“Busy. Very busy. This . . . setback has been tough. But we can get through it.” He gave me a tight smile, and I couldn’t keep my mouth shut anymore.
“Daddy, you have to stop working so hard. You’re going to get sick. There is a whole office full of people who can help you. And we have all those interns now. I’m worried about you.” I got up and put my arms around him. He sighed heavily, like he’d heard it before, which he had. Probably from multiple sources.
“This is my company. I built it from the ground up and I feel responsible. This happened on my watch, because I wasn’t paying attention. I can’t let it happen again.” I just hugged him harder, and he finally hugged me back.
“But I worry about you. You’re not as young as you were.”
“Hey, I earned these years and grey hairs.” He pulled back and smiled.
“I know you did. Hey, how about you take the rest of the day off and get in some golf? You haven’t been in ages. We can deal with everything here. The company’s not going to blow up if you leave. I don’t think,” I said with a wink.
3
“So apparently, Lilia is some sort of html genius,” I said as Lucah and I lay on the couch after eating dinner. We’d made love so vigorously last night, and it had been a long day for both of us that I wasn’t sure if it was going to happen tonight. Besides, I was thinking of inviting Sloane over to watch movies with us anyway.
“Imagine that. A girl who is good at computers.” He said it with sarcasm, so I knew he wasn’t serious. I also knew that Lucah had no problem with smart, independent women.
“I know, right? So do you mind if I ask Sloane over? I haven’t talked to her since last night.” She’d sent me a couple of terse texts, but it wasn’t good enough. We needed to make up face to face. Even if I hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Sure, I don’t mind. As long as I get you later. And as long as I get to pick one of the movies.”
“Uh, I don’t think so. That’s not how this works. There are two of us and one of you. So we win. Sorry about that.” He just shook his head, because he knew it was true. In addition to getting me when he moved in, he also got my extensive DVD collection that Sloane had added to over the years. It included just about every movie that you could possibly need to watch during PMS, after a breakup, or to cheer you up if you’d had a crappy day. It just so happened that a lot of those movies were, um, romantic comedies and chick flicks. They weren’t all like that, but a lot of them were. Lucah didn’t have a lot of movies, because he watched most everything on his laptop and DVDs were a pain to travel with.
I still hadn’t heard the extent of his adventures around the US, but I was giving him time, and I didn’t want to guilt him into telling me. I wanted him to want to tell me.
“Just as long as it’s not Hugh Grant. I can’t stand that guy. I don’t know what it is about him, but I just want to knock his teeth in.” Sloane and I had done a Hugh Grant marathon once when Lucah was home and he’d whined and complained the entire time. You would have thought we were putting him through a rare form of torture.
“Fine. No Hugh Grant. But anything else is fair game.” I could make this really terrible for him if I wanted to. But then he might withhold oral from me as punishment, and I definitely didn’t want that.
I dashed down the hall to knock at my former apartment. I heard her walk to the door and peer at me through the peephole.
“Movie night? Your theme choice. Only no Hugh Grant. Lucah vetoed.” I heard her sigh on the other side of the door, but the lock clicked and the door opened.
“Fine. I guess. Do you have popcorn?” I shook my head, and she let me in. “Must I do EVERYTHING for you?” Man, she was grumpy. She went to the cupboard and got out the bottle of popcorn kernels. She was adamantly anti-microwave popcorn. Plus, she didn’t just put butter on it. Oh no, she made popcorn into an orgasmic taste experience. That was another reason I’d come over. And to make up. There was definitely that too.
“Are you okay?” I knew she wasn’t PMS-ing because we were on the same cycle and had just finished.
“Not really. I’m just really stressed. Finding people to believe in the new lingerie line has proved more difficult than I thought.” Sloane was used to talking and getting her way, and she always got in a terrible mood when she didn’t get what she wanted. Sometimes, like with Ryder, it got out of hand, but sometimes, like with her business, I felt for her.
“Aw, I’m sorry. How can people not want to invest in it? Did you tell them about our success rate?” I had gotten laid every single time I’d worn one of her outfits and so had our friend, Marisol.
“It’s just a really crowded market. That bitch Victoria and her damn Secret are hard to compete with.”
“That whore.”
“Yeah, screw her.” She got out the popcorn popper and started banging around and assembling other ingredients. From what I could tell, she was going with savory tonight, given the spices she was shaking together into a measuring cup. She also got some butter going on the stove and I waited for her to start talking. It was only a matter of time.
“I just thought that this would be easy. I mean, it seemed like such a good idea and I was so sure of it. But now it’s like I’m failing.” She sniffed, her back to me as she stood at the stove so the butter didn’t burn.
I walked over and put my hands on her shoulders.
“You’re not a failure, Sloane. You have never failed at anything you’ve ever done. Everything you ever wanted, you’ve gotten.”
“Except love,” she said in a small voice. Crap, I’d forgotten about that. But it didn’t undo my previous statement. She had gotten everything she’d ever wanted, career-wise.
“You’ll find it. I promise.” She sniffed again and wiped her eyes.
“Why the f**k am I so emotional? If I didn’t know that there was ZERO chance that I was pregnant, I’d be taking a test. This is all your fault, by the way.” She turned and I almost stumbled into the counter.
“I mean, I’m so happy for you, but it’s hard. I miss it just being the two of us. You know I don’t like to share.” No, she didn’t. Except her food. And her clothing designs. Not much else.
“I’m sorry.” Now I really felt like a shitty friend.
She sighed and gave me a hug.