by Joey Bush
“You know, if you were talking about, say, I don’t know, cocaine or something, instead of running, people would be saying you needed all sorts of help.”
“If this is your way of trying to talk me back into bed, it’s really not working.”
I yawned and stretched. “But there are few finer things in life than getting to lie in bed with the sunlight pouring through the windows, knowing that you’ve got the whole day ahead of you to do whatever you want.”
“I won’t be gone that long. You’ll probably still be in bed by the time I get back.”
And she flounced out of the room.
I rolled over onto my side, my head sinking into the goose down pillow. Okay, I’ll be honest—I’d never had a woman be so nonchalant with me before. Any other girl would’ve been back in that bed with me two seconds flat if I asked. But Isla was . . . a little ambivalent, actually. Not last night, of course, but now, certainly. I wasn’t particularly bothered by it, though. Not at all, really. If anything, I found it to make her all the more intriguing. Made me want to try all the harder to really entice her, to make her wild with desire for me. Not just when I was in the middle of fucking her, but all the time. Enough so I could just look at her from across the room and she’d return my gaze with a hungry, insatiable look of her own.
I could’ve dozed for hours, drifting off into that half-sleep, half-awake zone where dreams and reality seemed a little too intertwined. In the dream, Alfie was there. He’d bought Ibiza, he said. He’d bought it and he was asking me to leave.
“But I love it here,” I told him. “I can’t leave.”
“You have to,” he said. “It’s mine now.”
I opened my eyes and forced myself up. That dream was, if anything, a sign that I just needed to get this talk with Alfie over with. I sent him a text, and he responded right away.
I’ll swing by, he wrote. I’m not too far away.
I glanced at the clock. I didn’t know exactly when Isla would be back, but I didn’t want her to walk in when I was having the talk.
OK, I typed back. I don’t have that much time, tho.
U got a hot date? he asked.
Something like that.
I tossed the phone down and pulled on some clothes. Alfie was knocking on the door less than five minutes later, and he strolled in, smelling faintly of cigarettes and some sort of botanical perfume. He probably hadn’t been to sleep yet.
“Busy night last night?” I asked.
He grinned. “Always is, mate, always is. Spent most of the night down at Sway, had a grand old time. Missed seeing you though—we figured you’d be around. I wanted to introduce you to the lovely Celeste.”
“I was a little busy myself.”
Alfie looked around. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No, no one else is here at the moment. Here, why don’t we sit down? There’s something that we needed to talk about.”
“Right,” he said, looking pleased, like he’d been anticipating this chat. Did he somehow guess what I was going to say? Was he actually happy about it? I hadn’t expected him to be thrilled, but if he was going to take the news graciously, well, that just made it all the easier for me. I smiled, feeling encouraged.
“So,” I said. “You know that I’ve appreciated being in business with you all these years.”
“Likewise, mate. It’s been going better than I ever thought it would. I mean that.”
I took a deep breath. “There’s no real good way to put this,” I said, “so I’m just going to come out and say it. I’m going to have to stop . . . this.” I gestured vaguely around me.
Alfie gave me a confused look. “What?” he said, which came out sounding more like, Wot.
“What I’ve been doing here,” I said. “What we’ve been doing here. I’ve got to stop.”
“Why?”
“Well . . . you know that my dad died.”
“Right. I figured if anything that would make you feel a little more free about things. You never came out and said it, but I could tell there was a part of you that was afraid your old man would find out what you were up to out here. You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
I shook my head. “That’s not it. I mean, maybe on some subconscious level you’re right, I don’t know, but, I can’t keep doing this. When I get back to New York, I’ve got to get down to business. I have to get serious about shit. I have to put on a button-down shirt and cover this up.” I pointed to the tattoos on my forearm.
Alfie looked truly perplexed. “What are you talking about? A button down shirt?”
“My dad left his business to me. Which means I’ve actually got to show up.”
“You can’t just sell it?”
“I’m not going to sell it.”
“But you don’t know anything about running a business! At least not one like that.”
“What do you mean?”
Alfie shrugged. “Don’t think I didn’t look your dad up online,” he said. “Bassett Capital Management. I wanted to check it out. See what you were all about. You didn’t look me up at all? I don’t have my own website like that or nothin, but I got a Facebook.”
“Uh, no, Alfie, I didn’t look you up. And we are friends on Facebook.”
“Only because I sent you that request though. So you mean you wouldn’t be friends on Facebook if I hadn’t sent you the request?”
I stared at him. “Are we really having this conversation right now? Who the fuck cares about Facebook?”
“You’re right—that’s not really my point. My point is that I do know a little something about your history, even if you’ve chosen not to share that with me. Don’t get freaked out—it wasn’t like I was being a stalker or anything.”
“You sure? That sounds a little stalker-ish.”
“You mean to tell me that if some bloke you barely knew wanted to bankroll an illicit operation you had in mind, you’d just go for it? You wouldn’t give a toss who the guy was or where the funds were coming from? That sort of thing might work for you, mate, but I needed to know at least a little bit.”
