Chapter 2
Jax
When people ask me what inspired me to become an architect, I tell them the truth: Women.
Of course, people then assume that means the money, and the power, and the lifestyle, but that’s not quite true.
You ever see the elegant columns in the hotel off 8th street? I designed those after a weekend in bed with an Amazonian beauty who never took her heels off.
The way the dome on the River Street sports center draws the eye, making you look up and gasp? That’s exactly how Sophia, a Latina from the south side, made me feel about her breasts.
And the oval entrance to the Van Nelle skyscraper? The one that makes you think all kinds of pleasure are waiting once you get inside? Well… You get my drift.
Buildings should be beautiful, and women are the most beautiful things on the planet. That connection hasn’t steered me wrong; the architecture firm I set up straight out of college has grown from strength to strength, and I’m in a position now where I only take on projects because I want to – rather than need to. We’re turning away million-dollar contracts regularly, and we’re making enough that we can even do charity-related work for free.
And they still say you should never mix business and pleasure…
I pull up to the new construction site on 23rd in my Ferrari Testarossa. (Yeah, Ferrari’s are cliché – but only up to the point at which you actually drive them.) As I roll the car through the entrance, and see the site of what’s supposed to be a new museum – my greatest work so far (and an ode to one of the most freaky alternative chicks I ever met) – I lose it.
“The hell is this!?” I shout to Frank, the foreman, jumping out of the car with the engine still growling. “Where’s the God-damned crane? You’re reeling the supplies up with ropes?”
Frank jogs over as quickly as his pot-belly will let him and opens his hands in apology.
“There’s no crane. We got to bring the girders up like this.”
“Like hell you do. What good is a site without a crane? Get the damned company on the phone. I’m gonna tear out the throat of whoever’s responsible.”
“Sure you will,” comes a musical voice behind me. “You already slept with his daughter.”
I turn around to see the bouncy figure of Luce, my 2nd in command, and owner of the cutest red hair and sweetest smile this side of a Disney cartoon.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
She nods at the girders. “The guy who owns the crane company found out that you slept with his daughter, Claire. Remember her?”
I do a mental rundown of the last handful of women I’ve pleasured, at least the ones whose names I remember, but this Claire doesn’t ring a bell. “No!”
The eye-roll Luce shoots in my direction could cut the dick off a guy before you can even say ‘bobbit.’ “Of course you don’t, Jax. And now it’s biting us in the ass. He’s got a grudge against you, and held back on the crane rental. I sure hope she was worth it.”
“I do too,” I reply sincerely, and now Luce can’t hold back the grin she’s been hiding behind that faux-reproachful expression.
Luce is awesome. She has a way of delivering even the worst news like it’s a punchline, and somehow manages to be on top of everything, while making it look effortless. I can already feel my about-to-punch-a-wall anger becoming a how-bad-is-it acceptance. Still, I manage to grunt a few indignant words. Plus I can’t look like a tool in front of my crew.
“That was that, this is this. He can’t do that.” I whip out my phone.
Her scoldy face is back. “He can, and he has. And now you’re not the only one who got screwed.” She smirks. Point, Luce. “I told you never to mix business with pleas-”
“Don’t say it, Luce. You know how much I-”
“-hate that phrase. Yes, I know.”
I breathe, take a look at Luce’s chirpy face, and chuckle.
“Ok. So tell me you have a solution,” I say.
She purses her lips, nods nonchalantly, and looks at the girders. “I’ve just arranged for another crane company to supply us, but they’re gonna take a day to arrive. Until then, we do it this way, and minimize the setback-”
A whole day with this primitive rope method? “But-”
“And to stop your incessant bitching,” she interrupts, “I will take you to lunch, and hopefully get to the bottom of whatever caused this,” she gestures at my face, “foul mood. Even though I know very well it is most likely a woman.”
I smile. “Say you’ll marry me, Luce.”
“Only if you promise to divorce me afterwards and make me a rich woman.”
Luce takes me to a bistro where we sit on the terrace. She has a knack for finding the best places to eat in the city, and while I usually hate others making decisions for me, I’d trust Luce with pretty much anything. Probably because she’s a badass who’s never once taken shit from me.
“You know, Luce. One day you’re gonna find a guy, settle down, and I’ll be left to struggle without you.”
She laughs into her iced tea. “One day you’ll find a girl, and I’ll leave her to struggle with you.”
I’ve known Luce since college. She hated me at first. She was a take-no-prisoners feminist, and I was – well, pretty much the same as I am now. That of course meant she was the ultimate conquest; the golden, unattainable prize. I chased her for months, but we hooked up once, and then something weird happened. Something I still don’t really understand – we became friends.
“So who was it last night, Jax?” she says, taking a diet-busting bite out of her slice of pizza. “Blonde, brunette, waitress, Hollywood actress? A green sex alien from the planet Zarg?”
I swallow my pasta and nod. “A gentleman never kisses and tells, Luce.”
“Good thing you’re not a gentleman then,” she says, dabbing her lips daintily. “Seriously though, something happened. I can tell. I wish I couldn’t, but Lord help me, I can.”
I jab another piece of pasta, say with a knowing grin; “it was the same as any other night,” and put the fork in my mouth.
“No, no. I can see it in those blue eyes of yours. That, and the fact that your hair is a mess.”
