“That sounds nice,” said Colton, smiling to himself.
Despite the situation, Colton found himself thinking of Katy. He thought of the way her smile glowed, and lit up her whole face. He thought of the little laugh she gave, when Colton told a joke that really wasn’t that funny. He thought of the way she moved and the sounds she made when they made love. After that experience in the hospital with the voyeur, and the nurse’s uniform, their love making had stayed strong in intensity, but it had grown more complex and nuanced in other ways…there was still the passion, but each new time they made love, it felt like they were really ‘making love’ rather than just fucking…it was a new feeling for Colton. He had always had all the sex he’d wanted, but he’d never felt anything like this before.
“Colton? Colton! Are you listening to me?” said Cambridge.
Colton shook himself out of his daydream. Cambridge was staring right at him.
“Sorry,” said Colton. “I just…never mind. Sorry, what were you saying?”
“I’m saying, that I have a two step plan for you for the near future. This is going to jump start your career like a rocket…there’s nothing like it. First thing, I know Austin is your home. And I know you’ve traveled around…that may be fine for your run of the mill rodeo star. But, for a national celebrity, the kind we’re trying to turn you into, that’s not enough. All the stars live in New York or LA, as you know. And with my contacts, I think New York City is going to be the best place for you to go. I’ve already arranged a nice penthouse for you to stay in…a star has to have the accommodations typical of a star after all.”
“New York City?” said Colton, surprised. “A penthouse? But how will I even pay for that?”
“I’ve already got you in some TV commercials,” said Cambridge, taking a bite of the food that had arrived. He had ordered for the both of them before Colton had even gotten to the restaurant. He had ordered steaks for both of them, special beef straight from Japan. Somehow, he had known that Colton liked his steaks very rare, practically blue. “The commercials have already paid for the penthouse.”
“But where will I ride?” said Colton. “There aren’t any rodeos in New York City, are there?”
“We can get you a helicopter…you can be outside the city in les than half an hour…there’s a landing pad on the top of the building and everything. There are some first class practice arenas that I’ve already scoped out for you.”
“Wow,” said Colton. “It all sounds really fancy, but…”
“But what?” said Cambridge, giving Colton a piercing look. “What’s going on with you, Colton? You seem distracted, and frankly I thought you’d be a little more excited at these new opportunities. A lot of guys would kill for a penthouse like this…the whole setup, a helicopter and everything. Imagine the girls you’re going to get with a setup like that.”
“Yeah,” said Colton, slowly, holding a piece of steak on the end of his fork, but not taking a bite. “The thing is…”
“Out with it,” said Cambridge. “I’m your manger. If something is going on, I need to know about it. That’s what I’m here for, to ‘manage.’ That means I can manage any situation. Just try me. I can manage and handle anything you throw at me. You wouldn’t believe the situations my clients have been in.”
“I’m in love,” said Colton, simply. Finally, he put the piece of meat in his mouth. He barely needed to chew it. It was the best steak he’d ever eaten, and it seemed to melt in his mouth.
“Jesus Christ,” said Cambridge. “In love? Are you serious?”
Colton nodded his head while chewing his steak. (It was more like he was just exercising his jaws as a mater of habit, since the steak was already melting.) He felt a little relief finally getting that off his chest.
“I’ve dealt with all kinds of problems,” said Cambridge furrowing his brow. “But I have to say the hardest is when a client is in love. So what’s the deal? She lives here and you don’t want to move away from her? Is that it?”
“Basically,” said Colton, swallowing his steak and beginning to cut another bite. “We just met, and I just don’t want to do anything that would damage the relationship. And I can’t imagine doing anything more damaging that moving thousands of miles away to New York City.”
“All right,” said Cambridge, frowning. “Let me think for a minute. So you’re absolutely sure you don’t want to leave her?”
“Absolutely,” said Cambridge. It was the first item he had said it out loud, since he and Katy hadn’t made any formal or verbal commitments yet to one another. It felt good to say it. It felt like he was making a promise to Katy. It felt like he was committing to her.
“All right,” said Cambridge. “Understandable, I suppose. All right, I can work with this. OK, forget everything I told you, about the penthouse and helicopter.”
“Won’t it be a pain to cancel all that?” said Colton.
“Don’t worry about that,” said Cambridge. “Leave all the details to me. You just focus on recuperating so we can get you back into the arena.
“Great,” said Colton, taking a sip of water.
“Anyway, so forget all about that. I’ll keep strategizing. Leave it all up to me.”
18
Katy
I was dressed in a conservative business outfit, the type that I sometimes wore to meetings with more conservative clients.
The last few weeks had been intense and crazy.
It had been wonderful getting to know Colton…
I felt like each time we met, our feelings for each other grew more intense.
I often found myself craving him, his body, his presence.
