by Bec Linder
Not that I begrudged Will the time. I was proud of him: first for admitting that he had a problem, and second for seeking treatment, and for maintaining good spirits throughout. And when my father had called me that afternoon, and told me that Will was getting discharged and insisted on being squirreled away somewhere until the buyout was complete, I didn’t hesitate before I told him I would handle it.
I rubbed one hand over my face. I should have found somewhere else for him to stay.
Sasha drove me insane. I’d been making bad decisions since the first moment I saw her, when she tripped on the sidewalk and skinned her knees. I should have walked away and left her there—none of my business, and she was an adult, or at least passed for one in polite society—but I didn’t, and I’d been paying for it ever since.
I was almost thirty, and it was time for me to stop thinking with my dick.
The cab crept downtown, stymied by rush hour. Traffic was my least favorite part of living in New York. I took out my phone and texted my dad: Will’s with a friend. All’s well. Then I made a note to call him later. My father had only recently acquired his first smartphone, and he routinely sent me text messages like email and call Alex, so I couldn’t be sure that anything I texted him would in fact be received and read.
I refused to make phone calls from taxi cabs. I detested the idea of a stranger listening in on my conversations.
The cab ground to a stop as we approached the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. I jiggled one leg impatiently. Sitting in traffic was a waste of my time. “I’m getting out here,” I told the driver.
“But sir, it’s very far,” he said. “I will get you there fast.”
“It’s a mile,” I said. “I’ll walk.” I fished two twenties from my wallet and passed them to him, and then levered myself out of the cab and headed down 6th Avenue.
I regretted my decision almost immediately. I shucked my suit jacket by the end of the first block, and sweated through my undershirt not long after. The air had the approximate consistency and temperature of split pea soup. Summer couldn’t end quickly enough for me. After this buyout was finalized, I planned to spend a few days in the Hamptons, enjoying the sea breeze and doing nothing that could be remotely construed as productive. Maybe I would take Sasha with me, to thank her for looking after Will, or to punish her for being such a thorn in my paw. I would enjoy watching her sunbathe naked on the roof deck, or doing the dishes wearing nothing but a pair of high heels.
All that could wait. I had work to do.
When I arrived at the office, I immediately headed for my locker in the basement gym. My sweat-drenched clothes would do nothing but distract and annoy me, and because it was after hours, I didn’t see the need to keep up appearances. I took a quick shower and dressed in a pair of athletic shorts and a t-shirt. Then, feeling a little more human, I went to see my mother.
Her secretary had already gone home for the evening, and I strolled directly into her office. “Hello, Mom.”
She looked up from her computer, smiling, and then frowned as she saw my outfit. “What on earth are you wearing?”
“I just walked here from Soho,” I said. “It’s hot outside.”
“I won’t ask,” she said. “How’s Will?”
“Taken care of,” I said. “I’ll see him tomorrow evening, and I’ll pick him up on Friday once the paperwork’s signed.”
“Good,” she said. “He’ll stay with me and your father for a while, until he’s ready to go back to his apartment. I hope you boys are enjoying all of this cloak-and-dagger nonsense. You do realize, don’t you, that the buyout is hardly in any danger?”
“I don’t totally agree with you about that,” I said, “but I think right now it’s important for Will to feel like he’s contributing in some way, even if just by lying low. And the friend he’s staying with will be good for him. He needs someone to take care of him.”
“Well, I’m glad,” she said. “Just don’t come to me with any stories about wire-tapping or men in white vans. You aren’t actually international men of mystery.”
I grinned. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“In that case, I’m going home,” she said. “Your father is very distressed that Will doesn’t want to come home immediately, and I’ll have my work cut out for me calming him down.” She stood up and began shoving papers in her briefcase. “I assume everything with the buyout is still progressing as planned?”
I nodded. “I doubt I’ll go home tonight, but yes, we’ll be ready to sign the papers on Friday.”
