From Despair Grows Order: The Broken Billionaire Series Book 3

by Nancy Adams

“You can grab anything you like,” she joked, her glazed eyes still chewing on my image.

  I merely gave her a crooked smile and said that a smoke would do just fine, to which she grabbed her pack from out of her cleavage, winking at me as she dipped her hand down the great creek of flesh and brought the slightly damp pack out. She then flicked the end and produced a smoke, which I took. Once I got it in my mouth, she immediately produced a light from the same sweaty place and lit the end. This next part I feel a little rude for, because she was about to say something and I immediately turned around on my stool and faced the wall of the column again.

  “Hey!” she exclaimed, laying her hand on my shoulder.

  I glanced over it at her and just said, “The smoke was enough, thank you,” before retraining my eyes on the column. For about half a minute I could feel the heat of her presence just behind me, knowing she was wobbling on those big, ham legs, her former lustful pose disintegrating into one of outrage and confusion. But I held firm until she just sighed, “Whatever!” and left me to the piece of wall.

  It wasn’t long before my second beer and smoke were finished, so I made my way first to the cigarette machine and then back to the bar; same again; two shots shot down; with beers in hand sidled back to my little ledge table; smoke clasped between my lips. The booze was gradually smoothing me out, inebriation filling me like a slow-moving mist, allowing me to forget a little of my fight with Sarah, though the general feeling remained residually. Several beers, tequilas and smokes later, I was a little more attentive toward my surroundings and began wandering the bar, moving my body a little to the bad music, joining the herd around the band, conversing with people, mainly women who didn’t appeal to me on any real level, but some guys too, mostly about sports or fragments of mundane conversations that broke apart as quickly as they’d start, a room full of beer-sopped brains cavorting around as though their weekday lives didn’t exist. As my own brain became sopped in beer, I felt that I needed this, this release from my week’s work, a kind of intoxicated liberty.

  Toward the end, I found myself sitting comfortably at one of the booths that adorned the back wall of the place, in a party of men and women. Two of the girls were chatting to me constantly, taking it in turns to assault my eardrums, blowing their beer-and-smoke-scented breath all over me, and occasionally placing their hand on my thigh as they’d talk to me. I was constantly compared to certain actors with remarks like, “You know, you look the image of Brad Pitt.” And, “Your facial features remind me of Leonardo DiCaprio.” I couldn’t see how I could look like so many different people all at once, but the gist of it was that they were complimenting my looks in their natural way. However, as sexually frustrated as I was, I didn’t even contemplate sleeping with any of them, and merely enjoyed the flattery of their company.

  It was as I got up to take a leak that fate—or the Devil, whichever you’re inclined to believe in—placed something before me in that moment that changed everything. As I reached the corridor with said bathroom, someone came spilling out of the ladies’ room and bumped into me as I passed.

  “Whoa!” I exclaimed as the girl ran into my chest. But then observing her face for the first time, I took a step back and added, “Amy?”

  “Hey, soldier,” she replied in a drowsy voice.

  There standing before me, her slim, tall figure of sharp angles and pointed hips, covered in tight brown leather miniskirt and tight white bodice, was Amy Houston, one time fuck-buddy, her black hair glistening in the electric light.

  “You’re alive,” she said, throwing her arms around my neck and hanging off of me. “Where’ve you been hiding your adorable self?”

  “I was thrown out of my dad’s after the Peaks,” I replied, doing my best to be heard over the music.

  “I heard you were cohabiting with some pious girl.”

  “Yeah.”

  She looked into my eyes with her big chocolate browns.

  “She’s not here with you now, is she?” she inquired. “I would’ve thought she had church tomorrow morning.”

  “It is tomorrow morning now!”

  “Don’t evade the question, Josh.”

  “No, she’s not here.”

  “Then who are you here with, huh? Those two simians, Terry and Kane? Because those two vacuous assholes aren’t your friends. Not by a long shot, and if you were with them, my advice would be to ditch them immediately. Or maybe you’re here with the weedy little kid, whose name escapes me?”