“Then you shouldn’t have looked up my dad’s company, because up until recently, that really didn’t have anything to do with me.”
“I’d say it had plenty—it’s not like that money was yours.”
I took a deep breath. This wasn’t the conversation I wanted to be having, It was pointless what Alfie thought of me or where I got my money from anyway, since we were no longer going to be doing business together.
“It’s yours,” I said. “I’m giving you my share of the business. I mean, it’s not like it’s even that formal, it’s not like we own stock in it or something. You’re the CEO now, man. The sole CEO. It’s up to you. And you can bring on whoever else you want, you can shake things up, or you can keep everything how it is, which seems to be working just fine.”
Alfie shook his head. “It’s not, though, actually. That’s why I thought you wanted to talk to me. Because you’d heard.”
“Heard what?”
“That we’ve got competition. There’s this chemist in Rotterdam who has apparently managed to make something virtually identical to Lush, but with zero comedown effects. The people who have taken it have confirmed this. And it’s bloody cheap! There’s no way that we’re going to be able to compete with that, unless we can get the stuff off the market. And to do that, we need to flood it with Lush, at a cheaper price than what they’re pushing. We need to move about three times what we’re currently doing.”
I nodded. “Okay, well, it sounds to me like you’ve got it all figured out. I have all the confidence in you, Alfie. You’ve always done a stellar job; it really hasn’t had anything to do with me.”
“It’s had everything to do with you,” he said. “You’re the bank.”
“But you’ve made plenty,” I said. “You’re living pretty comfortably, aren’t you?”
“I’ve gotten used to a comfortable life, yes. But I’ve also made some
bad investments. Now is not a good time for you to bail, mate, is what I’m trying to say.”
“Maybe get yourself a partner, then,” I said. “Someone’s who’s good with money.”
Alfie did not look pleased with my suggestion, but I knew he just needed a little time to let the idea settle.
“It’s going to be fine, Alfie,” I said. “You’ll see. Now, I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t know when Isla’s going to be back from her run, and I’d rather she not walk in on us having this conversation. She doesn’t . . . she doesn’t know anything about it, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he said. “You should be proud.”
“It’s nothing at all to me anymore,” I replied. “It’s nothing to be proud of or ashamed of—I’m done with it. I have to be. I’m sorry if that wasn’t what you were expecting to hear. But believe me, you’ll be just fine.”
And he would, I knew it. In fact, he’d probably come to enjoy it even more once I wasn’t involved, because then he’d have control over the whole thing.
“I think you’re making a mistake,” he said. “There’s no reason for you to do this. Are you planning to never come back here again?”
“No, of course not. I’ll be here as much as possible. I just can’t continue to do this. There’s really nothing else to say about it, okay? I’ve made up my mind and I’m not going to change it.”
He frowned, but he stood up and started to walk to the door. I followed him.
“Hey,” I said, holding my hand out. “We had a good run together. You said it yourself.”
He waited so long that I didn’t think he was going to shake my hand, but then he finally did, as though doing so pained him greatly. Alfie could always be a bit dramatic.
“Cheers, mate,” he said, and then he left.
He’d only been gone a few minutes, though, when Isla came back, her face flushed, a thin sheen of sweat making her skin glisten.
“Hey,” she said. “I just ran into your friend out there.”
“Oh, Alfie? Yeah, he just stopped by quickly. How was your run?” I asked, eager to steer the conversation in another direction.
“Good. It’s nice to be somewhere different. I’m going to hop in the shower, and then maybe we can go out and do something? Whatever you want.”
I smiled. “Well, whatever I want doesn’t actually involve us leaving the house.”
22.
Isla
So. I’d had sex. I was no longer a virgin.
It had been good, better than I ever thought sex with someone could’ve been, and to spend the whole day having more mind-blowing sex was a bonus. Still, I felt a little strange about the whole thing, especially because I was supposed to be hooking up with Levi out of revenge.
“Is everything okay with you?” Levi asked. “You seem a little . . . I don’t know. Like everything isn’t okay.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “There’s just been a lot of changes lately. Things that I wasn’t expecting. I mean, if you’d told me two weeks ago that I’d be here, on some island off the coast of Spain, with you, I would not have believed it if my life depended on it. I also wouldn’t have believed for a second that I’d be inheriting more money than I will ever know what to do with.” I took a deep breath. “And there’s another thing.” I paused, and he looked at me, waiting for me to speak.
“I’m a virgin,” I said. “Well, I was.”
He laughed. “Yeah, right.”
“No, I really was.”
“So you’re telling me that I’m the first person you’ve had sex with?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
His grin widened. “So you were saving yourself for me?”
I could tell from the glint in his eyes that he was joking, kind of. “That wasn’t exactly my line of thinking,” I said. “Actually, you weren’t a factor in it at all. It’s just how it worked out.”
“Wow. I’m honored, then. Truly.”
“And it’s not like I haven’t done other things with guys, you know, there’s been plenty of times that I’ve—”
“It’s okay, I don’t need details,” he interrupted. “I believe you. But you’re right—there’s been a lot of changes, and it can take some time to get used to, even if the changes are good. I think that’s a pretty normal reaction. Want to know one of the best ways I’ve found to get used to changes?”
