by Claire Adams
“Still unable to speak, I see. That was the theme last night.”
“Look, I’m sorry about the texts…wait…what was the theme of last night?”
“You calling and slurring words that more or less didn’t make an ounce of sense.”
“I called you?” That made me sit up straight.
“When didn’t you call me? About seven times last night. I spoke with quite a few inebriated pals of yours. Some girl named Brianna kept saying her name was Brianna and it was her birthday and that men sucked.”
“I remember very, very little about this person.”
“Last night she was your best friend. She had started suggesting you get on top of the bar counter and dance when I decided to send Ned over to take you home.”
“What?”
“You remember Ned?”
“No, I mean, what do you mean you sent him to take me home?”
“You and your roommates. You told me what bar you were at and I thought it was time for you to go home, based on your complete inability to speak a coherent sentence.”
“Who are you to decide when it’s time for me to go home? You’re not my mother!” A familiar pang of anger started building up inside me. The nerve of this guy.
“I sure hope not. That would be awkward for everybody. But seriously, are you okay?”
“That is quite frankly none of your business,” I snapped.
What was his deal? Just because he has money and a fancy car and driver, he thinks he can push people around and make decisions for them? We would’ve been perfectly fine taking a cab back home. We’d done it countless times before. It’s not like I didn’t have a life before Zayden came into the picture!
“I would say it is, given our contract. It says specifically—”
“Why don’t you just become a lawyer and be done with it?” I sounded angry and that, combined with the headache that was making me feel like I would go blind any second, made me think that I was perhaps not in the best state of mind to have this conversation with Zayden right now. “Look, I am in a lot of pain right now. I’m sure you’ve experienced the mother of all hangovers. It’s not pretty and I am not functional currently. I assure you I didn’t do anything last night that would even put a dent in the contract—“
“I know. You kept saying that last night. I’m not worried, you were on the phone with me practically the whole evening.”
I was such an idiot! My one night out to clear my head of all things Zayden related and I managed to make it all about him. Why did I drink so much?
“I am sorry for harassing you.”
“It’s not harassment if I enjoyed it.” He was smirking; I could just feel it through his phone. “Really quite entertaining. You’re really something, drunk or sober.”
“Thanks for the expert analysis,” I spat. “Now if it’s okay with you, I am going to go back to lying down until time stops.”
“Call me if you need anything.”
“I won’t,” I said and hung up.
My head fell right back onto the pillow and I collapsed.
---
Hours later – or it could have been days for all I knew – I woke up again to Stacey’s face smiling at me.
“Okay little miss drunky, it’s time to spill the beans…what is going on with you and Zayden? After last night, you have to tell me.”
I covered my face under the pillow and mumbled, “Just kill me now, Stace. Why did we drink so much?”
She placed a cup of coffee on my bedside table. “Because you wouldn’t have it any other way. You were clearly pissed about something, and in your drunken stupor decided that the best way to deal with it was by consuming as much as alcohol as your liver could handle.”
“But.” I looked up at her again. “But, weren’t you and Nick drunk too?”
“Yeah, but we got to a point where we stopped drinking because you were sharing your evening with every person in that big birthday crowd. By sharing your evening, I mean, taking a shot with everyone in sight.”
“Did I do something stupid?” I reached out for the cup of coffee and the warmth of the liquid made my body feel infinitesimally better.
“Nope, you were just having fun mostly. Until the calls to Zayden started. Everyone in the bar spoke to him, thanks to you.”
I buried my face in the palms of my hands. “Shit, Stacey, that’s bad. I never should have called him.”
“What exactly did he do to you anyway? I thought you guys were doing so great.”
I sighed and proceeded to tell her everything that had happened after Rick had showed up at the office.
“Okay, first of all,” Stacey interrupted. “What were you doing talking to that Dick anyway?”
“It’s a long story!” I said a little too fast, feeling terrified of Stacey.
If anybody hated my ex-boyfriend with a fiery-passion enough to burn him to the ground, it was Stacey. It was a mark of her loyalty to me and really touching, for the most part. But right now her glare was crushing my soul.
“I have all day. And more if needed,” she said looking at her watch.
“He wants to be friends.” I shrugged.
“Oh, does he now?” She folded her hands.
“Look, Stace, if I told him to go fuck off, it would seem like I am still affected by what he did to me, like I still cared. And in all honesty, I don’t. Yes, he hurt me a lot and yes, I had the hardest time getting over it. But I am over it now and I feel that the best way to move on is to not make a big fuss about it.”
“Do you have to fraternize with him though?” She frowned.
“No, but it’s easier than fighting him off. I have been intending to avoid that coffee with him for as long as possible. But that does not mean Zayden can tell me who I can or can’t talk to! His attitude is what makes me actually want to hang out with Rick.”
“Aria, it doesn’t help to be bitter,” she told me, stroking my arm. “But you’re right…as much as I have been approving of Zayden all this time, I don’t think it was right of him to talk to you as though you’re an object in his possession.”