  “No one. I’m here on my own.”

  “Oh! It’s like that, is it?” she exclaimed with a knowing look. “You’ve escaped the clutches of your virtuous woman to find one more debauched, eh?”

  And she winked at me, her arms still stretched over my shoulders. I didn’t say anything and simply grinned at her. In all honesty, I’d missed her playful wit these past months.

  “You got any coke?” she asked suddenly.

  “Nope.”

  “Then thank your lucky stars that sister Amy does.”

  With that, she flung herself off me as readily as she’d flung herself on, took me by the hand and led me into the women’s bathroom. “Hey!” several ladies cried out when they saw my reflection come past in the mirror as they applied more decorative lacquer to their faces. But they made no more scene than that as we swung into one of the cubicles, their cries more an automatic response than any real displeasure. Inside the cubicle, Amy brought out a baggy of coke from her panties, her nimble cleavage not quite the spacious void that existed on the blonde with the smokes.

  While I stood with my back to the door, she sat sideways on the bowl, the lid down, cutting the coke on the toilet cistern. Amy was talking non-stop, her brain already tingling on the drug and my unexpected presence having stirred something inside of her.

  “You know those assholes, Terry and Kane, want to fight you?” she was saying as she worked on the coke with a credit card. And then without waiting for an answer, went on, “Apparently you insulted them or something. I don't know, you men are all the same with your damn insurmountable egoistic masculinity. You’re all essentially cavemen still. It’s only us women who’ve truly evolved. You’re all still chucking spears about, bashing women on their heads and dragging them to bed. You’re the real problem.” She scooped her head down, taking the back of her hair in one hand and placing a rolled-up ten-dollar bill to her nose with the other. With the snorting skills of a seasoned user she vacuumed up two fat lines in quick succession, leaving another two. “Here you go, honey,” she said dipping her back head up and handing me the bill. I took it, she scooted to the side, and I greedily sucked up the lines. “You’re not gonna get too fucked up are you?” she asked once I’d finished them and was licking my finger before wiping up the last dregs of powder from the filthy cistern.

  “I’ll be good,” I replied while snorting my nostrils to clear the chamber, the bitter drip hitting the back of my throat and making me gag.

  Amy stood up sharply from the toilet, having placed her baggy of white powder back in her panties, and struck out her hand.

  “Come,” she announced with a sultry look. “We should dance a little.”

  “Aren’t you here with anyone yourself?”

  “Yes, but he’ll get the message when he sees me dancing with you.”

  I just shook my head and grinned at her. I liked her sass. Always had. So I took the waif hand and allowed her to lead me out of the bathroom, another chorus of “Hey!” as we passed the make-up artistes practicing their art in the mirror. We soon made it to the front of the band, who were still not done with their renditions of old Kiss and Guns ’n’ Roses classics. When Amy pulled me into the middle of the throng of dancers, ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ was in full swing and Amy swung her hips around, her ruby red lips pouting the words to the song. Then she came forward and threw her arms around me, grinding her body up against me. I instantly felt that body on mine, the heat and feel of her flesh making me shudder, an awakening happening inside of me
, a lascivious fever rising. I knew that body, had felt it many times, but it had become forgotten of late, overcrowded by my thoughts of Sarah. Now I was realizing, as if for the first time, how much I wanted her, as well as the fact that I could have her. The booze, the drugs, the argument, my sexual tensions, all of it compelled me to act crudely and do something unforgivable: forget Sarah. I moved my own hands expertly around her chiseled body, firm but giving, her free hand reaching down and taking ahold of my crotch, vicious meeting of the lips, our heads almost striking into each other, her body folding in my arms.

  However, our embrace was broken by someone roughly grabbing hold of my shoulder and yanking me back. I spun around, and standing before me was some college kid with booze-glazed eyes, his two friends standing behind him, all three with angry scowls on their faces.

  “What the fuck you think you’re doing?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at his friends as he said this, probably making sure they were still there.

