Loaded, p.14
Loaded, page 14
“Where are you?”
“I told you,” I hiss. “I’m out.”
“Oh, right. With Cinderella.”
Sometimes he’s really obnoxious.
“Look, I just found out that Waterman’s having a party, and the rumor is, he has some cash to invest. I really want to convince him to invest with me.”
“Why do you need money?”
“I want to hire some new developers,” he says. “Only—”
“I don’t care,” I say. “Good luck.”
“Wait,” Ace cries. “Don’t hang up. I heard you got invited to the party.”
“So?”
“You’re not going?”
I snort.
“Okay, but you could go, and you could take me with you.”
“This is a you problem,” I say. Only Ace would be so self-centered that he’d call me on the first real date I’ve had in a decade to ask for a favor.
“Easton, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t serious.”
Sounds like Ace needs more than just a few developers. I exhale. The night’s been great, so maybe I should end on a high note. Leave her wanting more. “Fine.”
“Thank you. Should I come get you?”
“No.” I can drop Bea off and swing around the loop faster than heading home. “I’ll go straight there myself. Give me a little bit.”
“Need to go?” Bea doesn’t look upset, but she does look curious.
“A large part of my job, unfortunately, is knowing the right people, and it’s taken me years to meet some of these people, and even more to convince them to take me seriously.” My parents didn’t do me any favors, there. “My buddy Ace—”
“I heard,” she says. “He wants you to introduce him to some people at a party?”
“A party he can’t get into without me,” I say. “So if you don’t mind if I—”
“It’s fine,” she says. “I’ll go with you. Unless you think I’m underdressed?”
I blink. She’ll go with me? I thought she hated stuff like that—I was sure this would be the end of tonight. But if we keep hanging out after the party. . .I could take her to get dessert or something. And if I’m not in a big rush, I might be able to kiss her.
No.
I will kiss her. Screw Ace and his demands. I’ll get him into the party, and then I’m bailing. This is still my night. I smile. “Sure. Great. We don’t need to be there more than a few minutes.”
“Okay.” Her smile’s shy, and I love it. More than I should, probably.
It feels like she’s smiling just for me. I think that’s the thing that I like the most about her. I’ve never in my life felt as special as I do when I’m with her. When she smiles, when she glances my way, when she turns and her eyes meet mine. . .it feels like the world is ours.
13
Bea
I don’t date much. It’s not that I don’t want to, but mousy girls aren’t asked out very often. When we are, it’s usually by guys we don’t want anything to do with.
The last time I had a date, a little more than six months ago, it was with a guy who came into the restaurant. He was with his parents, celebrating a new job, and at the end of the meal, he asked for my number. He was reasonably cute, so I figured, why not?
That date became my why not going forward.
He was pushy. He was grabby. The whole thing ended with a slap and an uber.
But this date? I wish he would hold my hand. I mean, he did, while we were dancing, but not after. Even so, it’s going so well, it’s almost made me regret not dating more. I thought real life never mirrored the movies, but this is coming pretty close. Even the dancing, which I thought would be just awful, was really fun.
I’m not going to lie—it’s pretty hot that he can dance so well, and thanks to my sense of timing, it was easy to follow his very clear lead. I’m not a huge country music fan, and it was still a really fun night. So when he says his buddy Ace needs help getting into a party. . .I realize he means to take me home.
But I don’t want to go home yet.
This is why they tell kids to stay away from addictive substances. Once you get a little, you just want more, but here we are. I’m already jonesing for more time with Easton.
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’ll go with you. Unless you think I’m underdressed?”
At first he looks a little surprised, probably because I told him I don’t like big social events. After taking a moment to catch up, he rallies. “Sure. Great. We don’t need to be there more than a few minutes.”
“Okay.” I’m not sure what else to say. I don’t want to sound pathetic. “Are we going, then?” I stand.
“Right. Yes.” He stands up, too, and then he leads me out, one arm hovering behind me to make sure no one bumps into me. It’s pretty cute—and it feels like he’s claiming me.
I don’t hate it.
I’m honestly a little surprised by his cars. He’s not much older than Jake and me, and Jake bought a sports car with his first paycheck. I suppose it makes sense that a savvy businessman would want a less flashy car than a movie star, but still. A 4Runner and a Volvo? At least the Volvo’s comfortable, and of course, it runs well. That’s the primary concern for me, honestly. Mine is temperamental.
I just figured if a guy had more than one car, at least one would be flashy.
“Why don’t you let Jake buy you a car, really?” Easton asks, clearly also thinking about cars.
“It’s a slippery slope with him,” I say.
“Meaning?”
“Have you ever been around little kids?”
“That feels non-sequitur,” Easton says.
“For the non-Ivy League person in the car. . .”
He laughs. “I’m not an Ivy League graduate either, but non-sequitur means something’s kind of a disconnect. In other words, I asked you about Jake and then you asked me about little kids.” His eyes cut sideways briefly before returning to the road. “What do they have to do with each other?”
“I’ve done a few rounds of being a ‘big sister,’ and I also have a much younger foster brother. In my experience, the key to forming successful relationships with kids is establishing boundaries and then holding them.”
