24

AIDEN

 

I’ve had the day from hell and it’s put me in a foul mood.

I wanted to rip the head off that fucker security guard that morning after getting Ally’s early morning mile long text telling me it’s been bugging her since it happened and that she’s a bit psychic and thinks this guy means harm.

It sounds whacked as fuck, the psychic bit, but she says Carly was in the gym and the guy turned out the lights and scared her and then was being creepy with her.

I make the guy wanna shit his pants, then have Carly on my bike with me, which I like too fucking much, and that pisses me off a little.

I get to work, and Bill in IT looks at her and I remember him chatting her up yesterday, staring at her tits, and I wanna bite his head off for even setting eyes on her. I’ve become possessive over a girl that’s not even mine.

And then it’s firefighting all bloody day long.

First, I had to put out a fire in Miami with the sales manager there. He’s quitting, won’t tell us where he’s going, but he’s trying to take business with him. Yes, I’m marketing, but I’m next in line to run this thing and so I keep my eyes on every department. My father was mysteriously absent during this, asking me to handle it.

I couldn’t get to my safety deposit box at lunchtime and then had a conference call with a sales guy and a prospective client in Miami because the old sales manager isn’t touching a new lead with a ten-foot pole and our VP of Sales here at head office was in the middle of some other emergency.

I see Austin in the men’s room after that and tell him I’m running to my safety deposit box and I’ll be in his office after.

I’m wrong about what time the bank closes and miss it by two fucking minutes so I’m about to call Austin to tell him and I realize my phone is down to 3% power, so I head back to the office instead.

I get there and just before my phone dies, I get a text from Jude.

“Don’t trust the girl in your apt. Call you tomorrow with details. She’s working for your mother.”

What the fuck? My phone is gonna power down any minute, so I rush back to the office and I’m almost to my door when I hear my father’s voice. And he’s congratulating Carly for doing her job.

And it pisses me off. Working for my mother? Really?  I don’t know the details yet, but I’m fuming.

Fuming like I can’t remember fuming in ages.

I get upstairs and see her with her fuckin’ halo over her head while my father is congratulating her, and I get ugly inside.

So, I plug in my phone in my office and open my other laptop, then start to fuck with the Lingo numbers, which was part of the multifaceted plan I’d already concocted to get rid of her.  I call my brother from the office phone and tell him I missed the bank and we’ll do it Saturday.

And the Lingo thing fucking backfires. In a big way, because half an hour after I flip that budget switch, I call her out for it and find out the ad she posted may have brought us an in with Franklin’s biggest client. Of all fucking things to happen. And it might’ve even happened without the cash injection into the budget, so it might’ve been all her. Her knowledge of the best way to leverage Lingo’s ads and Pinky’s fancy new banners.

I stopped the ad after only a $2k spend.

***

At 5:25, I’m getting ready to wrap up my day and go to the fucking team-building thing when I notice my phone isn’t charging. It’s dead. I jiggle the cord. The cord must not be working.

My desk phone rings. Jude calling.

“Hey,” I answer.

“Hey man. Can you talk? Couldn’t get you on your cell.”

“Yeah, man. It’s dead.”

“Your mother got pulled over for a DUI yesterday. Three o’clock in the afternoon. Liquid lunch. With your ex.”

“The fuck?”

“Your mother left lunch with Sienna Greer and went through a stop sign. She got pulled over and it led to her spending the night in jail. She slapped the arresting officer across the face. Pulled rich bitch shit.”

“No.” I’m laughing. This is fucking gold.  Amazing how one bit of news can change the mood of your day.

“Please tell me you saw.”

“I didn’t.”

“So… there’s no video?”

“’Fraid not.”

“Damn.”

“Yep.”

“Well, holy fuck.” I shake my head. “This’ll cost my father an arm and a leg in lawyers.”

“For sure.”

Wow, Audra. Slapping a cop. What a piece of work.

