by P D Singer
“Whazzup, Ricky?”
A knot of men materialized in front of him—a small assortment of his little group. “Where ya been, man?” All in their mid-to-late twenties, of various shapes and sizes but attractive, they provided an honor guard to the booth against the wall where all the signs of a roistering evening littered the table.
“Come on over here, we’ll get you a drink!” That was Xander, who passed for the leader when Ricky wasn’t around. He poured amber beer into what might have been an unused glass.
“Gah, what’s that swill?” Ricky pushed the offered drink away. “It barely foamed—how long have you been nursing that pitcher?” He tipped his head, bringing an attentive waiter, who had to have been doing some gawking of his own in order to materialize so promptly. Good looks and generous tips always kept Ricky’s glass filled.
“Get rid of this, will you?” Ricky waved at the mess. “We need a pitcher of—what’s the latest good draft in, Kip?” He wasn’t going to drink any nasty bargain-basement fluid.
“Red Dog Ale. Want some of the fresh tortilla chips with that, Ricky?” The waiter flashed brilliantly white teeth in the dimness.
“If they’re still hot, yeah, and a big plate of the crudités.” Ricky smiled back. Kip had enlivened an evening or two.
“Aw, you’re gonna make us eat vegetables?” emanated out of the crowd pushing into the booth. “No fried mozzarella sticks?”
“You want a gut like Looky-Lou over there?” Ricky tossed a chin at an older man with enough paunch to guarantee he wouldn’t be pairing up with any of the more attractive dancers. “Go light on the beer and the chips and eat the celery, idiot, or order your own fat pellets.”
“Aw, Ricky!”
That was one thing that he’d seldom seen. He’d bet five bucks that they were running a ticket already and that they’d been keeping a lid on the serious drinking he knew they could do, hoping that he’d show. Knowing that he liked this DJ and had a tendency to grab the tab meant that he had a little crowd of regulars. What the hell—he’d made more than enough to treat them to whatever he liked tonight. Let them look after their own waistlines. “Okay, bring some mozzarella sticks.”
“Coming up!” Kip scooped up the flat beer and a couple of glasses, clinks against the happy jabber of the men.
“I kicked some financial ass today!” Ricky led off, and the rest fell silent in the presence of greatness. He regaled them with the saga of picking the stock, its fundamentals, and why he expected it to take off like a rocket, which it had, and why he expected it to sink like a stone later on, which remained to be seen. Probably they didn’t register a word of it; they’d never seemed to recall how other, similar exploits had worked out in the long run. They’d rather dance, and it nearly started a fight when Zach tried to get between Ricky and Xander, who could damned near bring a man off just by dancing three inches away from him. Ricky broke it up by going back to the booth.
“Another pitcher of Red Dog, guys?” Ricky offered, topping off his reputation with this bunch as Wall Street’s savviest gay trader. To a general chorus of agreement, little Dustin slipped under the table and proceeded to thank Ricky in a very concrete way. The rest shuffled around, providing some cover with their legs, the dimness providing the rest, and no one did more than smirk.
Right behind Kip and the second pitcher were two men that Ricky had noticed on the dance floor. One was nearly gorgeous, in a tall, dark, and stupid way, but the other proved that more than one Wolfe-Gormanite dressed scruffy to party and looked fine doing it.
“Hey, Ricky.”
“Hey, Logan. A couple more glasses, Kip.” His father had advised him to always buy the first round because the group never got smaller, possibly the best advice the old man had ever offered. Bet he never questioned how many cans of Milwaukee’s Crappiest he’s sucked down on his kid’s dime; his disability check sure doesn’t keep the fridge stocked or the lights on. The busy fingers under the table paused in the attempt to work Ricky’s zipper down and went to stroking his thighs through the denim.
“Thanks.” Dragging more chairs over wasn’t going to happen—Tall, Dark, and Stupid backed off in the attempt when the occupant objected, so Logan leaned a hip against the booth and accepted the glass. “Celebrating the big one?” he asked, aiming a knowing look over the beer and the others’ heads, straight into Ricky’s eyes. Coming from under chestnut curls and long lashes, it nearly set Ricky afire.
