It was like he was quoting pieces of movies that he thought would be romantic. I had to admit it was a more romantic offer than many of the guys in the bars managed to come up with, but certainly not something I was interested in.
“Braxton, come here,” I said firmly as I motioned for him to stand next to me.
The disappointment in his eyes was clear. I hated to break his heart, but I wasn’t about to sleep with this man who had been my client since he was 15-years-old.
“Don’t give me a speech please,” he replied.
“Hey, if you were a few years older, I might have totally taken you up on this offer,” I said with a smile.
“Shit, now things are going to be awkward aren’t they?”
I knew I had to figure something out to calm the awkwardness. Braxton’s parents pretty much paid my rent with his sessions. I couldn’t afford to have him moving to another vocal coach over this stupid little incident.
“I’m cool if you are. Actually, I’m really flattered. I hadn’t been feeling all that great about myself lately, and now I’m feeling pretty damn good. Maybe we could just call it what it was.”
“What?”
“A good start to our adult friendship. You know this kind of stuff happens with adults all the time. We have to be able to laugh about it and move on.”
“So you really think we can just forget about it?”
“Yep. Now why don’t you head out for the night, and I’ll see you next week where you can tell me all about landing this new gig.”
Reluctantly, Braxton made his way to the door and opened it. He stood tenuously for a moment while he looked back at me. But then he smiled, and I knew we were going to be alright. It was the truth; I was flattered by his flirting, and I didn’t think it would change our relationship all that much. He was a good guy, and I suspected he would get over his little crush on me rather quickly.
“See you next week,” he said loudly as he walked down the hall.
My whole body released its tension as he finally left the room. Was this what I had really come to? Getting hit on by barely legal boys. It was devastating because he was probably the nicest guy I’d had hitting on me in a very long time. I really had to get out more or find some other way to meet guys. I didn’t want to end up that perpetually single woman who actually ended up having affairs with young men to boost her ego. I deserved more than that.
When I had waited long enough to ensure the Phillips family had left, I finally came out of my room. Maybe it was the shame on my face, but Emma knew something was up right away.
“What happened?’
“Oh, nothing much. My teenage student just hit on me and tried to get me to sleep with him.”
“Cool. Should we get going?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yep. Student … flirting … got it.”
“Emma, this is serious! He’s a kid. I am so lonely and pathetic that a teenager had to hit on me for me to actually feel decent about my life.”
“Oh, come on. He’s hot, and his mom and I were talking about his birthday, so I know he was technically an adult. I would have totally banged the guy. I sleep with my clients all the time.”
“Emma!”
It shouldn’t have surprised me that such words were coming out of her mouth. I wasn’t a prude when it came to sex; really I wasn’t. My whole issue was that he had been my student for so long. I still remembered when I was taller than him, and he had pimples all over his face.
“What? Legal is legal.” She laughed as we started on our way to Sins Dance Club. “Plus, compared to that jackass stockbroker who hit on us earlier, I’d take a sweet new adult any day of the week. But you are right, you shouldn’t be going after your students,” she laughed and winked at me.
“Emma, I wasn’t going after him. Okay, let’s change the subject, what exactly did that guy at the bar say anyways? I was distracted by another weird flirting guy for most of the conversation.”
“He was actually pretty funny in a jackass sort of way. He asked if I wanted to rub hot oil on him while he watched porn. It was so outrageous that I couldn’t imagine he was being serious.”
“That’s weird.”
“I think he expected me to laugh, but a guy like him with his kind of money just assumes girls are going to wet their panties when he comes to talk to them. He needed to know I wasn’t going to fall for that crap.”
“Decent guys are seriously disappearing. I really need to get on top of this whole dating thing and find a good guy. Don’t you want someone to grow old with?” I asked.
“Hell no, I want a new hot Latin lover every couple of months to keep me excited throughout my old age.”
We laughed at the idea. Although, I suspected it might be exactly what she really decided to do with her love life as she grew old. Emma wasn’t like me. She was an eclectic dancer who ran her own studio purely because dancing and art were her passion. I doubted she would ever have been happy at any sort of regular job.
I met Emma when I was waitressing at an overnight diner, and she and her girlfriends had come in around four o’clock in the morning. They were all totally drunk, and one of them spilled their coffee three times throughout the night. Emma felt bad that I had been tortured by the group, and although she didn’t have much money for a tip, she offered me free dance lessons.
On a whim, I went to her studio and ended up butchering the Samba in one of her classes. We became close friends after that, and when I told her my dream was to become a vocal coach, she pushed me to make it happen. So without any formal education, I started down the path of teaching others to sing. I was a good singer. In high school, I had made singing my number one priority and won regional and state competitions.
Since starting my own business, I spent the last five years building my own education every chance I got. Most of my clients didn’t ask for credentials or anything like that. To my clients, the proof was in their ability to get Broadway jobs after working with me, and I was damn good at helping them get the jobs.
“Ladies, you’re looking divine as always,” Bruce, the bouncer at Sin Dance Club, said as he pulled the red velvet rope back for us.