“So, what’s the story with Carly Adler?” I ask.

“Still digging.”

“Still digging?”

“I’m not finding much. Confirmed she has her Bachelor’s Degree in Business with a marketing concentration. University of Buffalo. Lots of parking tickets. Always paid, but she’s a little speed demon. Working-class parents. She’s got a junkie for an older sister who’s had some legal problems, who’s about to get picked up for violating her probation. Carly just broke up with someone a few days before she headed to Cali. Two-year relationship with a guy who works in an insurance call center. Really nothing exciting so far.”

“What about your text?”

“My text?”

“The don’t trust the chick in your apartment text?”

“When?”

“Couple hours ago.”

“What the fuck?” Jude sounds genuinely perplexed. “You gonna be at the office long?”

“What the fuck, Jude?”

“I didn’t send it. You gonna be there a bit?”

“Maybe twenty or thirty minutes. Got a work thing I can’t cancel.”

“Be there in ten. I didn’t send the text, Aiden. I wanna see your phone. Don’t use it until I get a look.”

“What the fuck?”

“See you in ten.”

“I’ll meet you in the lobby,” I say, and then I get a few things done, pack up, grab the still-dead phone, and head downstairs.

When I hand it over, I tell him I couldn’t get the phone to charge. He tells me he’s got the same cord and asks for my password. I tell him my phone doesn’t have one and he reprimands me for it. He tells me to grab myself a burner phone and text him the number. He hands me another business card of his, so I’ve got his number handy.

It’s Friday, close to six o’clock, and the place is mostly empty. Forty of our people are at the laser tag place. I glance at my watch. I need to be there by 6:30 for it. The games start at 7:00 and my father wants all the leadership team to be there.

I really don’t have time for this shit, but it’ll give me a chance to talk to Austin. Talk to my father.

And shit. Carly’s gonna be there, giving me that sass after me tipping my hand unintentionally today.

She was both confused and betrayed-looking. And then she looked absolutely furious.

The fire in her eyes got me really fucking hard, too. At that stage, I’d given up the idea of fucking her because instead, I was going to destroy her, and the hard-on pissed me off.

Now? Fuck… I can’t process this shit yet. I need facts.

 

***

 

I swing by an electronics store and buy a disposable phone. My third phone in a fucking week. Bella smashed that first one last weekend.

Jude said he suspected my phone was cloned. If so, someone has it, access to my texts and address book. Whoever it is also obviously has the ability to fake texts.

Jude is on the case. I make a call from the new phone to get my service on my existing phone suspended temporarily so whoever has access can’t keep getting calls and texts. I head to the laser tag place. 

Why would anyone want me to think Carly is fucking me over?

Who the fuck has been listening to my calls and reading texts, and for how long? It had to have happened sometime after Sunday, because that’s when I got the new phone.

My mind wanders back to my conversation with my Dad the night before.

He likes her for me. Whoever heard that doesn’t like that. I don’t know why.

But, fuck, I’m kind of relieved that she isn’t fucking me over. Why, I don’t know, maybe because it means I can still fuck her, where a few hours ago I could only maybe hate-fuck her.

She’s not gonna wanna touch me with a ten-foot pole now. In fact, she’s probably gonna try to get revenge on me for this afternoon. Unless I explain.

And now I don’t wanna hate-fuck, though she might wanna do that to me. I smile. I could dig that.

I shake it off. I’ve got to deal with this thing for work, talk to my brother. Figure shit out.

Then, figure out how to fuck her.

This weekend: find out who my biological father is and find a way to fuck my roommate. Interesting to-do list.

I get to the laser place and see her at a table with Austin, Ally, the girl from our Manila call center, Stacy, Bill the IT asshole who is staring at Carly’s tits, and some chick from accounting that has a crush on me. I can’t remember her name. Peggy. Penny. Whatever.

I stop and speak to my father, first, who’s talking to Alice and Blake at the bar.

“A minute?”