Her crashing my pickup at the bar. Now living next to me.
I had to pull my thoughts back.
That meant I needed a distraction.
That meant I needed a woman.
That was something easily solved.
Callie looked at me and reached for her coffee cup on her desk.
I noticed it wasn’t the one I had given to her.
She smiled.
I laughed and walked away.
That meant she went out of her way to go get another coffee from a different place just to show me she didn’t need me to get her morning coffee for her.
That’s how wild this one was.
Anything to do with a man handling a thing and she hated it.
Which meant she probably did have a tote full of sex toys.
It almost made me feel bad for her.
I turned the corner of the hallway and Vince popped out at me.
His arms open, his height about six inches lower than mine, looking like a mobster in a Scorsese movie, nodding and smiling.
“Vince,” I said with a grin.
“Come here, nephew,” he said.
I gave him a quick hug.
His cologne smelled like skunk and piss.
“You fucking did it,” he said. “You and Callie. The dream team around here. I’m going to get you two photographed together and plaster it all over this place. Maybe it’ll make these other slackers wake the fuck up.”
“I don’t need my picture with her,” I said.
Vince waved a finger at me. “Get in the office, dammit. Sit down. Talk. Have a drink with me.”
“It’s morning,” I said.
“It’s nighttime somewhere in the world,” Vince said.
Good point.
Vince’s office was enclosed.
It was a palace too.
Everything was black and gold, oozed of wealth and I have a small dick but I have money. There was a fish tank in the one corner with a shark in it. It wasn’t some damn great white but probably a good three-foot-long shark.
He had a wall of books that I knew he had never once read.
He also had a bunch of couches in the office.
And in the one corner he had a full entertainment center, which looked like a living room more than an office.
He disappeared to the bar while I walked to the window behind his desk.
I slipped my hands into my pockets and studied the city.
There was just something about it.
Always so busy.
Opportunity everywhere.
There was no slowing down.
No taking a break.
Calming.
It was all about the next high of a deal.
“Drink it,” Vince said as he handed me a glass.
He stood next to me.
The whiskey was smooth and really good.
Vince smacked his lips together. “Almost as good as pussy.”
I smiled.
He elbowed me. “You want this office, Jackson?”
I looked at Vince and grinned even bigger. “I’ll do anything to get this office.”
Vince sat down. He folded his hands. “Maybe I’m getting old here. Right? I’ve got more money than I can spend and less time than I did yesterday. Maybe it’s time to move on. I can find an island to buy and get a private jet and call it The Pussy Express. Just fly women in and out. Non-stop. Until my heart gives out.”
“If you take care of yourself, you’ll live longer.”
“Fuck that,” Vince said. “I’m going to die with a tit in my mouth. That’s how I’m going to go.”
“Well, everyone has their day, right?”
“You want this?” Vince asked. “The office? The building? The business?”
“You know I want it,” I said. “I’ve wanted it since my father started it.”
“He was a good man. He had vision like nobody I ever knew. But he was flawed too, Jackson. He hesitated sometimes.”
“He was a planner.”
“Do you think this place would be like this if he was around?”
I swallowed hard.
This was not a subject I cared to talk about.
“Ah, fuck it,” Vince said. “Forget I said anything. We’re here. He’s not. We drink to him. Right?”
Vince lifted his glass.
I lifted mine too.
I didn’t do the whole talk to dead people thing, but if I did, I would let my father know that I was going to make good with his company.
Vince was a greedy prick.
That was why I didn’t get that silver spoon when my father died.
Everything had been left for Vince to control.
Soon enough, I would have it all.
Soon enough…
Vince finished his drink and pushed the glass across his desk. “This isn’t cutting it. Let’s celebrate.”
“What?” I asked.
“Come on. Let’s go out tonight, Jackson. We deserve it. LoriTech is going to be fucking huge for us. We should cut loose. You. Me. Callie.”
“Callie?”
“She was part of the deal,” Vince said. “And you know, the last thing I need is some