“What’s that?”
He reached over to his bedside table and pulled open the little drawer. He felt around and then pulled his hand out, holding a tiny little black lacquered case, no bigger than a mini Altoids container. He popped the top and took something out. It was a capsule, filled with white powder. There was something printed on the capsule; I picked it up and held it up to the light. A gold cursive L.
“What the hell is this?” I asked.
“It’s called Lush. Ever heard of it?”
“No.” I put it back in the box.
“Would you like to try it?”
I raised an eyebrow. I had never even smoked pot before. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing crazy, I promise. It’s a pleasing combination of Molly and cocaine. It’ll give you all the good feels with no drowsiness or any harsh comedown.”
“I take it you’ve tried these before.”
“I have. Just for fun, though. I don’t have a drug problem or anything like that.”
I felt as though I were back in high school, being peer pressured into doing something, even though I’d never been offered drugs in high school. Who’s to say I wouldn’t have tried them if I had, but everyone just seemed to assume that I was the sort of person who would turn my nose up at that sort of thing. Who wouldn’t be interested in it, who would be too afraid to try it, who would be too much of a goody-two-shoes. I wasn’t that girl, though. I took the pill back out.
“You promise this isn’t going to make me do something stupid?” I said. “I don’t want to be standing on the roof of some building, thinking I can fly.”
“I promise,” he said. “I’ll take care of you. We’ll just go to Pure, where you’ll be amongst friends, and it will be the most beautiful time you have ever had. I promise.”
I eyed the pill in the palm of my hand. “Are you going to take one?”
He plucked one out of the container, snapped the lid back on, and popped the pill in his mouth. He swallowed without chasing it with water.
“There,” he said. “Your turn.”
“I need some water. It’s going to end up getting stuck in my throat if I don’t have a drink with it.”
I went into the kitchen and got a glass of water. I could feel my pulse beating in my ears, my heart rate accelerating. I didn’t want to feel nervous, but I did, all the same. What if I ended up being one of those people who was allergic to drugs and died the second they went into my system? Or what if I just had a completely unexpected reaction and did something stupid? I could go back out there and tell him that I didn’t want to take it. He would understand. But we were going to a club tonight, and I didn’t want it to be like the other night. I didn’t want to be standing there, feeling self-conscious, unable to really let go, the way everyone else around me was. I wanted to feel the music, the way Levi described. I wanted to be able to dance and not feel as though everyone was watching me, thinking that I looked like an idiot.
I didn’t feel any different, though, not as I got changed, not when we left the house, not when we arrived at the club, a different place than the one we’d previously gone to. I sighed. Maybe it had been foolish to be afraid of having a bad reaction—apparently I was someone who was going to have no reaction.
The music was loud and had the same pounding bass, like a heartbeat. I thought about what Shana had said, it being primordial, like we’re back in the womb or something. And then Levi grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the dance floor, and I went, because it felt good to move my body, and though I was pretty sure I had never heard the so
ng playing before, it was like I recognized it somehow. I started to move to the music, not really thinking about it, just doing it, and it felt really fucking good. Like this was exactly what I was supposed to be doing. It felt like I’d found a groove, that I was completely synced, not just with the song, but with everyone around me, Levi especially. I started to laugh as we danced, and I realized how good I felt. My whole body was buzzing with pleasure. It was as though I was acutely aware of every single cell in my body, the way the air felt on my skin, the heat in the room, Levi’s touch when he grabbed me and spun me around. There was also an intense love for everyone around me. I had no clue who these people were, yet I loved every single one of them. I especially loved this music, because it was so perfect, exactly the right thing to be listening to. No, not just listening to, really feeling. Embodying. It felt so good.
I didn’t know how long we danced for, but Levi finally pulled me over to the bar and got me a glass of water, which he instructed me to drink. I started to say I wasn’t thirsty, but once the liquid touched my lips, I realized that I was very thirsty and I downed the whole thing. “That tastes amazing!” I shouted.
He grinned and kissed my forehead, then ran his fingers lightly up my forearm. I shivered.
“Holy shit that feels good.”
“You having fun?” he asked.
“I’m having the best time! I never want to leave this place!”
“Well, we’re going to have to soon, but not tonight.”
“We should stay here forever! I want to go back out and dance!”
“Atta girl!” he said. He grabbed my hand. “Come on; let’s go.”
23.
Levi
Back in New York. I couldn’t get that song out of my head: Back to life! Back to reality! even though getting ready to go into the office was certainly not any reality I was used to. Isla and I had stayed in Ibiza for a few more days, but I knew Cal was just marking off the days that I didn’t show up at BCM, and each day I didn’t was one more thing he’d hold against me.
“Well, honey, I’m off to my first day of work!” I said. Isla laughed, and so did I, though really, my laughter was to mask my nervousness. I couldn’t remember feeling this nervous about something before. I tried to ignore the feeling as I looked at myself in the mirror. Long-sleeved, light-blue shirt with white pin-striping, black dress pants, Italian leather shoes, black tie.