Jack
Maybe it was the ultimate irony that Jack Stevens never fit the bill of a classic bad guy. He never looked the part. His charming exterior, flashing blue eyes, expensive haircuts, chiseled facial features, bronzed skin, and costly suits screamed money, good taste and breeding. Even if people knew about his past, they wouldn’t have believed it. They wouldn’t have believed he was once homeless, the product of a broken home, escaping his alcoholic and abusive father, living on the streets with his mother until she eventually died from an overdose.
No, people wouldn’t believe he’d done half the shit he’d done. If anything, he looked like old money, perhaps even a trust fund kid. If people bothered to look, they’d find out that he’d gone to an Ivy League school, that he was born to Judy and Richard Stevens, an only child. That he’d grown up in New Jersey and gone to the best schools money had to offer.
Of course, that was bullshit. He’d paid for that past, paid for it with stolen cars and bikes and occasionally with the blood of busted knuckles.
Long story short, he did what it took to survive. He didn’t look like a goon. He didn’t look like some scruffy homeless kid, or a former gang member. Some blonde, a nameless girl from his past, since he didn’t bother with getting to know people, once said he looked like he was in movies.
Jack Stevens was no good guy. So when he watched a tall, slim brunette stagger out of the massive banquet room of their hotel their company Christmas party was held at, he knew he should just let her go. He wasn’t the kind of guy who saved the world. He didn’t hold doors open for people or help old ladies cross the street. He was as ruthless in his safe, upper class, white collar lifestyle as he had been in the shadows of his past.
He would have let her go, the mystery woman, if he hadn’t seen her nearly topple over at the doorway. She swayed and tripped, even though it was obvious she was wearing flats. She slapped a hand over her mouth to cover a giggle, dug in her clutch and produced a set of keys. They flashed silver, catching the twinkling lights overhead. Even across the room, seated at a table alone, a half drunk cheap whiskey in front of him, Jack picked up on it.
He turned his face away from the doorway. The woman lingered there for a moment before she finally righted herself enough to move on. He hadn’t seen her before. Which meant that she was probably someone’s guest or date or a plus one.
She isn’t alone. She’ll be fine. Jack slammed back the rest of his whiskey. He set the glass down on the table with a bang, which was eaten up by the cheesy classic party style music currently blaring over an even cheaper pair of speakers. A few couples here and there and a group of mostly middle aged women from the accounting department, attempted to dance, but it was laughable at best. Laughable, as in it sure as hell wasn’t a funny kind of laugh.
He turned his head and his eyes strayed involuntarily back to the doorway where the brunette stood a minute ago. She wasn’t there any longer. He heaved a sigh, not sure why the hell he cared. Even from a distance, he could tell she wasn’t his type. He preferred blondes and definitely those on the bustier, curvier side of things. That was about as far as a type went. Lately, no one had been his type.
His attention was drawn sharply across the table as Wayde Harper, head of Human Resources, pulled out a chair. He plunked down, heavy set features red and ruddy. He mopped at his sweaty forehead with the back of his shirtsleeve, which was no less damp looking. The light blue had turned a darker color in the areas of the pit and neckline. The guy was about fifty pounds overweight and balding. Though he was just approaching forty, he looked at least twenty years older.
Jack might have cut the guy some slack if he wasn’t completely obnoxious. He flashed Jack a slimy grin like they were actually friends. Which they weren’t. Jack wasn’t friends with anyone. He went to work and did his job. He didn’t socialize. He didn’t fraternize. He didn’t participate in anything more than he had to. He did the bare minimum to get by and was somehow successful.
Probably because people liked a mystery. They liked it a little too much. So he’d decided, on a whim, to change it up. Make an appearance. Just one. One and done.
“You seen Giselle over there?” He turned his head, indicating a tall, curvy redhead who was most definitely married, though her husband was MIA at the party. Probably because he knew the damn thing would be boring as hell and couldn’t bring himself to endure it.
“Saw,” Jack corrected under his breath.
“Hmm?” Wayde’s thick eyebrows, like two bushy caterpillars which stood out in direct contrast to his balding head, rose a notch.
“Nothing.” Jack did his best not to make a disgusted sound.
“Or- there was this chick. Nice piece. Tall, thin, legs for days. She was wearing a red dress. Long, not the kind of thing suitable for an office party.” Wayde’s lecherous grin gave little doubt to the fact that he very much liked the woman in question’s lack of judgment when it came to fashion.
“Can’t say I have,” Jack muttered.
“She had long dark hair, green eyes. God, she looked like a model. Long, long legs,” Wayde repeated again. “I like tall women. I could just damn well climb them like a tree.”
“I think you mean like a monkey. They would be the tree.”
“What’s that?” Wayde leaned forward to hear over the music.
“Nothing,” Jack said again. “I was just saying that I hadn’t seen her.” The description, however, seemed to match the woman he’d just seen at the door. The one digging out keys even though she was obviously completely hammered. She was tall, brunette, slim, and had on a long red dress, which really wasn’t suitable at all for an office thing, though he was loathe to agree on any of Wayde’s points.
“Tall women. Lord. I just have to wonder how many positions she could get herself into with those legs. God, legs like that deserve to be locked around my waist.”
Jack tuned out the rest of Wayde’s statement. It was a skill he’d developed over the years, a way to shut out copious amounts of bullshit. How the guy was head of human resources was anyone’s best guess. Maybe he couldn’t be fired since he ran the hiring and firing department. Maybe it was because they worked for a union and no one had actually had the audacity to complain about sexual harassment. Maybe Wayde didn’t do that kind of shit at work. Maybe he saved it for extra special moments like the office Christmas party, for guys like Jack, who didn’t give two fucks about what Wayde thought.
Must be why he singled me out. Because he knows I won’t report him, since I actually don’t give a shit. Or wore… maybe Wayde searched the room to find someone he thought was just like him. The thought sent a shudder up Jack’s spine.
However delightful the company was, he decided to cut things short. He gestured to the bar then back at his empty glass. Wayde, who seemed completely clueless, got the hint pretty damn fast. Unfortunately.
As soon as Jack stood, he shoved back his chair as well.
Fuck me. Jack stalked away, weaving in and out of the people congregated around the room. He overheard snatches of conversation. Some of it about business. God, who talked business in their downtime? Weren’t parties like this a good excuse to overeat, get plastered, dance like a fool, and nurse a hangover for two days straight? It was his first Christmas party, ever, so he really didn’t know. But he’d assumed. Apparently he assumed wrong.
Wayde was still trailing behind him, a much more persistent shadow than Jack would have thought the guy had the actual brainpower to be. He dodged left and right, slid in behind a group of three women laughing like a bunch of honking birds, skipped past the bar and ducked out of the room, hopefully unseen.