“Thanks, Brucy, how’s that woman of yours?” I asked.
“Good, she’s about ready to pop with the twins. Can’t wait to finally have my boys in the house. I’m overrun by females.”
“Take care of her. She’s a good one!”
Bruce was married to a waitress I had worked with at the diner. In the five years since I had left my waitressing job, the two of them had two beautiful girls and now had twins coming. His wife, Jessica, thought the twins were going to be girls, but Bruce was positive they were boys.
“You have to stop being so freakishly nice to everyone,” Emma grumbled as we grabbed a few drinks.
“Okay, how about I try to be more like you and tell them to fuck off when they talk to me.”
“Yes! Do that.” She laughed. “Now let’s dance until we sweat off a few pounds!”
Together we took our regular spot on the dance floor. We ignored everyone in the place and just let the music fill our souls. Dancing at Sins was my favorite. We were comfortable there; we didn’t have to worry about anything and could just close our eyes and dance until the sun started to rise over the tall buildings of Manhattan.
Chapter 3
Wyatt
“I’m thinking about buying some Disney stock; what’s everyone think of that?” Dean Morrison asked at the start of our investment club meeting.
“Are you a teenage girl?” I jokingly asked.
“Come on now; I’m trying to diversify. I can’t just buy big movie studio and gun companies.”
Dean was our resident celebrity. He was in Hallelujah, the longest running Broadway show that year. To him, his time on Broadway symbolized his failure, though. He had been in a dozen or so big named movies and made millions of dollars since he was in his twenties; he had also been in dozens of not so famous movi
es that had done poorly. Now nearing fifty, he had been relegated to Broadway after his managers took off with most of his cash.
His fans still loved him, though, and the show was continually selling out. There was a definite growing as he transitioned from a film actor to a Broadway actor, and I wasn’t sure Dean was totally ready for that. He constantly tried to tell us about the movie scripts he was reviewing and the big named films he was considering being in. But he was 48-years-old; I seriously didn’t think he was going to be headlining any of the major motion pictures. Hollywood still liked the young guys better. Although Dean was clearly in great shape and was probably taking better care of himself at his current age than he had done most of his life.
It was strange as we got older how most of us started to worry about our health more and actually eat healthily. I was no different; even though I was a good ten years younger than Dean, I felt the pull of age on my body and worked slightly harder at making good choices when it came to the foods I put in my mouth.
“Let’s ask Merrick when he gets here,” I suggested.
There was a collective uproar in the room. Merrick had perpetually missed our Sunday meetings, and when he did show up, he was typically still drunk from the night before. If he hadn’t of been the head of a large investment firm, I was sure the guys would have kicked him out a long time before.
The rest of the guys didn’t know Merrick as well as I did, though. I knew he didn’t purposely miss our meetings. Merrick relied on his assistant for absolutely everything he did at work and even what he did outside of work. He didn’t keep track of those things, so when Sunday morning came, he inevitably curled up next to whatever beauty he had brought home the night before.
Ms. Wendy, Merrick’s assistant, had insisted on having every Sunday off. Merrick tried to deny her, but she was a tough lady and didn’t give in. The result was Merrick never getting to any of his Sunday plans unless he was called and reminded. But if his phone was off, and he was asleep, even calling him wouldn’t be enough because the call would go straight to voicemail.
“Hey now, he’s a busy guy,” Ren, the youngest of our group said in defense of Merrick.
“Yeah, like I’m not busy,” Dean chimed in. “I’m doing eight shows a week, television interviews, reading new movie scripts. I’m busy every single day.”
We all knew Dean was exaggerating, but none of us wanted to be the ones to burst his bubble. Dean was certainly busy with his Broadway show, but there weren’t likely many movie studios looking to cast him in their films. Dean had joined the investment club so he could learn to manage his own money, in the hopes that he would get some big leading roles and then wouldn’t have to rely on crooked money managers to dwindle away all his money.
“Well, I was out with him last night, and we both went home early. I have a good feeling that he’s going to show up. Let’s just move on for right now.”
“Or move on for the whole meeting,” Luke added as he snickered under his breath.
Luke worked with me at the firm and was the only guy from work that I actually invited to join our group. We invested large amounts of money, and I suspected he was a little out of his league with us, but he was a stand up guy, and I trusted him. Luke had come to New York from the Midwest and was a good friend to me, especially now that I wasn’t his boss.
We had worked together on the floor for a few months as I was just getting moved up to management, and he was just getting started in the business. He was a few years younger than me but definitely mature for his age. He wanted to build his guy friends up when he moved out here, and the investment club was the perfect opportunity.
It was harder than one might think to find friends in New York City. Almost as hard as it was to find a decent date. Our little investment club afforded us the opportunity to make friends with similar investment-minded people. It wasn’t like you could show up at a bar, and as a guy, if he wanted to hang out, that would certainly be taken the wrong way.
“On a scale of one to ten, how hot was the girl he brought home last night?” Ren asked.
