by Xavier Neal
“Elena.”
Brice’s developed curiosity increases. “Right. Elena had me take the whole day off, promised we could get away for the entire weekend with or without the kids if I wanted after I met with you…To be honest this all feels a bit like…” He bobs his head back and forth. “Like something out of one the spy novels I enjoy reading. But that’s ludicrous. You don’t work for a secret network of spies trying to stop the country from being controlled by an advanced secret society.”
I helplessly smirk. “You’re a fan of The Lost Spies series.”
“Blue Blood was fantastic, and I am on edge waiting for Red Spy.”
Let’s not tell him the ending for it is harder to deal with than the first book. No spoilers…
My smile gets brighter as there’s a small tug at my heart.
It’s not enough they look alike, huh? They have to share the same vim for reading and even the same types of books?
Brice clears his throat. “Sorry for rambling. I just…I really like to read and sometimes when I get excited-”
“It happens,” I whisper out, eyes still drinking in the Leave It to Beaver version of the man I love like my life depends on it.
Because it does…It has for longer than I care to remember.
I give Mouse a quick head toss. “You can go.”
He doesn’t argue.
Once he’s dismissed himself, I extend my hand across the table, “Hello Brice. My name is French Adams. I have something very important to discuss with you.”
The inquisitive expression deepens as my smile returns.
Can’t believe we’ve finally done it…
**
With my phone pressed to my ear, I wait for the elevator doors in The Castle to open. As soon as they do, Rhys picks up the phone. “Tell me, should I buy a bateau?”
His left field question furrows my brow. “What?”
“Should I buy a bateau?”
“Why are you asking me should you buy a boat?”
“I’m having dinner with some friends who keep raving about theirs. They love to sail and insist you haven’t truly relaxed until you’ve done it on the deck of your own boat. What do you think?”
Holt attempts to step into the elevator with me, which causes me to shake my head and point that he waits. Like the obedient yet terrified employee he is, he does as he’s told. When the doors shut, I snap, “I think that I can afford to pay my own private detective.”
There’s a heavy sigh on the other end.
“I think I can afford to take care of my fucking self since I’ve been doing it all my entire fucking life.”
“It was a cadeau, Poppet.”
“I don’t need gifts, Rhys.”
“Call it an early birthday present.”
Can he hear me?
“Forget the boat question,” he brushes off as if I didn’t deter the conversation to the topic I actually wanted to discuss. “Let’s talk breakfast.”
The doors ding open, and I slip into the hall. “What?!”
“Your arrival next weekend. I know we’ve discussed what you would prefer for meals, but what about coffee? Do you drink café in the Matin? Do you need it to get going?”
Baffled by the question, I brace my back against the wall right on the other side of the elevator. “I don’t need a birthday present from you, and I don’t need you to buy me fucking coffee.”
“You have made it abundantly clear from the moment we met you can take care of yourself, French. The repetition of declaring it is only a waste of breath for you. If it will upset you less consider my paying for Alan’s services as a way to expedite the process of spending quality time with you. Which is what we will be doing next weekend instead of this one because I am aware you need the time to get some affairs in order like make the introduction between Brock and Brice.”
My lips press together to stop the question from tumbling from my lips.
“No. I didn’t receive all of the process reports. Just a couple and the final one he sent today. I respect your privacy, Poppet.”
Rather than continue to the conversation I feel I am losing control of, I offer, “Latte.”
“Quelle?”
“I prefer to have a latte in the morning. Vanilla.”
“Chaud ou glacé?”
“Hot.”
“Préférence au lait?”
“Almond.”
“Anything else?”
Hearing him practically smiling into the phone rolls my eyes. “I like strawberries.”
“Whipped cream?”
“A very small dash of sugar.”
“Sucre? Really?”
“Oui.”
Rhys quietly states, “Sucre is it. I can certainly have that arranged.”
“Make sure you do,” I snip. “I have to go.”
“Of course. Profitez de votre soirée, Poppet.”
Realizing it is useless to continuously correct him, I simply sigh, “You as well, Rhys.”
I put my cell phone away and grab the keycard to my penthouse.
As soon as I enter I’m surprised to hear the sound of someone in the kitchen and the television playing a movie. I drop my bag on the foyer table and veer towards the left where I spot Brock in the kitchen about to put a bite of something into his mouth.
“What the hell are you doing?”
His mouth stops the motion at the same time his eyes meet mine. Sarcastically, he snaps, “Reenacting American Pie with a tomato.”
Not an image I wanted…
“What the fuck do you think I’m doing?” He tosses the piece in his mouth. “Cutting this up for the salad because you despise cherry tomatoes.”
I do…I’m a fucking adult. Give me a real piece.