“You bet.”
Logan helped himself to a carrot stick, sliding it into his mouth. What Dustin was doing under the table suddenly wasn’t nearly as interesting as what Logan’s lips were doing to the carrot. The smug bastard knew it, too, and worked it until the carrot expired in a burst of vegetable pleasure and a suggestive swallow. “Dance with me?”
The two men at the end of the bench stood to let Ricky out. TDandS looked outraged and would have shoved Ricky right back into the bench seat he had scooted across, but a sharp cough from Logan had him looking around in confusion and finally wandering off, muttering about the men’s room.
“Don’t mind him,” Logan remarked offhandedly, though he had to speak up over the pounding music. “It’s you I came here for.”
“Really?” Ricky caught the beat with hips and shoulders, letting the music drive him. “Thought you’d have had enough of me at the office.”
“I don’t get enough of you at the office.” Logan knew how to move to the music; his hips did a two against one with the pounding of the drums, swirling him around until he’d gotten Ricky’s back to the dais where Georgie Boy, in all his flaming finery, spun the platters. The music softened into something that required slow dancing and arms around necks. Ricky responded by taking Logan’s slim waist and swaying to the new slow rhythm, bodies brushing on every third beat.
“You get all you’re gonna get. I probably shouldn’t be dancing with you now.” It just felt too good to stop. Logan looked really fine from such close range, all blue eyes and invitation.
“Like anyone there gives a rat’s ass about sexual harassment? The place is built on sexual harassment, top down.” Logan came a little closer. “Your buddy Jon sent me to buy condoms today, along with the coffee.”
“Buy them, not use them.” Ricky pulled back a fraction, but Logan had locked his hands together and wouldn’t let him retreat. “And don’t call him Jon.”
“Right. Mr. Hogenboom.” Logan could get a lot of sarcasm into a sideways toss of his head. “He’s here tonight? Helping you celebrate? No? He’s probably at one of those Social Register galas that you and I will never see an invitation for.”
Ricky stopped moving abruptly. “What if his family’s been here since the place was called Nieuw-Amsterdam? So fucking what?”
“So, you should be someone’s office god, not someone’s office toy.” Logan put one hand on each of Ricky’s shoulders, pushing and pulling, encouraging Ricky to dance again. “I’m ready to worship.” The word was a wisp of air into Ricky’s ear, and this time, he did pull back hard.
“I don’t need worship, and you will not talk about Jon like that.” If he was fast, he could have Logan doubled over, escort him out to the alley “to puke,” and then hit him again. “Or me.”
“Chill, dude.” Logan licked his lips. “Just saying.”
“Fuck you.” Ricky turned away before he lost control of his fist.
“Ricky, man, Mr. Santeramo, sir.” Logan caught his arm and turned him, and only the naked appeal in the younger man’s face kept Ricky from pushing his teeth in. “Okay, wrong way to ask, but man, the way that place runs, it’s like a guy can’t get noticed without some wiggle in his walk, you know? And I need to be noticed.”
“Why?” Neither Ricky nor Logan moved now, and the other dancers were starting to shoot dirty looks at them. One bumped backward into Logan and snarled at them to get out of the way.
“Let’s get off the floor here.” Logan led the way through the masses of men to stand at the far end of the bar. “Look, I really need s
ome positive notice at work. My last four analyses didn’t get picked up for a long position, or a short position, or even an option position. I mean, nothing. It’s like getting told that my work is crap, that none of the traders think I know what I’m talking about enough to put the firm’s money into it. Four companies that I thought had enough potential to do a full workup on, and—nothing.”
“You want me to do what? Invest on your say-so?” Ricky was openly skeptical.
“You didn’t put money into any of my companies, either, so I guess you didn’t think I’d picked moneymakers. Tell me what companies you want more information on; I’ll work them up. It’s just….” Logan paused for breath and looked so scared for a minute that Ricky couldn’t decide whether to console him or kick him to the curb for unfitness to survive on Wall Street. “I don’t know how long Edgar will keep me around if I don’t come up with some winners for you guys.”