“I am though, according to that fucking contract, that’s exactly what I am,” I said, fuming. “He has stripped me down to the level of his office desk. It’s like all of the sudden, I have no agency, no independence, like I signed my life away to him, and he’s ready to remind me of it every step of the way.”
“Oh Aria.” Stacey hugged me. “That sounds bad. You should not feel objectified in any relationship. If it’s a power-play, it’s not a real relationship. Definitely not a healthy one. I can’t believe I am saying this, but I think you need to break it off. I know he is helping your mom out – and he was really nice to you yesterday, I spoke to him on the phone—“
“You and everyone in that bar,” I scoffed.
“If I had known about all this I would have told him stop calling back and turned your phone off. It just seemed sweet at the time, like he was concerned about you.”
I thought about that for a second. “I don’t doubt that he is. Concerned, I mean. But I think he does not understand the concept of boundaries and is controlling beyond belief. It’s starting to feel way too suffocating.”
“Then get out of it,” Stacey repeated. “We will figure something out for your mom. Maybe I can take out the loan in my name? My dad could help co-sign it. We’d just have to get him really drunk one day—”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Stacey. I’m sorry for fighting with you the other day. And no, I got myself into this mess, I’ll find a way to get myself out of it. But it was extremely sweet of you to offer. You’re honestly doing more than enough by just being there. I couldn’t love you more for it.”
We both sat for a long time hugging each other. By the end of it, I had decided for sure that I wanted to break things off. I was not used to being objectified and doing a man’s bidding, and whatever he was doing for me was not worth my dignity.
Zayden and I had to be over.
Chapter 8
Zayden
To my utter horror, I had gotten the dreaded “surprise” visit from my mother a few days after Aria had stormed out of my office. I already had a lot to worry about: Aria had called out of work all week, making me increasingly anxious. If she hadn’t made those drunk calls on Friday night, I was ready to show up at her apartment unannounced and give her an earful. How could she have done that to me? A whole week? What was I even paying her for, if she could simply choose to disappear whenever she damn well please?
On top of that my mother decided to just show up, no warning, and thought that would make me happy. Likely story— she very well knew how I would react to the visit— yet she was my mother and I had to at the very least try to not be a complete monster. Right now she was going on and on about my chef’s inability to cook the steak to the perfect medium-rare. She was a terrible cook herself, but loved to criticize everything other people did.
“My, my, how hard is it to get a simple steak right?” She frowned at the dinner table, while I wished, cringing, that the chef couldn’t hear.
“I think it’s delicious.” I shrugged and took a huge bite visibly savoring it. “Sean’s the best cook I know.”
That had the desired effect of making her wince. “How can you say that? When your own mother is sitting right across you?”
“Fine, if it’s all bothering you so much you can just take over the kitchen while you’re here and I’ll send Sean on a paid vacation. He deserves it.”
She gasped. “What is wrong with you, Zay? Why do you insist of treating the help as though they are equals?”
“Because they are,” I snapped. “I have my job of running the bank and Sean has his of cooking for us. I don’t see how one is any less than the other.”
“You know your father used to have the same attitude and that was his eventual downfall—”
“Right, he got a stroke because he was too nice.” I rolled my eyes.
“He was careless and trusting of everybody. It made him weak.”
“He wasn’t very trusting of you now was he?” I spat.
Her face went completely red. We had never really discussed what had happened between her and my dad. After I had found out, I’d simply started distancing myself from her, without any kind of confrontation. She must have figured it out, in any case, but it was something neither of us ever brought up. The fact that I had just said that was akin to slapping her across the face. Her eyes were burning with tears and she was completely speechless for a long time.
She eventually said, “You don’t know anything about what was between your father and me.”
“I know enough. I know why you are not in his will and why you guys were having trouble before he passed away. I know what you did.”
She began to cry and it gave me an odd sort of sinister pleasure. “It’s not like that. I made some mistakes, and I am still paying for it.”
“Hardly,” I scoffed. “I have provided you with everything you need. You’re still living on dad’s money, and a pretty damn leisurely life at that, I might add.”
Wiping her eyes with the napkin, she added, “There are other ways to pay for your mistakes than financially. Not a day goes by when I don’t regret my actions and wrongdoings to your father. He was an incredible man and deserved better. I realize this now.”
“Well too bad, it’s about six years too late. Longer, but god knows by how much. I bet you were never faithful to him.”
Another burst of tears followed. “That isn’t true, Zay. I cared about your father very deeply, and loved him a lot more than you’ll ever realize. But I was lonely. His life was completely devoted to working and I’d barely see him most days. I felt like I had married an empty bed. That was no excuse at all, but at the time I couldn’t think clearly. A lonely woman is capable of stuff like this.”
“I’m aware of that,” I snorted.
“Which is why you need to give Gina another chance.”
“Here we go again.” I rolled my eyes.
“I invited her to come back here and live with us,” she said without looking me in the eye.
“What the fuck did you do that for? This is my house and you don’t get to make these calls in my house.”
“Oh alright then, I’ll tell her not to come if that makes you feel better. You haven’t seen my pills by any chance, have you?”
