit in return. Which was why I occasionally went out of my way to secure a one-night-stand but never bothered with dating or chasing illusions of love. I had learned my lesson in high school that love was just a fantasy, something immaterial that people were willing to throw their lives away for. When the chips were down, the bonds of love evaporated, and all you were left with was what you had managed to build and hoard for yourself with your own two hands.
I had taken my best shot at love in high school, and I had gotten my world ripped out from under me. It had become obvious to me that relationships built on feelings were insecure and vulnerable to the demands of the real world. All the fairy tales we told ourselves about true love and self-sacrifice were just there to cover up the ugly truth; relationships were, at the end of the day, a transaction. We exchanged affection for shelter, sex for money, time for attention and praise, and our fidelity for the security of a future in which we didn’t have to die alone. Anyone who couldn’t see that was just deceiving themselves in order to make themselves feel better.
I flipped through the last few pages of the article, resolving to read it later when I had a little bit more free time. It was anyone’s guess when that would be, but I liked to tell myself that I would get to things like reading and sleeping full nights and taking time off work someday, even though I knew it was probably just wishful thinking. The few friends that I had managed to forge and keep during my rise to the top understood that about me, and they generally knew better than to invite me out to cocktail nights or idle weekends in the Hamptons. They had to be satisfied with the occasional appearance I made at weddings and birthdays, and the cards and enclosed gift cards I sent on any other minor occasion.
Sometimes, I made time for phone calls, generally between rushing from meeting to meeting. This was one of those moments, and I dialed one of my old friends from the earliest part of my career. Luke and I ran in the same circles and had risen to prominence in our respective fields around the same time, though Luke had more of a reputation in the papers as an impossible-to-please Draconian leader. I was regarded as more of a work-addicted wunderkind who had never met a problem he couldn't fix. Despite our difference in leadership style, we liked each other upon first meeting, and I had a soft spot for his new wife, Emily. He lived in Staten Island now with Emily and their newborn baby. I had promised to call and give my congratulations to go along with the fruit basket and baby bundle I had shipped in from one of the upscale parenting boutiques in Manhattan. It was the kind of place that sold two hundred dollar handmade linen onesies and hypoallergenic cloth diapers printed with designer patterns.
"Aiden!" Luke said after picking up on the fourth ring. He sounded exhausted but pleasantly surprised, which is about what I had expected.
"Luke," I said, locking my condominium door behind me as I swept down the long hallway towards the elevator down to the parking garage. "How the hell are you?"
There was a woman’s voice murmuring softly in the background and the mewling of a fussy infant. I realized I had probably caught the whole family asleep in bed since it was awfully early for the parents of a tiny child to be awake. Then again, they probably weren’t getting much sleep to begin with.
"Deliriously happy, but tired. So. Just delirious, I guess."
"How’s Emily?"
"About the same."
"And the baby? How’s little…" I faltered as I rode the lightning-fast elevator down to the ground floor. I realized I didn’t even know what the gender of the baby was, or what they had ended up naming it. It was probably the sort of thing best friends were supposed to keep track of, but I wasn’t exactly a very good friend. I was good at being a CEO, an expansionist, a businessman. Everything else was secondary.
"Deborah," Luke supplied, sounding only slightly irritated. "We’ll probably call her Debbie until she grows into it."
"Healthy? Everything go well with the birth?"
"Em was in labor for twelve hours, so I’m sure she wouldn't exactly say it ‘well,’ but there were no complications, no. Debbie came out fat and happy and hungry. The doctors tell us that’s about as good as things can go. The three of us have been wiped out since then, but we’re happy."
"Good," I said, rummaging around in my pocket for my car keys. I entered the underground parking deck where my Ferrari was waiting. "I’m happy for the three of you. I’m sorry it took me so long to call."
"It’s alright. I was so busy and sleep-deprived the first week, I probably wouldn’t have answered anyway."
"Well," I said awkwardly as I slid into the leather seats and pulled the door shut behind me. Soon my limited window of free time to socialize would be over. "It sounds like you’re all very happy, so that’s good."
"It is," Luke groaned on the other end, probably hoisting his aching body into a sitting position. I knew parenthood was supposed to age you, but I always thought it happened slowly. Luke already sounded a decade older. "I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, you know? This really puts into perspective what’s important. Emily, the baby—that’s all I need. That’s all that matters."
