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“I’m working on a deal with my half-sister, Adelaide Powell. Addie did her homework on me.”
“And you want to return the favor.” I lean back in my chair.
Trig turns his attention to Cary. “I can handle it for you. The basics of what financials she might be hiding. The personal shit, like with your old man and where he was sticking his dick, I’m not touching. Find someone else.” Trig cuts my favorite part, the potential scam, out of the mix.
My jaw ticks, enraged. Despite this, my stomach loosens when I see a light smudge of lipstick on the rim of Paisley’s unfinished glass of wine. The two sensations are disparate and combined, they are uncomfortable.
Leaving Holly and Cary’s wedding, I’d considered leaving my worst habits in the past. However, I revel in the power of owning secrets. It’s why I infused Trig’s security company with capital when he needed an investor to get it off the ground. At the outset, he’d gone to Carver, but Carver’s money was tied up. I had plenty to spare and a hankering to put myself on top in this town quickly. The impetus was to save Sweet Caroline’s reputation for my mother after my father had forsaken their marriage and the business they’d built when he got arrested.
At the time, Trig merely found the various ways to investigate amusing. He didn’t mind using his surveillance company as a front on an occasion when I asked him to tap into a rival’s security feed. For years now, he’s navigated the reaches of the dark web along with my cousin, Skye. But what once was a game has become a bother to Trig. He’s bored with it, and since Rex Stanton’s stroke, we’ve argued.
Trig wants to sell out to some conglomerate in Minnesota. I’m his investor. He should listen to me.
“I don’t give a crap about Addie’s personal life unless there are any sordid details that might rain down and fuck the deal.”
“I’ll let you know what I find.” Trig knocks the table twice.
The motion alerts our server, who stops to clear plates and offers the dessert menu. By the time we spy the girls coming back from the restroom, it is as if the tangential discussion never happened.
I stand. Paisley waits to meet my eyes. She’s hiding whatever has gone on during the too-long-to-be-gone gab session. The one that they’ve grilled her during. The corners of her lips curl up as if to assure me the ordeal wasn’t awful. Paisley will reveal all on the drive home. Warmth spreads in my chest. She is about to take her spot next to me when the clip-clop of another set of heels interrupts.
“I can’t believe you have the nerve to come here with Jake Ballentine!” A stony, irate woman points a dangerous finger at Paisley. My name is a curse on her vicious tongue.
Paisley cod-fishes, her face growing white and then bright red.
“You brought the man you were sleeping with behind my brother’s back to Gavin’s favorite restaurant. To the place where you held your engagement party!”
I place my palms on Paisley’s shoulders. She’s shaking from embarrassment and the scene that the disdainful woman is creating in the swank establishment.
Paisley doesn’t interrupt Gavin Laughton’s sister. What she does is take every insult without defending herself or trying to explain.
How could she, though? This was my idea. I’m the one who forced her into going out to dinner with my friends at Royce’s.
The good doctor’s sister swipes the half-full wineglass from the tabletop. Cabernet covers Paisley’s coral dress. It spatters on the floor and droplets hit the white tablecloth and stain the cuff of my shirt. The glass falls over when Gavin’s sister puts it back on the table and the bell cracks.
“You think you can shatter Gavin’s heart and then have the audacity to rub it in? All you’ve proven, Paisley, is that you’re trash. Just like the whores dancing at his club.”
________________
This morning I’m the trite guy who brings flowers. All because of a three-word text from Holly.
Bring her flowers.
I trust Holly. It’s me no one should trust. The only best interests I have at heart are my own. Even now when I’m making amends, it’s not because it’s what anyone else needs.
I usually relish the role of asshole because it means I have the upper hand. But today I’m not the pompous asshole who gets his way. I’m the remorseful one.
A heavy weight has lodged itself where Paisley lays her head when we’re standing close. Or right where she would, if we stood closer more often. I don’t know what to do with this feeling. The one where I let her down. The one that makes me feel like a failure for not having the innate knowledge of how to love her, when mostly what I want is for us to spend enough time eating takeout and drinking rum that eventually my girlfriend will forget who we are to one another and let me fuck her.
I pace the sidewalk outside of Paisley’s garden apartment with a dozen long stem roses biting into my palm. I’ve gotten to the door and lost my nerve before knocking too many times to count. The buds graze my knee. Petals swipe against my jeans, falling and littering the ground. I’m ruining the delicate bouquet by holding it upside down.
But that’s me, right? Jake Ballentine is the giant ice god who lifts people up by the leg and shakes them until coins fall out of their pockets. I wreak havoc on lives for entertainment’s sake. I throw a monkey wrench in their destiny, to destroy their goals the same way mine were. And then I watch, amused, while they scramble to put the pieces back together.
There’s satisfaction in disrupting what they’ve got planned out. My motives are insignificant. I’m cursed. Evil. The son of a sinner. A sinner in my own right. This Jake Ballentine is someone I never wanted to be, but it’s who I became.
Forever ago, the spark ignited. Wanting to be a better man forhermomentarily lit me up.
Charismatic.