Holy shit. Had she just threatened another suicide attempt? I couldn’t take it anymore, I was trapped. A part of me wanted to let her do whatever she wanted. But the other part of me just could not bare the thought of losing another parent, as manipulative and cunning as she was. She probably would never go through with it anyway, but that was the power this woman held over me. Logically, I knew she wouldn’t, yet her threats were enough to raise concern and bend me to her will.
I considered the idea of Gina moving back here. It couldn’t really be that bad. I had plenty of spare bedrooms in the house, she could pick the one she liked, farthest away from mine, and it would have the added benefit of keeping my mother entertained. They could spend all their time with each other and I could spend all my time at the office, with Aria.
The thought of Aria made me feel uncomfortable. She was already upset with me and it would take a lot for me to get out of this situation alone, I didn’t doubt it. But I didn’t even want to think of her reaction when she found out about Gina. I wondered what would be the best way to explain it to her, and whether she would even give me a chance to explain. From the outside it must look bad: I was technically still married, and trying to fake an attempt of reconciliation with my wife to keep my mother from offing herself, yet I had made her sign a contract to be my girlfriend and then slept with her. And so many women before her that she knew of. She would think I was a complete asshole, if she didn’t already. Aria could never know about any of this, under any circumstances.
“Okay, mother, Gina can move back into the house. But she’ll have to stay out of my bedroom.”
She flashed a smirk of victory. “For now that sounds like a good idea. She’ll have to eventually move into your room, you know. But we will wait until you guys have better results from couple’s therapy. That’s fair enough.”
What part of this was fair? I didn’t love Gina, I never would. She was wasting my time and her time and quite frankly setting the woman up for quite a bit of disappointment and hurt feelings. But until I figured out a better way to stop the suicide threats, I’d just have to go along with it.
---
The next day, Gina was all moved in. My mom had already told her to pack and get ready for it before even having that conversation with me. She was a conniving fox.
There was a knock on my door. “I’m busy,” I lied. I didn’t want to see either of them.
“I have something for you, it’ll only take a second,” Gina’s voice said from outside the door. Better her than more threats from my mom.
“Fine, come in.”
She did, wearing nothing but a robe. “Hi,” she said in what I imagined to be an attempt at a seductive voice. Then her robe came off. It wasn’t an utter shock. It wasn’t an unpleasant sight entirely: Gina had a tall, slender and toned figure, with the right amount of curves. Her bright blonde hair flowed under her big round breasts. Objectively, it was quite aesthetically pleasing.
“Put your robe back on,” I said, turning away from her and looking back at my computer.
“But, but I thought-“
“You thought wrong,” I said, ignoring the reaction of my penis, which was quite different from my own. “I am not going to fuck you. Not now, not ever. So quit embarrassing yourself.”
First I heard some sniffles and then I heard her cry as she ran out of the room. Holy shit, women. Did she really think that that would work? Just walking in here and stripping? That it would make me forgive her for all she had done and we would go back to being okay again? It was sickening, and also showed exactly what she thought of me: someone who cou
ldn’t keep his dick in place. Little did she know that the only person I wanted to fuck was a twenty-year-old redhead, whose defiance and stubbornness was enough to give me a hard on. I closed my eyes and lay in bed, thinking of Aria’s smooth skin and soft pussy, stroking myself thinking I was inside it, making her cum. I lasted less than a minute. The mere fantasy of Aria was enough to make me lose all control.
I would lose it completely if I didn’t have her back in my bed soon.
---
That evening, my mother somehow convinced me to take Gina out to dinner. “I’m feeling particularly under the weather, might need an extra dosage of my pills,” she had casually stated, right after suggesting that Gina and I needed to have some romantic time outside of the house if we were ever going to work. If only I could explain to her that I had no interest in making it work whatsoever.
She could fit in with all the crazy rich celebrities. We could be great a fucking reality show.
I knocked on Gina’s door and said, “I’ll be in the car, come whenever you’re ready.”
I walked over to where Ned was parked right outside my house and made myself a drink of whiskey.
“You don’t seem to be having a particularly good day, Zay. Want to talk about it?” Ned asked upon seeing me chug my whiskey.
I sighed. “I don’t know where to start, Ned. Everything is a fucking mess. You know my mother. She’s decided to extend her stay indefinitely and invited Gina too. She keeps threatening to off herself. It’s frustrating. And then there is Aria…”
“So that’s the real issue. You can usually handle your mother without seeming to collapse with the stress. But your lady friend seems to have done a number on you.”
“She’s frustrating, yet I can’t stop thinking about her. I am supposed to be taking my ex-wife out for dinner and pretending to attempt reconciliation, yet I can’t stop thinking about Aria. How was she? When you picked her up the other day?” I asked, suddenly remembering Ned had seen her more recently than I had.
“Very intoxicated,” he said cheerfully. “She seemed to be having a good time, but definitely a lot of trouble speaking. She was shocked to see me and kept muttering words of what sounded like gratitude, but I can’t be sure.”