“Good,” she said. She came around the desk and reached up to pat my cheek. “You’ve done excellent work with all of this, Alex. Now I can retire in peace, knowing that the company is in good hands.”
“I wouldn’t want to let you down,” I said.
“You never have,” she said. She smiled at me, gave a firm nod, and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Say hello to Dad,” I said.
When she was gone, I went down one flight of stairs to my own office, spread out my files, and got to work. No rest for the wicked.
I worked that night until 3, slept on the sofa in my office for a few hours, woke up and changed into the spare suit I kept at work, and got started on the next set of papers. My mother, bless her, came by with coffee when she arrived, which kept me going until lunch.
But even I couldn’t operate indefinitely on three hours of sleep per night, and I crashed hard in the late afternoon, head down on my desk, and didn’t wake up until my mother came down to check on me.
“Go home,” she said. “Everything’s ready.”
I rubbed my eyes. “But I have to check the records from—”
“Go home,” she said again. “You aren’t missing anything. We’ll sign the papers. They won’t back out. Go home and sleep. I doubt you’ve gotten a full eight hours in at least a week.”
“You’re right,” I said, and sighed. “I just want to be sure—”
“I’m sure,” she said. “Alex. Leave. You’re an adult now, but you’re still my son, and what’s the point in having children if you don’t get to boss them around a little?”
“I can’t possibly imagine,” I said dryly, and she laughed at me.
It was a little after 6 when I left the office. Sasha had told me to come by for dinner at 7, but I knew if I went home first, I would succumb to the siren song of my bed and wouldn’t leave again until morning. I decided that I would head directly to Sasha’s, and if I was early, well, she could just fucking deal with it.
I took the subway, which I regretted almost as much as I had regretted the taxi ride the day before. The station was hot and crowded, and I was forced to wedge myself into the packed subway car and cling to an overhead strap while a woman near me decided to stagger backward and step on my toes every time the car shifted instead of actually holding on to a stationary object. When I took over the Turner Group, I decided, I would dedicate a portion of our budget to researching instant teleportation machines.
It was with great relief that I exited the subway at West 4th and walked to Sasha’s apartment.
I still found it somewhat surprising that she had chosen to live in the West Village, which was a fairly low-key neighborhood filled with families and movie stars who wanted to pretend to be anonymous. It was close to the Silver Cross; maybe that was the only reason.
Not that anything about Sasha made much sense to me. I found her baffling, and that annoyed me. Women weren’t meant to be so complicated.
It was 6:30 when I arrived at her front door and rang the doorbell. I knew she would chew me out for being early, and I couldn’t wait. Making Sasha angry had quickly become one of my favorite things in life.
Sure enough, when she came downstairs and saw me through the glass inset in the door, her face settled into a familiar look of irritation.
She opened the door, but blocked the opening with her body to prevent me from entering. “You’re early,” she said.
“I know,�
� I said. “What’s your point?” She was wearing a ridiculous Guns N’ Roses t-shirt and a pair of cut-offs so ancient that the denim had worn white in places. Her bare legs were slim and tanned. The baggy shirt couldn’t conceal the swell of her generous breasts. She looked good enough to eat.
“Uh, that you’re rude and a jerk,” she said, with that scowl I found so adorable. “But okay, come on in, I won’t stop you.” She stepped back to let me into the building.
I climbed the stairs to her apartment, amused by her obvious irritation, and glad my back was to her so she couldn’t see the smile tugging at my lips. It wouldn’t do to clue her in that I found her rage endearing.
My amusement drained away as I entered the apartment and saw no sign of my brother. I turned to Sasha and said, “Will isn’t here.”
“He and Yolanda went to the grocery store,” she said. “Calm down. They’ll be back soon.”
I flexed my hands, hearing my knuckles crack. I didn’t like the idea of Will out in public with a woman neither of us knew, but it was also possible I was overreacting.