  “I was dancing with this girl before you stepped in,” I replied, looking down at him, the kid at least four inches shorter than me.

  Amy placed her arms around my neck from behind and cuddled into my back, resting her head on my shoulder and giving the kid a nonchalant look.

  “Amy,” the college boy addressed her, “what the fuck are you doing with this guy? I thought we were out together? What about all that coke I bought?”

  “What about it?” she replied nonchalantly. “I was with you and now I’m with him. It’s pretty easy to come to the appropriate conclusion without my help, isn't it?”

  “What the fuck?”

  “Look, buddy,” I began.

  “I ain’t your buddy.”

  “Okay then,” I continued. “Look, dick, the lady doesn't want to hang with you anymore, so why don’t you and your budd—Sorry, I mean, you and your fellow dicks just do the right thing and fuck off!”

  He swung a punch. I knew he would. I knew by the look on his face the moment he’d spun me around that he was gonna do it. But I also knew that it would be the classic college-kid haymaker, his fist taking an eternity to orbit his body while I ducked and stuck out a quick jab to his gut, feeling it ricochet on his flimsy stomach, his punch cut short, mid-flight, as he bowled backward into his friends. Amy had let go of my back by then and merely watched with a faint air of interest as I burst forward, stooped up from my lowered position and slammed the kid again, hard, on the jaw. I felt the crack as my fist whipped up and blew him further off his feet. The momentum took him all the way up and then down onto his back. As he landed, he managed to knock one of his friends and some girl down with him. The other friend, the one not on the floor, looked around, unsure of what to do, so I made his mind up for him and smashed the guy hard between the eyes so that he crumpled over and joined his friends on the deck. That was when the one that had gone down with the kid began getting up, the kid simply knowing when he was beat and staying on the floor. But, as he did, the boyfriend of the girl who’d taken a tumble with them decided to blame it on him. Before the college boy could turn his attention to me, the boyfriend had him by the throat. Then all hell broke loose in front of me as the doormen came wading in and I felt a soft hand take my forearm. I turned to find Amy standing there with a mischievous smirk.

  “I think this is our cue to leave, handsome,” she said.

  “I’m all go on that,” I replied, glancing back at the ruckus and seeing that the introduction of security had only had an incendiary effect.

  We bailed, Amy holding my hand and the two of us flooding out of there onto the night’s street, the bar dissolving into chaos behind us.

  “That was fucking awesome,” Amy laughed as we skipped along. “I didn’t think he’d have the balls to swing a punch at you.”

  “Well, he clearly did. Although I’m not sure he’ll have them again anytime soon!”

  “No. You annihilated him!”

  A pang struck me at her words.

  “Let’s not talk about it, okay?” I said.

  “Why not? You’re a man, you should be proud that you can fight another man and beat him. It’s what you were made for. Gladiator warriors fighting to the death over women. It shows—”

  “Amy, just cut it,” I interrupted. “If I’d had the choice, I would have walked away. But once he’d swung that punch, I had no choice. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “Okay.” And she squeezed herself into me when she said this, once again pricking my febrile desires. “My car’s just over here,” she added, pointing down a side street.

  “Sure,” was all I said.

  SARAH

  That night, after Josh left, I picked up all the money and carefully packed it away into my chest of drawers. I didn’t even count it, didn’t want its temptation to infect me. A part of me wanted to accept this money into our lives, wanted to shrug my shoulders and let the crime go. But I couldn’t. To do so would be to break away from the person I am.

  But it wasn’t just the ill-gotten money that fed my disconsolation. It was also my own behavior toward him. Comparing him to his father like that had been cruel, especially after what he’d been through lately because of the man, as well as his whole life. I had no right to say those things. And it wasn't like I even meant it. I just wanted to hurt him. I allowed my anger to break out and attack him, pick his weak spot and strike it with a barbed-needle insult. As my anger drifted away like smoke, I was left with feelings of regret for the things I’d said. Yes, he was wrong to have resorted to crime in order to give himself a boost in life, but so was I for acting so aggrieved. He had returned home so happy and I had swiped his grin from his mouth, burst his joy with a pin. I should have allowed him his moment in the sun and then spoken to him about it the next day. I should have controlled my reaction, because essentially it had made things worse, culminating in my cruel words and his storming out.

