And even if he was, I wouldn’t want it!I mentally cross my arms and stomp my foot, emphatic about this point. The Daddy play had been new and nicer than most of the other shit I was getting paid to do at the time, so of course it had stuck with me. That’s the only reason why I sometimes think back to Bruce and wonder how he’s doing–it isn’t because the Daddy stuff does anything for me. It doesn’t mean I want that kind of treatment. Doesn’t mean I need it.
I don’t need anything.
Chapter 5
Tommy
While dinner last night was a stuffy, formal affair with our dishes served to us at the table and everything pre-portioned, breakfast this morning is much more casual. There are extra tables scattered around the dining room, and a buffet-style spread of fancy offerings is making my mouth water. There’s a whole station just for juices; watermelon juice, mango juice, kiwi juice, juice blends, protein-infused, vitamin-enriched, blah blah blah. And that’s just the juice.
Dinner had blown me away, of course it had. But mostly in a ‘what the fuck is on my plate’ kind of way. I had to copy Kira because I didn’t know what that food even was. But this… As I follow a sleepy Kira toward a table, both of our plates piled high, I feel less like ‘what the fuck’ and more like…more like I’m angry and jealous and gleeful and greedy all at the same time. My head spins with it and my fingers tingle like my body is trying to tellme to grab what I can and run with it, but I have to remind myself I’m allowed to eat all of this, no need to run away with it.
I’m in a room with so much food in it, I can only compare it to being inside a grocery store, but all this food is free. The breakfast taco station, the fresh eggs and bacon being made in front of us, the whole table full of breads for toasting and oddly colored jellies–it’s all free for the taking.
No, even better, I’m gettingpaidto eat it. It’s almost worth the two grand I’m going to have to shell out to Brian for that shit poker game.
I pull out Kira’s chair for her, and sit next to her just in time for Lexie to join us with her own plate. A staff member comes and drops lattes on the table for us, which the girls grab and sniff deliriously like they’re huffing fumes.
“Why are you two so tired?” I ask with a grin as they slurp their caffeine.
“Stayed up late,” Kira complains weakly. “Dinner went long.”
She wasn’t wrong. By the time we went to bed–especially them, with their hours of skin care–it was almost one in the morning. I’d run into Brian and Janessa in the library shortly after that, and finally fell asleep an hour or so later, tormented by thoughts of Young-gi and Bruce.
I had some seriously hot dreams. And since I have a problem with cumming, I’m fuckingfrustratedtoday. I wasn’t lucky enough to just get off in my sleep, which is one of the only ways I can cum without my brain getting in my own way.
“You look like you slept well,” Lexie comments, narrowing her eyes at me. “I’m jealous.”
I snort a laugh, because I was just thinking about how well Ididn’tsleep. “Both of you look like you just got off a movie set. I’ve never even seen half the products you used on your faces this morning. Don’t come at me just because I’m not hooking myself up to a coffee I.V. bag.”
“That’s a popular hangover cure, you know,” Lexie says around a sip. “Not caffeine, obviously, but the I.V. bag. Some electrolytes, some pain killers, some hydration, and bam, hangover gone.”
I wrinkle my nose at the thought. I’m learning more random tidbits of rich people lore every day, and finding out that they don’t even have to suffer through something as humbling as a hangover like the rest of us poors is kind of annoying.
A few of the summit attendees join us at the table, and I let myself sink into my persona. Tommy Claremont keeps his sarcasm to himself, and isn’t always trying to add to the conversation. Tommy Claremont is so in love with Kira that he’s happy to just sit next to her and listen to her talk. It’s not a hard gig.
The door to the dining room is shoved open too hard and Brian storms in like a rain cloud. He’s looking rough, and I hide my smirk behind my cup because there are clearly no I.V. bags for him here. With the two idiot brothers in tow, they claim their own table and demand that the staff bring them not just coffee but also their food.
“I wonder where Janessa is,” Kira murmurs to me.
I softly pat her hand on the table to comfort her, and shrug. “No idea.”
I keep my mouth shut about what happened in the library. It’s no one’s business, and not my story to tell. But before Kira can speculate, Janessa floats into the room like an angel in baby blue. She’s got that smile on again, the slow and seductive one that makes her look like a supermodel with a secret. Without a care in the world, she makes herself a plate while Kira, Lexie and I discreetly watch her.
She glances at Brian’s table, raises a brow at them as if she’s surprised and mildly amused by their hungover state, and casually joins us.
“Good morning,” she says sweetly, a twinkle in her eye.
But now that she’s closer, now that I’ve seen behind her mask, it’s like none of it fools me anymore.
“Morning,” Kira says hesitantly.
“Let’s go get ready for the next event,” Lexie says to Kira, clearly excluding Janessa. The ‘other woman’ plays it cool and joins the conversation of the others at the table, but I feel her eyes on us as we leave. I glance back, expecting her to be watching me and nervously worrying about me gossiping about what happened in the library, but instead, her wistful gaze is on my hand, linked with Kira’s.
********
Apparently, the only way to convince rich people to do something as equal-opportunity as going outside is to make it ridiculous and out of touch. Instead of something normal like cornhole or even something I expected for rich people like golf, we’re out here with archery equipment and rows of white targets planted on the wide lawn.
There’s a mimosa stand and everything.
