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“Sweet,” Slater filled in.
“Yeah. I didn’t get his number. That was stupid of me.”
Reed pulled out his phone and started typing before I could tell him to stop. “El is going to ask Tristan if it’s okay if he gives you Tristan’s number.”
“What if he doesn’t want me to have it?” I asked in a panic.
“What if he does?”
Stupid crush. I was worked up over getting a phone number. When the hell did I go back to being a teenager?
My phone vibrated next to me on the couch. I picked it up and saw Elic had sent me Tristan’s number. He wanted to talk to me. Score!
“What about Romeo?” I asked.
“That’s all you. I know nothing about him. I could ask Greer to ask Dexen though.”
“No, don’t. I don’t want to go that far. Maybe I’ll make a trip to the club again. Finally get a membership. Do you think they’d like each other—Tristan and Romeo?”
Slater leaned forward and clapped me on the knee. “You’re going to have to feel them out. If they’re interested in you, they could want more or not. Only one way to find out.”
5
ROMEO
As cliché as it sounded, my home was my sanctuary. Across the city from the club, I lived in East Dremest in a converted industrial building that once housed seamstresses and other employees for a small clothing brand. I had only wanted the top floor, but when I’d discovered the entire building could be bought, I ended up making them an offer they couldn’t refuse.
Money wasn’t an issue for me. The thing was, I didn’t ask for this wealth, yet I couldn’t give it back. It was willed to me when my father died. There was also a letter handed to me at the reading of his will. It was only me, his attorney, and one other man present. I read the letter while sitting in the stuffy office with too much leather and books layered with dust. The letter begged me to take the money and be happy.
Life was funny that way. I always knew the man who’d gotten my mom pregnant wasn’t the type to stay. She’d told me as much. He paid child support like clockwork though. Not through the courts system. He sent a check every month, even after I turned eighteen. No one had to tell him to do so.
I’d never met him but knew his name. A simple internet search told me who he was. I understood he didn’t want to have a relationship with me. He was fine paying and keepinghis distance. I’d learned the hard way having a father wasn’t anything special, at least in my case.
When I got the call from an attorney about the reading of his will, I didn’t know what to feel. Should I mourn a man I didn’t know, yet who provided for my mom and me? Should I weep for a man who didn’t care enough to learn who I was or spend time with me?
The day I stepped foot into the attorney’s office, everything changed.
My mom stayed home. She would have been by my side, but I had to do it alone. I was twenty-one when my father died. A college student who danced part time and thought I had it all.
Once the door closed on my father, a different one opened for another man to step through and assume my father’s role. Someone I didn’t ask to be there or even thought I needed. I’d done just fine being raised by an amazing mother who taught me everything.
This new man didn’t write a check. He wanted to know me, actually talk to me. He wanted to look out for me and be there if I needed anything. Why? Because of love, not for me, but for my father. The kind that made your heart bleed and your soul weep when that love was torn away.
The sharp tap of expensive leather loafers over the tile floor reached me before the man in the loafers did. “You live like a child,” he said, peering down at where I sat on the couch with a gaming controller in hand. The large TV in front of me displayed the paused game.
“I’m twenty-three.”
“That’s no excuse. Do you know what I was doing when I was your age?”
“No, and I don’t want to.”
“You could have much more than you do.”
“We’ve gone over this. I don’t want to follow in your shoes.”
He sighed and took a seat beside me, unbuttoning his suit jacket as he did so. “Why do you have to be so obstinate?”
“Why do you have to be so formal? We’re in my living room, not a meeting.”