I drop my fork and run a hand through my brown hair. I know Luce’s joking, but I like to indulge her. She laughs, and I pretend to look around as if paranoid – and that’s when I see the girl from the bar. Ms. Amazing. Superwoman. The one so hot it makes you want to look somewhere else, just so you can look back and get blown away all over again. She’s sitting with a guy in a plain suit, his face so bland you could sedate dental patients with it.
Luce notices and turns to see what I’m looking it.
“Really, Jax? You’re gonna do this right here, right now? She’s got her boyfriend with her! You don’t have to prove anything to me, you know. I’m well acquainted with your ‘charms’.”
“You think that’s her boyfriend?” I say, letting my cool drop for a second. Seeing the girl nags me like unfinished business. A challenge.
Luce screws her face up in confusion, looks again, and says: “Why else would she stick out a lunch with a guy who’s completely focused on his phone. Look at him. There’s only one reason a girl would put up with that.”
“That,” I say, stabbing my fork towards the couple, “is why I’m not in the best mood today.”
“Oh?” I hear mirth in Luce’s voice, and damn her for being amused.
I nod, pulling my eyes away from the woman to look at Luce. “I saw her in a club last night.”
“I see,” Luce says, a mischievous grin growing on her dimpled cheeks, “and you…”
“No. I didn’t. She blew me off.” I mumble this last part, but Luce isn’t fooled for a second.
Luce slams her hand on the table so hard a couple of girls next to us jump around and shoot us quizzical looks. She throws her head back and laughs so hard that if she wasn’t a cute girl, she’d look like a supervillain.
“So the great Jax got the brush-off?! Ha! He is mortal after all!”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say. Luce’s gonna be on this for weeks.
“The girdle-ripping, panty-collecting Casanova of LA is getting old! Losing his touch. It’s a downward spiral from here, you know, Jax. Soon you’ll be using online dating profiles, going to singles nights, taking friends as plus-ones, and comfort eating in front of bad comedies.”
I glower. “I shoulda never told you…”
“Oh but I’m glad you did, Jax! I’m so glad you did!” She cackles like a witch as she waves at the waiter. “Another iced tea please, we’re gonna be here a while trying to fix this.”
“No need to fix this,” I say, standing up from the table.
“Hey, where you going? I’m just having a little fun.”
Time to crush that fun.
“Window of opportunity,” I say, nodding towards the girl. Luce turns to see her sitting alone now, the guy in the boring suit on his way to the bathroom, still glued to his phone.
Luce raises an eyebrow, brings the straw to her mouth, and says, “Oh this is gonna be good.”
I make my way towards the woman’s table and slide easily into the newly-emptied chair. Ms. Beautiful looks up, and her face breaks into an incredulous smile.
“Are you stalking me?” I say.
It takes her a moment to get over her surprise. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“It must be fate. You know, you really should listen when the universe is trying to tell you something.”
She puts a little pout on her lips and her eyes sparkle with mischief.
“And what is the universe trying to tell me?”
“That you and I should get together. You know, I’m glad in a way. My mother always told me you can’t find good girls in clubs.”
“You should have listened to her.”
“I should have. And now here you are.”
She bites her lip a little, and the gesture drives me crazy. I’ll remember it – I’m gonna bite that lip myself. She crosses her amazing legs, and leans forward.
“Do your lines really work on girls?”
I lean forward on the table myself, putting my hands together, letting her see the muscles in my arms.
“You wanna know a secret?” I ask, in a whisper.
“Sure,” she says.
“It’s not the lines. It’s not the fact that I’m incredibly attractive. It’s not the fact I’m the most well-dressed man in any room I walk into. It’s not my abs. It’s not even the Ferrari, my million-dollar business, or the beautiful homes I own.”
I speak slowly, rhythmically, enticing her. She rolls her eyes.
“Really. What is it, then?” she asks.
She’s leaning away so I beckon her closer to me, drawing her in for the secret. Her cool demeanor is clearly a defense mechanism, and I’m about to shatter it.
Then a shadow falls over the table. We look up. Great – Mr. Boring is back.
“Hey,” I say, standing up – playtime is over. I offer the guy my hand and he takes it. “Jax. I’m an old friend of…” I look towards her. This is it. She can leave me hanging, or she can give me the final kick in the balls.
“Lizzie,” she says, breaking into a grin.
“Yeah, that’s right. Damn. I’m so bad with names.” I squeeze the boyfriend’s hand tighter but he squeezes right back. It’s a regular hand-wrestling contest over here, but we both keep our expressions friendly. Bullshit friendly.
“Brody,” he says.
“I’ll try to remember that,” I say, patting him on the back with my free hand.
He’s still looking daggers at me – I’m not the kind of guy boyfriends want anywhere near their girls. And then his phone rings. Instantly Brody reaches for it. I nod a goodbye to him and then wink at Lizzie, who I can feel watching me as I head back to my own table.
“Back so soon?” Luce says as I slide into my seat, sipping her third iced tea.
“Some things are worth taking your time over.”
“Right,” she says, sarcastically, “and some things have boyfriends and should be left alone entirely.”
“That guy’s a tool,” I laugh. “And have you ever known me to back down from a challenge, Luce?”
“No,” she says. “Especially when it’s the smart thing to do.”