  And that was another worry that I filled my cup with and drank thirstily. I worried about what he was doing out there on the streets. That he’d find drink, I knew for sure. But I worried that he’d find other things too. Like fighting, which brought with it images of him being savagely beaten by many men, on the floor, unrecognizable for all the blood as they viciously kicked him. This vision terrified me. But another vision did me no good either. That vision entailed women. I knew that women would approach him within the bars, vixens in their den. It was for sure that he would be approached, and this terrified me more than anything, even of him being beaten. For I knew just how much his loins ached for the touch of female flesh. I could feel it in him, feel his body tremble like the wings of a bee every time we were close. Each touch, however innocuous, would cause his lust to come bubbling to the surface. With the addition of our argument and drink, I couldn't be certain that he’d stay faithful. So I did the only thing I could think of in that moment. I did what the faithful do; I prayed.

  I begged God to keep Josh pure, even though I knew it to be beyond God’s wisdom to interfere. I begged Him with all my might, wringing my hands and crying tears as I did, asking for forgiveness for the bad things I had said to Josh, for not dealing with things more tactfully, for allowing my anger to add acid to my words. That night my head echoed with a hundred separate sentences sent off into space to the kingdom of heaven, telegrams for the supreme being.

  Eventually, I fell back to sleep and awoke the next morning with my alarm. The first thing I did upon rousing was shoot my eyelids open and reach forward, expecting Josh to be there. I felt terribly hollow when I found nothing but space before me. I then glanced at the floor, hoping that perhaps he’d returned, but had decided to camp out there. But no, he wasn't lying on the ground either.

  I sat up and sighed.

  “He probably stayed at Charlie’s,” I said aloud to myself, hoping that by hearing the words I could convince myself all the more.

  Getting out of bed, I made my way to the little table, took a pen and paper, and began composing him a note. Once that was complete, I g
ot washed and changed for church, waiting till the very last minute to leave in case he should come through the door. But he didn’t, so I left the apartment, my note lying on the table, got in my car and made my way to church.

  When I pulled up, I felt a tinge of ignominy at the sight of my father and sisters waiting for me outside. I’d been bringing Josh along these past weeks, and him not being here would mean that I’d have to explain things, seeings as how I’m not much of a liar and couldn’t ever bring myself to fabricate a false story explaining his absence in some more self-gratifying way. For sure, he wasn’t due to come anyway, because I’d originally believed that he’d be too tired after work. But I’d never forewarned my family, and was now going to have to explain his absence in a wholly different way.

  Walking up to my father, he took me in his arms and kissed my cheek. This small piece of fatherly love almost reduced me to tears, and when my sisters took me in their arms, Lucy asked if I was okay, while Kay asked where Josh was. I very nearly told them lies; that I was okay and that Josh had worked all night so needed to sleep. But in the end I decided on the truth.

  “Josh and I had a fight last night,” I informed them.

  “Oh, sweetie,” my father exclaimed softly.

  “It’s okay. Just teething pains.”

  “What was the fight about?” Kay asked, her tongue unable to restrain itself.

  “Kay!” my father scolded. “You shouldn’t pry.”

  “I just wanted to know was all.”

  “But you shouldn’t,” was Dad’s firm reply.

  “It’s okay,” I stated. “He went to the casino last night and won himself the money for college.”

  “And you argued over that?” Dad inquired in a light tone with a gentle look of bewilderment flashed on his face.

  “He cheated, Daddy,” I replied. “He took Charlie along and they counted cards.”

  “What’s counting cards?” Lucy innocently asked.

  “It’s cheating,” was my father’s blunt reply to this. Then turning back to me with soft eyes, he said, “I take it you told him to return the money?”