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Chapter 13
DARREN
Past
“Can you believe fucking Manny Wu?” JD asks me through my speakerphone as I drive back to the city after dropping Bridget off at her apartment. It took all of me not to grab her and throw her in the backseat for a quickie before she left, but there’s a lot she feels she needs to accomplish before Phuket.
“Wants me to help him with his massage parlors, but he’s not fronting any money,” JD continues. “Not a fucking dime.”
“What’s wrong with you getting a percentage?” I ask.
“Like I’d trust the Park Street Boyz to give me the right cut. Manny swears they’re legit, but that’s Manny’s problem: he believes shit too easily. Man, he would not shut the fuck up last night. Luckily, Amy was in the restroom most of the time and too drunk to understand what was going on when she got back. I finally told him flat out I’m not doing anything for him. You know what he said?”
“No,” I reply, my mind half on the homework assignment I had given Bridget, to work up to the middle setting on the wand.
“He asked me, ‘Why the fuck not?’ So I told him the truth. That he’s a loser. He’s struck out too many times in the past, he doesn’t even belong in the Rookie league.”
“Poor Manny.”
“Someone’s got to tell him the truth. Why you gotta feel bad for Manny, anyway? The guy’s pathetic. Oh, speaking of pathetic, my sister shared an updated guest list and Joseph Mok is coming. Guess he and the groom roomed together at USC.”
Mok and I had a run-in years ago when I was hanging out with Tony Lee at a bar in Vietnam. I had started hitting on a woman I didn’t know was with Mok because she had seemed receptive of my attentions. Mok took offense. He kept glaring at me through the night as he drank beer after beer. I had one too many drinks as well, so when Mok and his friend came up to me and Tony, I didn’t even attempt diplomacy. Not sure I would have even if I wasn’t intoxicated.
I ended up with a black eye, just before I broke Mok’s nose. All four of us were hauled into jail, though Tony’s brother got us out earlier so I had the chance to flipMok off as I left. The next day, I happened to come across Mok’s woman walking out of a tea shop and ended up sleeping with her. Not sure if Mok ever found out, and I don’t give a shit if he did or didn’t.
“I don’t have a problem with him as long as he stays out of my way,” I say. “By the way, you get your sister a wedding gift yet?”
“I still got time. What did you get her?”
“Cheryl put together a little Hawaiian vacation package.”
“Shit. I got to get someone like Cheryl working for me. It’s not like my sister needs anything from me, though. Her boring-ass husband can buy whatever they need.”
Andrea, JD’s sister, is marrying an entrepreneur who recently sold his start-up to a Fortune 100 company for nine figures.
“How long you plan on staying in Phuket?” JD asks.
“Maybe ten days, though I’m not sure Bridge can stay that long.”
“Will you listen to yourself? What should it matter how long she can stay?”
“She’s got a job and an internship. She wasn’t sure she could go in the first place.”
“What is the matter with her? Doesn’t she know you could have invited a hundred different women to go instead?”
“That wouldn’t matter to her.”
I can hear JD shaking his head. “You picked a doozy. Her pussy must be something special.”
Oh, it is.
As I pass through the toll booth and onto the Bay Bridge, it starts to rain. The forecast for the week is wet and cold, but I’ll be in warm, sunny Thailand soon enough.
Earlier, I had taken a photo of Bridget on my phone and sent it off to Cheryl for the passport. I had expected Bridget to protest that she didn’t look her best, but after she had washed her face and brushed her hair, she was ready to go. Kimberly would have taken at least half an hour to do her makeup and another half an hour to do her hair.
Later that day, I text Bridget to see if she had tried the wand I gave her. She replied that she was working on a paper for her health policy class. I asked if she had gotten anyone to cover her shifts at the library. She hadn’t. I told her she had better try or I would come over and apply the wand to her myself.
An hour later, she texted that she’d found someone to cover at least one of her shifts.
