The bell rang twenty minutes later.
Piper was at the kitchen island. Tank was in the shower.Real Housewives of Atlantapaused on the TV in the kitchen,paused on Shereé Whitfield mid-sentence during the season one reunion.
The intercom panel clicked.
Then the knock came at the front door. Hard. Not a cameraman, they would not try to come in, and not Tank, who had just gone upstairs.
Piper knew the knock before his brain finished processing it. He had heard it before.
He walked to the door and opened it.
Jayson was on the other side. Alone.
Just Jayson in a Brunello Cucinelli cream cashmere sweater that Piper had given him for Christmas the previous year, both hands in his pockets, a leather portfolio under his left arm. Piper noticed the portfolio first. A portfolio with legal documents was like a weapon to Jayson.
“Piper. We have a situation I see.”
Jayson just stood there, cold and knowing. He did not ask to come in. He waited. Piper stepped back. Jayson stepped in. He closed the door behind him.
“We are going to have a conversation,” Jayson said. “In your kitchen.” He looked around at the space the Baccarat vases used to sit. “Piper, where are the vases I gave you?” he asked.
“I needed to release some tension,” Piper answered as he walked to the kitchen, and Jayson followed, shaking his head in disapproval.
Jayson looked around the kitchen. “You have become a child,” he said as he set the portfolio on the marble.
“Sit down, is anyone here?” Jayson said.
“Tank is upstairs in the shower,” Piper said, but did not sit down.
Jayson noticed it. Piper had spent nine years doing what he was told, and at this moment he was sick and tired of being sickand tired of it all. He had lost the game, the guy of his dreams, and his privacy.
“Riley Dane,” Jayson said, “is, as you may now understand, an instrument at my disposal, and has served the function I needed served.”
Piper said, “What function, fucking outing me?”
“The arrangement was showing cracks and you needed to learn a lesson, Piper. You refused to sign the amendment, your performance in front of my friends was an embarrassment to me. Nine years of being my perfect golden boy and this Noah fucking Reyes swoops in and takes you from me.”
Piper froze.
“Do you know how that feels, Piper, to be rejected by someone you have spent years caring for?”
Jayson opened the portfolio. He took out the document Piper had read on the jet to Atherton and set it on the Italian marble counter.
“I have been waiting,” Jayson said, “for nine years for you to understand, on your own, the shape of this thing. You have never understood it. I have decided I will give you one more opportunity to demonstrate that you understand before there are consequences.”
“And if I do not sign?” Piper finally broke his silence.
“Then I will take every structure you have mistaken for your life. Your career. Your friends. Your agent. Your mother. Your twin sister. Your precious Noah. Your money. At the end you will be a human stain standing in some condo in Silver Lake with a mediocre OnlyFans account, sucking off obese CPA’s for two-hundred dollars an hour.”
He didn’t raise his voice.
Piper looked at the document on the marble.
“I am not going to sign that fucking contract, Jayson. I would rather live in the sewer with Pennywise The Clown than keep fucking you and your friends.”
Jayson was annoyed now, and his face was turning a shade of crimson Piper had never seen before.
Piper let his statement sit in the room.