“I know you’re worried about him,” Sasha said. “But he’s fine. We’re not going to sell him on the black market or anything. He just hung out and read books today. I think Yolanda has a crush on him.”
“That’s nice,” I said vaguely. I had stopped listening to her in favor of searching the apartment for signs that Will had, in fact, been there. I looked around the apartment and saw a stack of books near the sofa, and Will’s laptop on the dining table. Somewhat reassuring.
A flicker of movement caught my attention, and I turned to see a medium-sized, green-and-yellow bird perched on the kitchen counter, eating what appeared to be the remains of a mango. I felt my eyebrows crawl halfway up my forehead. “Sassy. What is that?”
Sasha turned to see what I was looking at, and sighed. “That,” she said, “is Teddy. I guess he got tired of waiting for me to come peel his mango. Christ, what a mess.”
“You have a bird,” I said, absorbing this new and bizarre information.
“Yeah,” she said. “Why are you making that face? They make good pets.” She frowned at the bird. “Well, for the most part. He isn’t usually this gross.”
The bird in question turned to face us and bobbed his head, almost like he could tell we were talking about him. Sasha crossed the room and said, “Step up,” and he climbed onto her bare wrist and perched there, flexing one foot and then the other. I watched as Sasha turned on the tap and rinsed the bird’s feet, and wiped the counter with a sponge. Then she brought him over to me and said, “He’s a yellow-naped Amazon parrot.”
“I have to say, I didn’t expect you to have a pet bird,” I said. If anything, Sasha seemed like the type of girl who would own a teacup poodle, dye it pink, and carry it around in her handbag. “How long have you had him?”
She shrugged. “A few years. He belonged to one of the dancers at the last place I worked, but she couldn’t deal with him. I went to her place once, and he was just sitting in his cage plucking out his own feathers. So I told her I would take him. It was pretty dumb. I didn’t know anything about birds.”
“He seems happy now,” I said.
“I learned fast,” she said. “Do you want to touch him?”
I made a face. “No.”
“He’s very soft,” she said. “What do you think, Teddy? Do you want Mr. Turner to hold you?”
Teddy bobbed his head and peered up at me. “Teddy’s a good boy,” he said.
Without intending to, I took a step back. “Jesus Christ,” I said. “I didn’t know he talked.”
She shrugged. “He mostly just repeats the things I say to him. He knows a few words, though.” She scratched the bird’s head, and he leaned against her and gave a little chirp. “Okay, Teddy, time to go back in your cage. We can’t let you terrify Mr. Turner during dinner.”
“I’m not terrified,” I said, annoyed that she was maligning my masculinity.
She rolled her eyes at me and walked toward her bedroom.
I followed her, curious about whatever parrot-related tasks would ensue, and waited in the doorway while she settled the bird in his cage. He squawked a bit and shuffled around on his perch, but when Sasha handed him what appeared to be a toy, he calmed down and began prodding at it with his beak.
I quickly lost interest in watching her play with the bird. While she spoke softly to him, I took the opportunity to examine her bedroom more closely than I had been able to the day before. She had decorated it to be overtly feminine without being girly: crisp white sheets on the bed, gauzy curtains blowing slightly from the air conditioning, and the top of her dresser lined with makeup and perfume bottles. I picked up one of the bottles and sniffed at it. I didn’t recognize the scent, which made me think she didn’t wear it very much.
A framed photograph on top of the dresser leaned against the mirror hung on the wall. I picked it up and looked at it. Seven people sat on the front steps of a house, and one of them was recognizably Sasha—face a little rounder, hair a little shorter, but still clearly her.
“What’s this?” I asked.
Sasha turned, and I angled the picture in her direction, showing her what I was looking at. I saw her throat work as she swallowed, but she didn’t answer.