On the nights that I was alone, I masturbated myself to sleep, thinking about Colton. I imagined that he was on top of me, pushing me into the mattress the way he had done at the hospital…I had even gone out and bought an extra large dildo, in order to approximate the size of his cock, so that I could imagine he was inside me when we weren’t together.
I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. I looked so proper in my button down shirt, with my hair pulled neatly back. I had just a little bit of makeup on. Most of it was just foundation, to make my skin tone look more even.
My dirty sexual thoughts were at competes odds with my prim appearance.
I took a deep breath and walked out of the bathroom.
“Mr. Smithson is expecting me,” I said to the secretary.
“Take a seat, and he’ll be right with me,” said the secretary.
I pretended to flip through a magazine in the waiting room while I stole secret glances at the secretary.
She couldn’t have been more than a few years out of college, but she looked mature and elegant.
Her blouse covered her whole chest, but it did little to conceal the magnificent large breasts that seemed to stand upright at attention. I actually couldn’t tell if she was wearing a bra or not.
I felt a pang of jealousy…this was probably just the type of girl that Colton had slept with before me…Of course, he had sworn I was the only one he was seeing now, but still…Even though I knew Colton was wildly attracted to my body, I couldn’t help but feel worried that the would leave me for a woman like this secretary, who had nearly a perfect body, perfect face, and perfect thick blonde hair.
“Katy, how are you?” said my lawyer, coming out of his office. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“No problem,” I said. “How are you, Bill?” His name was Bill Abor, but he always was insisting that I call him by his first name. So I finally started doing it, although I never felt totally comfortable with it…given that it was a professional relationship.
Bill led me into his office, and sat down behind his big desk.
“So let’s get right into it,” he said. “Sara’s suing you for a lot of money. It’s a mess.”
“I don’t understand why she’s doing it,” I said, already beginning to choke up, some small tears welling in my eyes
.
Bill waved his hand in the air. “I’m sorry, Sara, but you know how expensive it is to see me…frankly, I always advise my clients that paying for a therapist is going to be a lot cheaper than talking to me…and frankly, a better use of money. I really don’t know what I’m talking about if it’s not the law…”
I nodded my head. “That makes sense,” I said, reaching out for a tissue that was on his desk, and using it to blow my nose, and surreptitiously wipe my eyes.
“Well this whole thing is pretty ugly, I’ll give you that.” He held a paper in front of him and began reading off the charges… “Well, the good news is that I can get you out of this, Katy.”
“That’s great,” I said.
My head was still reeling from the emotional blow that Sara had dealt me with this lawsuit. I just couldn’t believe she could do it. But recently I had been so preoccupied with Colton that I hadn’t been thinking about the problem that much. In the meantime, I had put all my wedding business on hold for the foreseeable future…it was entering the low season anyway…I hadn’t even been into the office since that day that I hadn’t been able to get ahold of Sara, and found out that she was suing me…and I would have really loved to talk to her about Colton. We used to talk about men together all the time…it had been so fun and intimate, and now all I felt was betrayal from her…it was so disturbing that a person could change like that right before your eyes. Or maybe she hadn’t changed, and was just now revealing her true colors.
I tried to focus my attention back on the meeting with Bill.
“So,” said Bill. “First thing’s first…you’re probably going to have to go to court.”
“Oh my God!” I exclaimed, tears forming in my eyes again.
“Don’t worry, Katy. It’s not as bad as it sounds. And it’s not going to be more many, many months hopefully. By that time, I hope to have everything sorted out on our end. From what I can tell, you ran the business totally on the up and up. Everything, all the books you turned over to me…my staff says everything looks totally legitimate, which is great. I can’t really figure out what it is that she’s contesting…it’s a little strange, because she’s just claiming that she wasn’t receiving a fair wage…although it’s clearly on the books…everything should be fine. But of course I still have to see your employee contract. Technically, she was your employee, and not your business partner, although I know you ran the business together, essentially.”
“Yeah, I said. We ran it as partners. We started it together. She just didn’t have good enough credit, so everything had to be in my name.”
“Well, that’s fairly standard. But you do have an employee agreement or contract, don’t you?”
“A what?” I said, my heart starting to pound. I was feeling nervous.
“Like some kind of agreement that she signed when she became your employee.”
“No…” I said. We had been such good friend that nothing like that had seemed necessary in the least bit. We never wrote anything of this stuff down.”
Bill pushed himself back in his chair. A look of worry ran over his face. He took a deep breath before speaking. “This could be a problem, Katy.”
Tears started welling up in my eyes. “I just never thought it would come to this,” I said.
Seeing me upset again, Bill began telling me how everything would still work itself out in the end. “It just might be a little more complicated,” he said.
We talked over some of the business details. I had to explain everything to him, every last thing about the wedding planning business. It turned out that Bill already knew quite a bit about the business, and even had some ideas of his own.
“Listen,” he said. “I’m going to get you out of this mess. Trust me. I’ve done it before and I can do it again. But the only problem I’m seeing for your future is that in this town, stuff gets around. Word spreads. I can foresee you having some problems with getting new clients in the future.”