Entering the kitchen where he has a spread of ingredients crossing the higher counter, I sigh, “I meant why are you making dinner. I thought you were supposed to be meeting Q.”
“He cancelled…” Brock adds with a grunt, “Again.”
I slide myself onto the lower portion of the bar where I prefer to sit. “Sorry.”
“You’re not.”
Absolutely fucking not. He’s been terrorizing me and my employees for the past few months. Despite the fact we’ve had him roughed up and taken other measures such as having his bank account frozen and him fired from his job, all my polite ways of insisting he back off, he hasn’t. The only reason he’s not been relocated in the middle of the night to some black site never to be see again is because that would fucking crush Brock. He’s lost enough. I’m going to extreme lengths to insure he doesn’t lose someone else….even if that person in my personal opinion isn’t worth the goddamn air he’s taking from those worth a damn. I’m doing everything I can to protect Brock. Not telling him what his shit hook of a so-called friend is doing is protecting him. He’ll figure it out on his own and I won’t have to be the bad guy like I usually am.
Brock places a piece of tomato by my lips and waits for me to open. Once I do, he gently places it on my tongue and gives me a devilish smirk.
Clearly he’s not too broken up about his cancelled plans. What? No. We’re not telling him about Brice today. There’s….There’s better timing. Definitely not the day his bullshit ‘best friend’ bails again.
After swallowing, I ask, “So did you just hang around the penthouse today?”
“Had lunch with Zane. We met up with guys later to play ball. Bailed early so I could get home and make you dinner.”
“How domesticated.”
“Fuck you…”
I snicker. “So…Whatcha cookin’, good lookin’?”
He lets his smirk remain. “Lasagna and bread are in the oven.”
“Out the box?”
Brock sneers as he returns to chopping. “No.”
“Pre-prepped and packaged?”
He lightly chuckles at the same time he looks up. “Maybe…”
Before I give him more shit about dinner, an unusual song fills my ears, forcing me to look ov
er my shoulder towards the living room. “Are you really watching Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory?”
“Problem?”
I turn back around. “You know the answer to that.”
Brock tilts his head with a curious look in his eyes. “Why the fuck do you love this movie so much? Is this why The Castle’s main colors are black and gold?”
“I’ve always liked the color black, but growing up my womb host had a strong hatred for the color gold. Said it was trashy and disgusting. So, like everything else she loathed, it became something I loved as one more fuck you.”
He nods.
“As for this movie? Huge love for classic Gene Wilder. He just…He always looked so happy and full of passion. No matter the role he portrayed he just looked like he enjoyed the fuck out of life so much his goddamn eyes sparkled. I loved that. And I loved how he made a little boy’s life better who never saw it coming…”
With a crooked grin, he states, “And I’m the sentimental one?”
“Fuck off.”
You too. I am not…sentimental.
Just as the ‘Golden Ticket’ song comes to an end, he says, “I never saw this movie before you.”
“Yeah, I still don’t get how that was fucking possible. We watched it in school after we read the book. I know I went to private school, so our curriculum was a bit different but I thought you read the same shit.”
“We did.” He says with a noticeable shift in his voice. “I liked the book as a kid. Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. Fuck, I liked most of Roald Dahl’s shit. The Twits was probably my favorite…Anyway, I never saw the movie because my foster parents at the time, didn’t sign the permission slip.”
Immediately puzzled, I ask, “Why not?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Okay…Why not?”
Brock hesitates to answer. “They um…They had a ‘children are to be rarely seen and never fucking heard’ policy. So, I didn’t even fucking bother.”
Seeing his entire body tense tempts me to change the topic.
“I was not to talk to them unless they initiated it. Apparently, once upon a time, I talked too much. Asked too many questions. Thought too many things. They used to put duct tape over my mouth to remind me unless they requested me to speak, I wasn’t supposed to.” He diverts his attention back to chopping the tomato. “That’s when I learned silence was always the best option in life.”
My eyes stay pasted to his straining body. The veins in his neck are tight. His brow is creased. His chest seems like it’s barely able to rise without excruciating pain. I caress the burn scar on his forearm, the proof of an atrocious adolescence followed by an equally appalling beginning to adulthood. A knot of sorrow swells, and I press my lips together to refrain from blurting the information about his brother.
He deserves to have his twin back. To have that peace…You’ve heard the shit he’s survived. Why wouldn’t I do everything necessary to give him back the one thing he held onto for so long? Talking to Brice is what I imagine talking to Brock would be like had he been given the same chances his brother was. The chance to talk. The chance to read without consequence. The chance to be more than just the bodyguard to those smaller and weaker than him. Or at times the shield for those he simply believed to have a better life than his.
All of a sudden, Brock lifts his eyes to mine. “You were my golden ticket, baby. I hope you know that…”
The declaration shifts my lips into a bashful smile.