“Okay.” His brow’s furrowed.
“Jake’s like a little kid. . .on crack.”
“He does drugs?” Easton’s smiling, so I’m assuming he knows that’s not what I’m saying.
“Jake had an interesting childhood,” I say. “If absolutely terrible childhoods interest you.” I chuckle. “He doesn’t really like anyone.”
“Except you.”
“I mean, he tolerates Emerson, and he loves Dave and Seren same as we all do, but yeah. I may be the only person he truly likes, even in the family.”
“And?”
“His whole life he’s had very little, so now that he does have stuff, he wants to hoard it.” I look at Easton’s profile. “Or give it to me.”
“It sounds nice. I mean, your car doesn’t run, right?”
I sigh. “My car’s old, and I thought it just needed a new battery, but it’s still having problems with a new one, so I think the starter may be bad. The thing is, I can always take the bus if I have to, and repairing an old car is way, way cheaper than buying a new one. Right?”
“But if he wants to buy you one, it would be free, so why say no?”
“First, it’s not free to me either. I’d have to pay much higher insurance on a new car. But beyond that, money always comes with strings.”
Easton nods slowly. “And if you let him buy you a car?”
“He’ll want to keep going,” I say. “You heard him talking about buying me clothes. He wants to get me a new phone. He’s always complaining about mine because the photos aren’t great.” I shrug. “It’s fine if my photos aren’t the best quality. The world’s not suffering from a shortage of high-res photos of Jake Priest.”
“I guess not,” Easton says.
“If I really, really needed something, I know he would get it for me, and that’s nice to know.”
“Or Emerson.”
“Or Dave and Seren,” I say. “I have no shortage of people willing to help me, and that’s one of the reasons I want to do things on my own.”
“Must be nice.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t have people who will help you,” I say. “Your family is money money money.”
“Not exactly.” Easton sighs, and his hands tighten on the wheel. “It was mostly smoke and mirrors growing up.” He shakes his head. “Mom and Dad never let us tell anyone, but our family was usually one step away from bankruptcy. Dad’s not very good at business, and it wrecked everything, over and over. As a teenager, I decided I’d figure out how to do the opposite of what he did.”
“Oh?”
He nods slowly. “Even though it was against school rules, I sold candy to kids at school. So much candy.”
“Candy?” I can’t help chuckling again. “Sounds. . .lucrative.”
“I know it sounds stupid,” he says. “That’s actually why it worked. No one suspected me of really doing it to make money. I turned it into a joke. ‘How bad do you really want my Snickers?’ or ‘Are you hungry enough to pay twenty bucks for this Butterfinger?’”
“Wait, you’re serious?”
“I paid for my own college by selling candy for way more than it was worth to a bunch of spoiled kids in high school and sticking every last dime in a savings account my parents didn’t know about. Only, my second year of school, Dad found it.”
I’m completely shocked. Emerson mentioned that Elizabeth’s family had struggled, but I didn’t think it was with money.
“Anyway, it was less embarrassing to tell people I’d partied too hard than it was to say my parents found my college fund and used it to keep from filing for bankruptcy, so everyone thinks I failed out of school.”
Maybe no one’s life is really as easy as it looks.
“I do have some great friends, like Ace, who will do whatever they can to help me.” He’s staring straight ahead like he’s a little embarrassed. “That’s why I’m driving over to help him. He’d do it for me.”
“But your parents aren’t the rock they should be for you.”
“Not exactly, no.”
“Do they still raid your savings when they run into trouble?” I shouldn’t be asking. It’s none of my business.
“It’s not exactly the same anymore,” he says. “But the whole reason I started my own company is that I wanted to make so much they could never spend through it all.”
“But their spending is the problem,” I say. “If you can’t get that under control—”
“Trust me,” he says. “Unless they start ordering the New Orleans strawberry thing every night, they can’t outspend me. Not anymore.”
“I guess, but they probably still feel like an anvil around your neck, dragging you down.”
“We live in the land of opportunity. I just got pretty good at swimming.” He shrugs. “Honestly though, it’s fine.”
I kind of hate his parents, but I don’t mention that. Before I can think of anything else to say, he turns into a neighborhood—the houses are gargantuan. They’re as big as Seren and Dave’s inn.
“Whoa.”
“Yeah, there’s a reason Ace wants to meet this guy.”
“How do you know him?”
“He taught me tax law basics at Princeton before I left.”
“Are you the kind of nerd who still talks to teachers?”
Easton laughs. “I guess so.”
“So am I,” I admit. “But only three of them. The ones who really taught me the most.”
“Really?” He turns to face me. “Interesting.”
“Well, not lately, I guess. I haven’t had much to tell them about.”
“You could tell them about winning runner-up in the jingle contest.”
I shrug.
“But you won’t, because you didn’t win.”
“Sometimes it’s hard when people really think you’re talented,” I say. “Harder than if they just thought you were nice.”
“I get that,” he says. “Expectations can be the worst.”
“Exactly.”
When I hop out of the car, I notice that Easton’s jogging around to my side. His smile’s a little sheepish. “I wasn’t sure whether opening your door would be corny.”