“Probably longer than four no-goes.” Ricky decided on some consolation. “Negative information is still information. I don’t recall looking at any of your workups recently, just one of Pramiti’s and one of Vaughn’s. And Dwight’s. That was a good one.” Seven hundred thirty thousand bucks of good. Ricky caught the hint of wrath that flickered over Logan’s face before he went back to his sales pitch.
“Negative information doesn’t need a full analysis. If Edgar decides that he doesn’t need me, then I become a hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year liability—worse, because someone else might come up with better analyses and make the company more money.”
“You might want to get out of this outfit, Logan. You’ve got some credentials now.”
“You stuck around, Ricky. You became a trader.” Logan’s voice grew fierce. “With the chance at the serious bucks and a life. I want that too.” The worry came back. “Ricky, please, look over my stuff, and if you don’t think it’s useable, I’ll go through any corporation you want me to. Just please….”
Ricky understood Logan’s dilemma a little too well—his own days as an analyst weren’t that long ago. “I’ll look, okay? You don’t have to sweeten the deal. Come by in the morning after the meeting and bring what you think is your best bet.”
“I’ll be there.” Logan’s shoulders sagged in relief before he rallied and resumed his flirting. “Of course, that other offer is still open.”
“Pass.”
Ricky left Logan standing there—he probably wouldn’t be alone for more than twenty-one seconds. Back at the table, Ricky collected one of his posse at random and went back to the dance floor. Georgie Boy laughed into the microphone and started a new tune, one hundred twenty beats a minute. More than a few couples lost their clinch when the slow music stopped, but the general exodus from the dance floor suggested that some things might be continued in a less public venue. The backroom was going to be crowded.
He’d grabbed Dustin. Just as well, Ricky’d let the little guy finish what he started earlier. Built like a jockey with suction like a Hoover, he was cute and easy to be around, probably the most restful of the regulars. Now he was shaking his booty as hard as he could, grinning up into Ricky’s face. Just for promises, Ricky spun him a half turn and snugged up to his back, matching his movement with groin against ass. Er, back. Ricky’d have to squat a bit to get his cock next to the ass of a guy he towered over by nine inches. It would all work out better once they’d left the floor, which they’d do once the slow-dancing crowd got it out of their systems. Ricky leaned down to bury his face in Dustin’s mass of sweet-smelling brunet waves.
The music changed, not the beat, but what passed for melody grew shriller, and suddenly Ricky wanted to be elsewhere, away from the pounding drums and relentless guitars, away from the sweat, cologne, and breath of hundreds of men. He smacked Dustin’s ass. “See you later,” he said, and strode out through the dancers until he’d reached the relative quiet of the street.
Ricky flipped open his phone and punched the buttons, but shut the phone with a snap. He’d go to Jon’s place—what he wanted to say shouldn’t be said over a phone. He put his hand out for a cab.
The doorman waved an acknowledgement to Ricky on his way through the lobby. Ricky was a regular in the building, practically a resident. The elevator gave him a final few minutes to compose what he’d say, but the words fled when Jon opened the door. Seeing the mix of surprise, delight, and shock on Jon’s face turned all his carefully chosen words to “I’m sorry,” and anything else he could say got lost in a hail of kisses.
Body to body, almost instantly erection to erection, they stumbled backward into the living room, mashing against the arm of the couch and toppling over, landing in a whirl of waving legs and gasps. Ricky had Jon pinned beneath him for more searing kisses, but an instant later they’d rolled to the floor, the lime green rug barely a cushion for the fall.
“I’m sorry,” Ricky said again, though his words were muffled against Jon’s shoulder, where a moist spot grew under his mouth for the few minutes before the T-shirt and then all the rest of their clothes came off. He’d show Jon how sorry—he’d bottom when their custom said that he who made the most money that day topped. Jon’s skin was hot and smooth under Ricky’s body, until they rolled over the shaggy rug and Ricky looked up into wondering blue eyes.
“Now, Jon?” Ricky stole the condom Jon produced from between the couch cushions. “You wear it,” he rasped, unrolling it over Jon’s stiff cock.
“Because you still need to recover?” Damn, Jon thought he was the second act after someone at the club?