I could think of a few things that mattered more to me than spending every waking moment with family, but that was probably the difference between Luke and me, and it seemed rude to say it out loud. So instead, I said what I thought most other people would say in a situation like this.
"That sounds great. I’m happy for you."
"Thanks," Luke replied. "It’ll happen for you, Aiden, I’m sure. Everything in the right time."
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. That wasn’t what I had been getting at all. Love, family, marriage, and babies were the furthest things from my mind.
"I appreciate that, but I’m not really in the market to settle down right now."
I could hear movement on the other end of the phone, and then the soft clattering of china. Luke was probably up and moving around the house, putting on coffee for himself and something gentler for his post-natal wife.
"You’re sure you’re not interested in meeting anyone? I’m not talking a wedding and kids, but you’ve been on your own for a while, Aiden. Carrier is hugely successful, and it’s been stable for years now. Maybe it’s time to open up your world to the possibility of other ways to spend your time. Maybe love?"
"You know my opinions on love."
"Yeah, I’ll be sure and tell my wife you think it’s all a sham," Luke said flatly.
"You know I don’t mean it that way. If it works for the two of you, great. But I did my time and gave it my best shot. If there is such a thing as love, and I won’t say that there isn’t since you seem to have found it...it isn’t for me."
"Whatever you say," Luke said with a little chuckle. I could hear him pouring coffee on the other end, and the clink of a spoon stirring around the rim of a coffee cup. "But never say never. Listen, it’s good to hear from you. I appreciate you calling. You’re welcome to come down and visit the baby in a few weeks once we’re back on our feet."
"I appreciate that. I’ll see if I can make time to visit," I lied. Luke probably knew that it was unlikely he would see me in Staten Island anytime soon, but it seemed polite to at least go through the motions.
"We’ll see. The baby’s up now, so I should really put a bottle on for her. But I’ll be in touch. Maybe we can do dinner the next time I’m in the city."
"Maybe," I said, knowing full well the chances of Luke coming all the way into Manhattan for a guys’ night when he had a wife and baby daughter at home were slim to none. But this was just part of the rhythm of our friendship. We would manage, somehow.
I discarded my phone in the passenger seat and revved my car to life. Already, my mind was being pulled towards work, towards the money out there to make and the deals to cut and the people to meet. Pulling smoothly through the garage and out onto the road between towering structures of metal and glass, I slid on my sunglasses and started mentally making my schedule for the day. I had lost a few minutes
on the phone with Luke and intended to make it up at the office, even though I already stayed hours overtime almost every night. I was always willing to put in the work until I got something to succeed, no matter the cost. That was my modus operandi. It had gotten me this far, and it would get me through another day.
Chapter Six
Mia
Gino’s Up-All-Nite Pizzeria and Diner wasn’t the worst place to work in New York City, but it wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, the best. The food was greasy and cheap, the coffee was almost always burnt, and the checkered tiles on the ground were in need of a good scrubbing. The red vinyl of the booths and bar seats was dingy, and the cook always had a bad attitude and sometimes burned the toast, but still, we managed to attract our regulars.
Gino’s serviced a steady trickle of tourists during the day, but at night, our familiar faces appeared for their usual orders. Mostly they were students and barflies and tired working parents who pulled long hours in nocturnal professions like retail, go-go dancing, and bartending. We were their sanctuary in the middle of the long, mean New York night, lighting the way to our cheese-stuffed omelets and cherry pie with a flickering neon sign. The whole Americana late-night diner scene might have been charming, romantic even, if I wasn’t up on my feet for eight hours working a graveyard shift in a scratchy polyester dress. But sadly, under this new schedule, I was, and it was hard to appreciate any of the working-class charm of the place when I was the class doing the working.
Our menu was enormous, pages upon pages of laminated sticky sheets proclaiming everything from New York-style pizza to falafel to gyros to baked ziti to lox bagels with capers and chive cream cheese. The vague ethnic mishmash of the dinner offerings and the ability to modify or alter anything at all on the menu was a big part of Ginos’ appeal, and so were the rock bottom prices. Somehow, I had managed to commit much of the endlessly varied menu to memory during the eight months I had worked here, and that was enough to tell me I had been there long enough. It was just supposed to be a temporary thing to get me back on my feet after the move out here. It wasn’t supposed to turn into a career.