I don’t know about all that, but I do know I’m going to be. I’m going to give him the one thing in life he’s always wanted more than me. I just hope once he has it, he sticks around. As I’ve come to realize in the years I’ve been helping people get what it is they truly want, often once they have it, they don’t need you any more…I hope like hell that isn’t the case with him.
French
I shouldn’t. I mean…I really shouldn’t. I should be in my office with my ass in my chair glued to the monitors. I can see this from there. I shouldn’t be here. What the fuck am I thinking?
Titan, the shirtless bartender catches me just as I slip from behind the door made to look like an extension of the bar.
Yeah. Even the bartender is to fucking die for in this place. Women want all aspects of their fantasy covered from the minute they walk through my doors. The bartender is no exception. I wouldn’t get too wrapped up in his coffee colored eyes and caramel colored skin. He plays for the same team you do and his boyfriend is the overly jealous type.
“Whoa…Boss…” He adjusts his black and gold tie. “Am I in trouble?”
His immediate response reminds me once more of where I actually belong. “Should you be?”
“Um…” he hums, clearly confused by the challenge response. “I don’t…I don’t believe so.” Now nervous, he lets his thick Cuban accent seep free. “But I can always do better, Boss.”
“You’re fine.” I gently reassure. “I just came to get a better view of the closing show.”
Titan grins wide. “Interesting.”
My eyebrows dart down. “It isn’t.”
He instantly back off. “No ma’am.”
I curtly hum, walk around the bar, and take a seat on the corner empty stool.
Of course all other seats are taken. There is never an empty spot. That fact keeps everyone’s pockets very deep.
“Ladies! Ladies! Ladies!” Clayton says into the microphone. “It’s that time of the night! Your final Prince has arrived! For all you ladies with a sweet tooth, you might wanna open wide…”
The hint to the pending song choice successfully sends a smile to my lips.
Now that’s the Brock I know…
Familiar notes to the classic Lollipop song fill the room, but are proceeded with Uncle Luke’s voice. He slowly strolls onto the stage in a white apron and a 50’s fashion ice cream hat. Nonchalantly, he tosses out candy necklaces and dice shaped lollipops. The music becomes barely audible between the screams filling the room. Pride and excitement alike pushes my shoulders back.
He looks like a fucking natural. You’d never know an inkling of the pain he has buried. He’s mastered the art of controlling a room with nothing more than his presence. Of course I’m proud. I helped create the very façade that puts more money than some ever see in a lifetime directly into his bank account.
Each time the remixed and re-edited song says ‘pop’, he stops and thrusts his crotch towards the nearest woman’s face. Bills upon bills soar his direction with every strut, but the steel expression on his face remains. When he finally reaches the end the music shifts into Lil Wayne’s Lollipop and Brock gives his apron a solid yank off before pointing to his crotch at the appropriate line.
Another smirk comes to my face while I watch him tear through the crowd with the force and domination they’re all craving. He controls each woman, each situation with confidence. Makes every stop hotter than the last. His body grinds to the beat, thrusts on the planned accents, and leaves a trail of panting hysterical women in his wake. I watch as his face is buried in their necks, as he yanks off the candy jewelry he threw with his teeth, and strategically licks the candy offered by some of the women sucking on the treats.
To no surprise, his eyes land on me mere seconds before his body prowls my direction. Shock and awe flood his expression but he does an impeccable job of pushing them away. He slides across the floor on his knees towards me, bills scattering the path, anxious to touch him equally as much as the women.
Don’t worry about the cash covering the floor. Anything that doesn’t end up in his string, definitely ends up in an envelope. Aside from the specific rules on not touching money once it’s left your hands, not that any of the women throwing it around can’t afford to be doing so, there are more cameras than the fucking Pentagon in here to catch anyone trying to steal. At the end of each show, while the stage is being prepped for the next one, Devon, the woman at the opposite end of the bar, collects the cash in an envelope and stores it b
ehind the bar with Titan until each Prince has a chance to come collect it. Afterwards, they bring it up stairs to Mr. Money Bags in my office to have it counted, cut, and returned to them. It’s a flawless system. One that if you fuck with, you better have a favor from the head of a Crime Family or the goddamn U.S. president to protect you from the hell I will reign down.
Brock buries his face in my crotch with the matching line before rising to his feet, yanking me up, and spinning me around like he did when demonstrating a good show for Holt. With me angled over, he props one foot on the stool and pops his crotch in sync with the perfect words. Before I’m even given a chance to react, he grabs me by the hair, swiftly turns me back around and bends me backwards. His huge palms land on my thighs while he pops and locks each thrust, the crowd howling in desperation to be next.