Fascinated now, I examined the picture more closely. Sasha sat beside a middle-aged woman who was probably her mother, and the woman had one arm wrapped around Sasha’s shoulders. Behind them, a man with an oxygen tank sat next to another daughter and a young man wearing a military uniform. Two younger boys crouched on the bottom step, leaning into each other. Their feet were bare. Everyone was smiling.
The house behind them was ramshackle, with paint peeling from the siding and a sagging, overstuffed sofa on the front porch. To one side, barely visible at the edge of the frame, was a rusting car body in the yard.
I glanced up at Sasha. Her face was red with embarrassment. “This is why you’re doing it,” I said, the pieces falling into place even as I spoke. “Working at the club. Stripping. You’re doing it for your family.”
She shrugged and folded her arms across her chest. I desperately wanted to know what she was thinking, but her face was shuttered and unreadable.
I carefully set the picture back on the dresser. This entire time, I had thought—what? That she had sex with men for money because she liked it? That she thought it was fun? I hadn’t thought. I had only assumed.
“Sasha, I owe you an apology,” I said. “I haven’t always been very kind to you.”
“You mean all the times you called me a whore?” she asked, and I nodded, glad she had said the words so I didn’t have to. Christ, I was a coward.
She scowled and look away for a moment, brow furrowed, and then looked back at me with a fierce light in her eyes. “Yeah, that’s bullshit. Why is all the stigma on me? Women are punished for sex, and men are rewarded. Why am I a dirty slut, and all the men who pay to spend time with me get off scot-free? It’s fucked up. What about your precious free market? It’s capitalism, baby. There’s a demand in the marketplace. I’m an entrepreneur.”
I raised an eyebrow. I hadn’t expected that.
She didn’t stop. “It’s also bullshit that you’re only apologizing now that you think I’m doing it for a noble cause or something,” she said. “Life is unfair, you know. We aren’t all born with equal opportunities, and for some of us, this is the best work we can get.”
I looked at her in silence for a few moments, considering her words. “You’re right,” I said.
She opened her mouth, shut it again, and then said, “I am?”
I nodded. “I hadn’t thought about it like that. But you’re right.”
“Oh,” she said. I could practically see her deflate, her anger thwarted in the face of my concession. “Well. Yeah. So don’t call me a whore.”
“I won’t,” I said. Fuck, I hated apologizing. I wanted to hold her in my arms, to feel her soft and warm against me. “Sasha. Come here.�
��
She didn’t move for a moment, and I thought she would refuse, and that we would spend the meal in tense silence, her angry and me full of regret. But then she took a step toward me, and another, and I opened my arms and she fell into them, burying her face against my chest.
I stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her hair. She was bad-tempered, argumentative, and inappropriate, but I didn’t want her to be upset. If only because I hoped to keep sleeping with her.
She turned up her face to look at me, and I kissed her sweet mouth, a slow and careful kiss. She pressed closer to me, her pinup body an excruciating tease. I slid one hand down to settle on the sinful curve of her hip, and she made a hungry noise that set my blood on fire.
Funny how that worked. My good intentions meant nothing. One sultry look from her and I was ready to rut on the floor like a dog.
The kiss turned dirty fast. I grabbed a handful of Sasha’s thick hair and used it to tilt her head backward while I ravished her mouth, sucking on her tongue and making her moan. She untucked my shirt from my trousers and slid her hands up my bare back, fingernails raking my skin. My cock was hard and throbbing, and I didn’t want to wait. It had been more than a week since the last time I fucked her. My body was keenly aware of the passage of time. Every molecule screamed at me to bury myself in her slick heat as quickly as possible.
I tore my mouth away and sucked in a lungful of air. “Take off those shorts,” I said.
She took a step back, eyelids lowered, giving me that teasing smirk I knew so well. “Just the shorts?”
“I plan to be inside you within the next three minutes,” I said. “We don’t have any time to waste.”
She glanced at the open bedroom door, and I saw the thought flash behind her eyes: Yolanda and Will would be back any minute, and if we were going to fuck, we would have to be quick about it.