than the normal details—my mother’s tendency to disappear into her work studio for days on end to create her wild, whimsical clothing designs; my father’s mad-scientist approach to investing his money and building houses and boats and gardens that were more than a little outrageous.
I’ve never seen a man so in love with his wife as my father was. But it only ended up destroying him. When my mother got sick, he went mad with despair. When she died, he just couldn’t handle it at all. So he hung himself with a short rope from one of the beams in our garage.
Luckily for me, I’m incapable of love so I won’t have to suffer the same fate. After seeing what it did to my father, I’m glad I’m incapable of it. Devastation on that level isn’t something I want to experience. I loved her too, of course. And I was also devastated, like we all were. But for him it was different. He just couldn’t fathom a life without her. He simply didn’t want one.
I can’t imagine adoring a woman, or caring that much about anything at all.
I’ve never felt even an inkling of adoration. Lust, sure. Affection, maybe, once or twice. But the whole topic of true love bores me to tears. Unlike my father, I’m far more likely to find a woman’s quirks crushingly annoying than cute and endearing. I can’t laugh at inane jokes that aren’t funny just because I’m into the person telling them—because I’m not that into them. Ever. Most of the time I don’t even like them. Every single time, all I’m thinking about is how to end it.
For better or worse, I don’t have it in me to love like that.
I’ve come to terms with my limitations. The word marriage gives me an allergic reaction and I’ve never felt any emotion even close to jealousy or possessiveness or a longing for more. I have no interest in anything more prolonged than a very temporary happy ending.
So I’ve accepted my fate as a bachelor and a player. I’m rich as fuck, I’m 6’3’’ and built like a porn star (their words, not mine, but I’m hardly going to argue). Because of my money, my status as an investment prodigy, my looks and my so-called style, I’ve achieved a certain amount of pop culture fame. I ranked fifth on People’s Sexiest Man Alive list last year and soon after that I was photographed for the cover of GQ, which did a feature on me. After that it was the Wall Street Journal, then Forbes. “The savvy of Warren Buffett meets the allure of a young George Clooney,” was the headline. Which made me laugh. I couldn’t care less about shit like that aside from the obvious perk of having women dropping their panties at the snap of my fingers because of it.
But right now I’m seriously regretting the whole thing with Crystal. My plan at this point is to get my cuff links and get the fuck out of there. She can blackmail me into coming to Florida but there’s no way in hell I’m spending the entire weekend with her.
I disembark from my jet. The flight attendant—a new one—smiles at me demurely. I wink at her and she blushes. Maybe on the way home I’ll give her what she wants. I walk over to my waiting car, pulling out my phone as I give the driver the hotel address and slide into the back seat. As we start driving, I call Travis.
“Gage,” he answers. “Good to hear from you, man.”
“I just landed in Key West.”
“No shit. Come to our show on Friday night. The venue’s location has been changed twice because the info leaked and they don’t want it getting swarmed. I’ll text you the address on Friday and I’ll let the door people know you’re coming.”
Friday is two days from now. “You in town tonight?” I ask hopefully.
“No, we’ve got a sold out show at Greensboro tonight. We’re still in North Carolina. We get to Florida at around noon on Friday.”
Damn. “How’s the family?”
“Good, man. Everybody’s good. When are you and your brothers coming to Nashville? We need a family reunion one of these days.”
“Yeah, we’re overdue.”
“I hear Caleb’s home. How is he?”
My brother just got back from a year-long tour of duty in Afghanistan. He came to see me out of the blue a week or two ago and is suffering pretty intensely from the effects of PTSD. Even worse, he thinks