Ren, whose real name was Brandon Carter, had recently sold a dating app that he made while in college. He was in his early twenties and had already made millions of dollars. He was more than ten years younger than me, and I felt the jealousy rearing its head when I was around him. He was a fresh-faced technology wiz kid without a clue of what to do with his millions of dollars. It was the kind of problem I would have loved to of had when I was his age.
I had worked my fingers to the bone over the last fifteen years at Stanley and Associates. No one was handing me millions of dollars. No one was offering me an early retirement from the confines of the regular work world. Nope, I had to get what I wanted with old-fashioned work.
A lot of people I worked with thought that Merrick and I were friends so I must have been handed my status and money like he was, but it wasn’t even remotely true. I worked my ass off to pay for college and then twice as hard to learn the investing business. Yes, I was lucky that I could get hired on at Stanley and Associates, but they would never have kept me if I wasn’t good at my job.
The truth was that I was excellent at my job. I knew how to predict the ups and downs of the market through research and totally understanding the companies I was working with. I now managed one of the most successful investment portfolios in all of Stanley and Associates. It wasn’t luck that got me to where I was; it was skill, but I knew people around me constantly believed luck had played a strong roll in my current life.
Part of the reason I started the investment club was to help other young men learn the power of managing their own money, but part of it was also to fill my own need of proving that I knew what I was doing. I loved the guys and their friendship, but I hated when they mocked the lifestyle I had. Making small jabs at Merrick always seemed like a little jab at me, and it took self-control to understand they weren’t coming at me from a bad place. These were my friends, and they just said things; none of it was personal.
“She was very pretty,” I added.
“One to ten man, what was her score?” Ren pushed me to give him details.
I doubted that Ren got out much with the ladies. He had probably been a hit with the college girls, but the women of Manhattan were known for chewing a man up and spitting him out when they were done with him.
Ren was a delicate young looking man with dark tanned skin and a thin frame. He was funny and smart, but certainly not built like the kind of guy who would sweep a woman off her feet. His biggest asset was his humor, though. It had probably landed him a few ladies while he was in New York.
The women of New York were tough. If they lived on their own, it was likely they had pretty successful jobs. If they lived with roommates, they were probably trying to follow some sort of dream while in New York. Women didn’t have time for men who didn’t help them in some way.
I don’t necessarily mean helping them financially. Even a quick fuck was helping them relieve stress. From what I had figured out about the women of New York, they didn’t like to waste their time. If you didn’t serve a purpose to them, they didn’t have a purpose for you. Unfortunately, Ren hadn’t quite figured that out about women yet.
“Nine, but only because her name was Bambi, and I deduct a point for weird names.”
“He isn’t coming; I guarantee it,” Ren added. “The probability is non-existent if he went home with a hot girl named Bambi.”
We all laughed. It was true, and as much as I didn’t want to believe it, Merrick wasn’t going to make it to our little investment club meeting. Bambi was a beautiful woman, and I suspected Merrick was curled up next to her and not willing to let her go just yet. Although he loved the one-night stand as much as I did, Merrick did have a soft spot for all women, and I could tell he was considering settling down someday.
“Who did you get if Merrick had the hot girl named Bambi?” Luke said.
Ren and Dean laughed at the idea of me getting stuck with
an ugly girl. They knew better, though. Not only did I find beauty in almost every woman, but I also wasn’t the type of guy who would put a woman’s appearance down for any reason.
Women were too concerned about their looks anyways, and I hated it. I wished I could just meet a girl who was out with her friends and actually didn’t care what others thought of her. Girls that went out all dolled up and trolling for guys were so easy to spot. But what I loved most was finding a woman among her friends and totally having a blast and unaware how damn beautiful she was.
The guys assumed that I always got the second choice when Merrick and I were picking up women. But I could have picked Bambi; maybe I should have picked her. The truth was that Merrick and I were equals on the dating playing field and pretty much anytime we left the office. We had known each other for long enough that we appreciated each other without worrying about the office politics that happened during the workday.
“Equally hot brunette; she was a total freak in the bedroom.”
I wasn’t about to tell them just how freaky she was or how badly I wanted out of that apartment when I finally had the chance. They didn’t need to know all of that. I should have picked Bambi, I thought to myself. Merrick had probably enjoyed a much better night than I had. Although, even the torturous game that Stephanie played with me was still better than returning home to my empty bed alone.
“Damn, Wyatt, you need to take me out with you guys sometime,” Ren added.
“Yeah, because bringing a toddler with me to the clubs will help me find a girlfriend.” I laughed.
“Clubs aren’t really the best place to find decent ladies if you want a girlfriend. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know, but I’m certainly not going to meet the woman of my dreams in the middle of an investment firm. I’ve got to try something.”
“What about my app?” Ren asked with a cheesy grin.
“Oh, yeah, that’s just what I need; a bunch of crazy online women chasing me down. No, thank you. I want to at least know what I’m getting when I meet a woman. Online dating is scary as hell.”
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