“You think?” Ricky wrapped Jon’s hand around the throbbing, hard proof of his arousal. “I want you in me, and then I want your mouth on me. I danced tonight, but I should have been dancing with you. It’s all yours, Jon.” He looked up at Jon, framed between his upraised knees, and pleaded with his eyes for Jon to believe that was true for more than one evening. Even if it wasn’t.
Chapter Three
“OKAY, boys and girls, let’s hear the news.” Edgar Wolfe stood at the end of the bank of desks in the central trading area. The hedge fund’s headquarters didn’t run to the expansiveness of a conference room, the price of real estate in the financial district of Manhattan being what it was, so morning meetings tended toward the casual. “Miranda?”
“Caught a nice uptick in Microsoft these last two weeks, closed the long position and picked up twenty-three thou. The rest, standing pat.” Miranda controlled several million dollars of the firm’s trading capital. “Looking at a nice new idea.” Her proprietary look at the young Indian woman sitting at her side meant Pramiti’s analysis had found favor with someone, if not Jon.
Edgar rearranged his wrinkles in approval. “Good, good. Corbin?”
“She beat me by a lousy grand. I closed out some calls on Cymron.” The trader standing hipshot against an analyst’s desk winked at his colleague.
“In the money calls. How much would we have been out if that had gone the other way?” Edgar fixed a stern eye on Corbin, asking what Jon considered a necessary question.
“About $50K.” Corbin grinned. “Not enough to sink the firm, boss.” Corbin usually owned his stocks outright and stirred up extra returns with the more aggressive options. Jon didn’t think he’d gone overboard with the risk, and the roughly 40 percent profit after expenses in less than a month would entice even an investor as conservative as Corbin.
Edgar grinned. “Carry on. Kate?”
“Shorting airlines right and left.” She bared her teeth, the effect uncannily like a big cat in a business suit. She’d been described as “a hundred pounds of brains” and alternately as “a hundred pounds of mean” by someone who didn’t have nearly as many brains.
Jon wondered what her exposure really was, just in case fuel prices came down sometime before Christmas. Every cent increase in fuel costs was something like $25 million a year to a big airline; conversely, if prices dropped, that was turned the other way, to profit. Good for the airlines, not so good for someone who’d made a big short s
ale, expecting the share price to go down. He grimaced.
“Don’t worry, Jon, I keep a really good eye on their costs.” She’d noticed. “The downside risk is limited.” She knew him well. “I’m cleaning up. This will be big when I close the positions.”
“When do you think that will be?” Edgar asked. The old man had always reacted to money like catnip.
“Before the Labor Day travel figures come out, I think. Sooner if those crocodile peep-toes go on sale.” She closed her eyes, and her lips moved, symptoms of mental math with lots of zeros.
“You will not trade based on shoe sales!” Edgar barked.
“As if I would.” Kate opened one eye, and her smile was arch—she liked agitating the old man. So did Jon, but the game was seldom worth the aftermath. Edgar humphed at her and went on to the next trader.
“Jon?”
“I’ve been shorting Orewatt. It’ll be a big score when I close it.” Jon was playing with air, really, selling borrowed shares for the short position. He’d buy enough shares to return to the firm that had so foolishly lent them, but only after the price dropped.
“Hedged?”
“Not anymore.” Jon didn’t let Ricky catch his eye. “The calls expired a while back—they were worthless. The stock’s dropped so far that there could be a twenty point run-up and I’m still well in the money.” He’d bought the rights to buy at an advantageous price should the rare event happen and the stock behave against his expectations. It didn’t cut into his profit as much as Ricky had moaned about. “I’m long the same stocks as before, no changes there. Hedged with puts.” Jon would either profit directly from the rise in price or use the puts to force someone else to buy if the stock went down. “You don’t like all that lovely money getting away from you.” Now Jon did glance over at Ricky, who gave him one lifted brow and went back to sketching.
“You are right—once that money comes to nest here, it stays here.” Not quite doing the Evil Overlord hand motions, Edgar still gave the appearance of wresting control of every dollar in the economy. From the corner of his eye, Jon noticed Ricky grinning, his pen scratching away.