“Why?” I said. “Why would they care if I had a legal battle?”
“Unfortunately, no matter what the outcome of legal cases, the general public ends up assuming that everyone involved was guilty of something. It’s not going to look good for you as a wedding planner, and frankly you’re going to have a hard time running a business in this town again.”
“What can I do?” I said.
“What I’d suggest is moving to a new city. Starting over.”
“It took me years to build up my client base here.”
“Well, you can always look to places where people go just to have their weddings. Like Napa Valley for instance. Personally, my sister in law moved their family there last summer to start the very same business, and she’s already doing better than she ever did here.”
“Really?” I said. “What was her name again? I might know her. You know how we wedding planners are.”
“Rosie Aversa,” he said.
“Oh! Rosie. Yeah, I know here. She was doing really well here.”
“Well, I can tell you in confidence that she’s earning five times in Napa Valley what she earned here.”
“Wow,” I said, letting the figures sink into my head for a moment. I certainly could use the money…it wasn’t like I was doing badly, but now with all these legal fees, my expenses were really starting to add up. It was costing a fortune, over $200 per hour just to have Bill’s legal team review the documents from by business.
And now I wouldn’t be able to continue my own business.
Napa Valley was beginning to sound pretty appealing.
For one thing, I could earn a living, and not have to go work as a clerk in some wedding dress shop. I had done that before when I’d gotten out of college, and didn’t relish the possibility of doing it once again.
Plus, the weather sounded like a nice change.
But then I thought of Colton…
I would be leaving Colton behind.
I knew in my heart I couldn’t abandon him.
There was no way he could do his bull riding in Napa Valley. At least, not as far as I knew. Plus it would be asking far too much of him…to pack up his whole life and move just for me. We might have been in love, but we had basically just met.
“I can’t do it…” I said.
“Well, I’m sorry to hear you say that. I’m sure Rosie would have been more than happy to set you up. Plus, I hate to say it, but you’re going to have a lot of legal fees once this whole thing is over. I really hate to charge you know, but I have to make a living myself.”
And put a new addition on your house, I thought to myself.
“Can I ask why you won’t move?” said Bill. “I’ll be able to handle everything on the legal end from here if you did move. At the very worst, you’ve have to fly back here for a weekend or something, should the whole thing come to a trial.”
“I…met someone,” I said.
“Ah,” said Bill, giving me a smile and a wink. “No need to say anymore. Old Bill knows how those things go. Can I ask who he is?”
“I’m not being charged still, am I?” I said, cracking a smile, trying to make a joke.
Bill consulted his watch. “I’ll give you this one for free,” he said. It was hard to tell if he was joking or not. I knew he did have a habit of rounding up from the half hour to the full hour.
“Maybe you’ve heard of him. His name is Colton. He’s a…”
“He’s only the #1 bull rider in the whole country,” exclaimed Bill, excited.
“I’m surprised you’ve heard of him,” I said. “I thought bull riding was still a pretty cloistered sport.”
“I saw him on talk show last night,” said Bill.
“Wow,” I said. “He must be getting more famous than I thought.”
“Hang on to that one,” said Bill. “He’s quite a catch.”
“I’ll try,” I said, getting my things ready to leave the office.
19
Colton
Things were going really well for Colton.
Even though he had decided not to move to New York City, his career was taking off. His manager Cambridge Whitehead really knew what he was doing. Colton had put everything in his hands. Or nearly everything. Cambridge had just called him and said he had a new idea, an even bigger idea, possibly the idea that would send Colton’s career into the stratosphere….Colton was dying to know what it was.
In the meantime, Colton’s injuries from his latest rodeo had only solidified in his mind the idea that he needed to become famous…he decided that he needed to put this goal above practically all else. Although, almost without realizing it, he had put Katy first, before his career, when he had refused to move to New York City, even though it had sounded comfy, luxurious, and a real stepping stone to a new career.
Colton didn’t want to admit it to Katy, let alone anyone else, but bull’s gouging had really hurt him.
He still winced in pain when he got up first thing in the morning.
Sometimes he woke up at night covered in sweat.
The sex with Katy hurt him terrible. Each time he thrust, his abdomen felt like it was on fire. And that wasn’t even including the bone bruise he had gotten on his clavicle, which flared with pain each time he moved any way at all, even a millimeter.
But despite all the pain, and the doubts about whether Colton could continue doing what he really loved most in the world (excluding Katy, of course), which was riding bulls, things were going great for Colton.
It was all because of Katy.
She seemed to light up his world.
He had never thought that a woman could have this effect on him.
Before meeting Katy, Colton had been interested in women of course. But he had only really wanted them for their bodies. He had just wanted to possess them briefly and then move onto the next.
But Katy made him feel a new way…a way he had never felt before.
Deep End: A Bad Boy Sports Romance Page 25