“My dad—Dave does it all the time.”
“Why don’t you call them Mom and Dad?” Easton asks. “Unless that’s a rude thing to ask. Emerson does.”
I sigh. “It’s not much of a first date topic, but for now I’ll just say that my family’s very complicated, and I have to be careful what I say and to whom.”
His brow furrows, but he doesn’t press further. He does, however, offer me his arm, like we’re characters in a period piece.
“Do people walk arm-in-arm these days?”
His shoulders droop a bit. “Maybe not.”
“Who cares?” I slide mine through the crook in his elbow. “Maybe we’ll start a new trend.”
“If we’re starting new trends, my stylist will want you to wear very specific things.” He’s smirking, so I know he’s teasing. Probably.
It’s a good reminder that as much as my grandfather can be overbearing, people do watch Easton. I’ll have to see how bad it really is. Because right now, his visibility feels like his only flaw, and that scares me. There must be other substantial problems with this guy that I haven’t found yet.
A perfect guy is great in theory, but I don’t believe he exists, and if he did, there’s no way he’d like me. I’m as flawed as they come.
“Oh good.” As we approach the house, Easton waves at someone. It’s a guy I’ve seen before, and it finally hits me where. He’s Elizabeth’s employer. She did mention the event was for was a friend of her brother, and the first time I met Easton was at this guy’s video game party. “Ace.” Easton tosses his head at him.
Ace smiles at me. “And you must be Beatrice, Emerson’s sister. Right?”
I nod. “That’s me.”
“You two do not look even a little bit alike,” he says.
“They’re not blood related, idiot,” Easton says. “Foster siblings.”
“Ah, right. Sorry.” Ace winces a little. “I’m Ace. Sticking my foot in my mouth a lot is kind of my thing.”
Easton nods. “That tracks.”
“This guy has been bailing me out for a long time now, so he knows better than most.”
“But Ace would give up his left arm for me if I needed something,” Easton says.
“Hey now,” Ace says. “Let’s not get hasty. I’m left-handed. Maybe my right, but never my left.”
“You’re left-handed?” Easton asks. “How did I not know that?”
“He’s a lousy friend,” Ace says. “I doubt he’d even sacrifice his pinky toe for me if it came down to it.”
But now we’re at the front door.
“Ready?” Easton whispers. “I swear, we won’t stay long.”
But from the second we walk through the door, people are waving at him. “Easton, my man,” a man in his forties says almost right after we walk inside.
I release him, partially because it makes him look a little crazy to be standing with my arm hooked through his, but also because the lions are all coming for him, and I run from lions as a general rule.
“I’m going to get a drink,” I say.
Easton freezes. “Jake said you don’t usually—”
I wave him off, smiling so he knows not to worry. “Not a drink drink. Just something to hold in my hand. Go ahead. You can find me over there when you’re done.” I gesture.
Only, he grossly underestimated how in-demand he’d be. It’s been at least thirty minutes, and every time he tries to break away from a group of people, someone else snags him. I actually almost feel sorry for him. He’s definitely trying to leave, but he’s popular.
Meanwhile, I’m making sure this end of the punch table does not blow away. It would make a huge mess inside this massive house if it did. With such powerful air vents, you never know what could happen. Sometimes I set my drink down, with a napkin under it so no one inadvertently grabs it. Sometimes I hold it.
I’m flexible.
“You look as bored as I feel,” a man in dark slacks and a sky blue button-down says. He’s handsome in an Italian-model kind of way, with longish hair falling across his face.
“Not bored, no,” I say. “In fact, it’s been pretty entertaining just watching the people in this party. I think the clothes they’re wearing probably cost more than my parents’ home.”
The man’s lips are twitching.
“And I mean that on a person-by-person basis.”
“You might not be wrong.” The man holds out his hand. “Tyler Osborne, Piper Communications.”
“Oh, Tyler, I hate to disappoint you, but you’re currently talking to the most boring person in here.” I lean closer. “My shoes came from DSW, my dress is from Nordstrom Rack, and my watch?” I lift my wrist. “It’s a hand-me-down from my sister.”
He smiles. “You’re actually more interesting than I expected.”
“Oh?”
“Didn’t you come in with Easton Moorland?”
Ugh. “Yes, but we’re just friends. His sister’s married to my brother.”
“You’re family, then,” Tyler says.
“I guess,” I say, “but not really.” I shrug. “I won’t be here long, so you’d be better off getting to know someone more connected, I assure you.”
“What do you think about Easton’s company?”
“What?”
“Sacrifice Nothing,” the man says. “That’s the name.”
“It’s kind of a stupid name,” I say. “I mean, everything in the entire world that matters requires some kind of sacrifice, right?”
He tilts his head. “How so?”
“I get that it appeals to people who have never had to give anything up, and I suppose that’s the whole idea. Their overpriced stuff is for people who want to have it all, but really, they’re fooling themselves.”
“Are they?” Tyler smiles.
“Let’s assume the money they have to spend to buy something from that label isn’t already the trade-off because they just have so much. They’re also clearly valuing things that won’t really bring them joy. The overpriced clothes and shoes and watches are just another empty patch for the holes in their soul.”
