SIXTEEN
Pagan
There was really no good way to tell a person that you grew up rich.
As in filthy.
As in, even if I lived five lifetimes of my moderate laissez-faire spending, I wouldn't really even put a dent into it.
I came into the world a hefty eight pounds and four ounces with he distinguished name of Robert Scott the Third, in a special hospital room that cost a good ten grand a night. Because heaven forbid a Scott slum it in one of the normal rooms. My mother couldn't be caught sweating in public, let alone having blood and a human coming out of her while she let out a string of unladylike curses.
I went home to an eight-thousand square foot mansion on twenty acres that served absolutely no purpose seeing as my father was never home to do shit like barbecue or play catch. You know, if he even knew how to do either of those things.
My mother was usually busy with what she referred to as her 'social calendar.' Before she married into the prestigious, old-money Scott family, she had had her own corner office, a mid-six-figure income, her own place, her independence. But Scott women, my grandmother had informed her, did not work. They did charity luncheons and connection-building brunches.
A part of me had always wondered what she had been like before they slowly stole her spirit.
You know, before she was taken out of my life, never to be seen again.
Infidelity, the rumors always were. They were vicious and frequent, but I had always wondered about the truth behind them. Or if, maybe, she just never lived up to their high standard.
By the time I was eleven, she was nothing but a memory.
As an adult, I guess I could have sought her out.
But a part of me felt nothing but resentment toward her, figuring that she was likely paid off to leave me behind. Because, otherwise, what could have possessed her to leave her only child behind? And if money was enough of a reason to wipe her hands of me, I wanted nothing to do with her.
From eleven on, there was no one around. Sure, there was a staff of housekeepers, gardeners, drivers, cooks, the works. But there was no one at that point whose job it was to expressly watch little ol' me.
At that age and with that kind of freedom, what was a boy to do but get into every kind of trouble he could?
I cut out of the very nice private school to take off into the woods and climb trees, build makeshift forts, start fires, all the kinds of things that boys of 'good breeding' weren't permitted to do. But since my father was never around to see all the cuts, bruises, and scars, I got away with it.
Then, of course, by the time I became a teenager, shit got all kinds of crazy.
Fighting was always my second favorite pastime. Now, the private school guys I went to school with were a bunch of pansies, but even some schmuck in a fencing uniform or horseback riding breeches could be poked and prodded enough to throw a punch. And that was all I needed.
But before fighting, was skirts.
I lost my virginity at fifteen to the woman who cooked my meals. After that, it was a whirlwind of pussy. The plus side to private school girls is they, like me, had spent a lot of time alone and didn't have much of a childhood, growing up way too fast for their own good. By the time we were all sixteen, I don't think there was a virgin among us. And sex was as casual as a handshake.
It was also around then that I learned how much I liked cigarettes and whiskey.
And because all this drinking, smoking, fighting, and fucking was taking place in the bowels of some mega mansion, completely unattended, no cops were ever called, no records were ever recorded, no parents were ever the wiser.
Hungover as fuck I attended far too many debutante balls, opening days, charity auctions, whatever the fuck event was deemed mandatory by my grandmother who was either so naive or so stupid that she always mistook my red-rimmed eyes, tiredness, and surly ass attitude as a lack of sleep and school pressure to keep up my grades.
She died about a week before my seventeenth birthday and, with no matriarch left to keep up those kinds of appearances, me, my father, and my grandfather were never forced into tuxes or summer suits to attend any of those dull as shit events again.
My clock was running out too. It was a fact I was almost painfully aware of in my lovely, but small gilded cage.
Graduation would mean my father and grandfather would call me into the office, sit me down, likely offer me a whiskey because that was what was done, and have the mother fucking 'talk.'
The one about my future.
The one about their expectations on it.
I didn't need the talk to know what they wanted from me. They wanted a four-year degree in business. They wanted me to sow my wild oats, party, get the childish shit out of me without creating a criminal record, an illegitimate child, or making the news.
From there, I was meant to start at one of the companies as a mid-level employee. You know, so the word 'nepotism' wasn't shouted like a rallying cry. Then, when I was about twenty-five, I would get my corner office. I would get a salary that would make a pro-football player pale.
One might think this was a dream.
After all, money was important. If you were poor, it was important. If you were rich, it was important.
But if the money came with clauses, like mine would, namely a suitable wife, the right number of children, the perfect outward appearances, then it wasn't the freedom that wealth afforded a person. It was just another kind of prison. True, the walls were gold, and the sheets were a fuckuva lot softer, but a prison was still a prison, no matter how nice the view from your barred windows.
As one could imagine, the man I was presently, didn't just appear out of thin air one day. It was the culmination of all the events of my life. So even at eighteen-years-old, I was a headstrong, stubborn, cocky, loud-mouthed dick.
Cue the meeting I always knew was coming.
"That was a nice speech, Dad. Did you practice that in front of the mirror? Or are you just repeating the same speech Gramps over here spoon-fed you at my age?"
"Robert, have some respect," my father chastened, voice bored.
"This is heartwarming, really," I said, tipping back my whiskey and going for a refill, something no one even said a word about. "But I think it is a little late to pull the Dad-card on me. Fuck, I don't even think I've seen your face in over three goddamn months. And you," I said, waving my glass, the kind that cost about a hundred bucks each, at my grandfather. "When was the last time I saw you before the funeral? Three years? You think you have the right to come back here now and make demands on me?"
"Robert, I have done nothing but..."
"You could have stopped at nothing. That was the complete thought. You have done nothing."
"I am your father and it is time to put this insolent, childish behavior behind you and become a man."
My lips quirked up at that. "Didn't you hear, Pops? Sheila made a man of me years ago. You know, during one of those never-ending business trips of yours."
"It's like talking to a damn brick wall," my father grumbled to my grandfather who had simply been watching me with interest since I started speaking. "Listen, at twenty-one, you are coming into your trust, and I can't in good conscience, give it to a spoiled little brat who isn't going to do what is expected of him."
I pressed my lips together at that, rocking back on my heels, tipping back the whiskey, and draining it. I slammed it down on the edge of his desk, leaning slightly forward. "I don't want your fucking money or the strings that come attached to it. Take it and shove it up your ass. I don't need you or it. I will make my own way in the world."
With that, and literally nothing but the clothing on my back and the wallet that had just enough cash to buy me a hotel room for a week, I left.
I never looked back.
I never called on holidays or birthdays.
I never asked for a dime.
I didn't show up for important events, not even my father's funeral when a heart attack took him down on a golf course, something I only knew about because it made the news.
I was living holed up in my cheap hotel room in Navesink Bank the next week, working as a bouncer in a club on the outskirts of town because the owners appreciated the fact that I was fearless and filled with rage.
I was there for years.
It was there I met Ross Ward the first time.
He was walking past the mouth of the alley where I was wailing into some shithead who shoved a random woman against a wall and forced his hand up her skirt.
"Do you always rage-out like that in a fight, or did he grab your girlfriend's ass or something?"
I stood slowly, wiping the sweat from my brow with a blood covered hand, reaching into my back pocket for a cigarette and lighter.
I shrugged. "My paycheck didn't clear yet," I said, most of the anger stemming from the fact that that meant I wouldn't be hitting up Chaz's like I planned, finding a skirt, and taking her back to the hotel to have a tour of my sheets. "Then this schmuck put his hands on a girl inside. His face seemed like a good fucking place to take out my anger."
To that, the man's lips curved slightly. "I usually like desperate, but I can definitely make use of stupidly angry."
"This a job opportunity?" I asked, kicking the idiot on the ground as he rolled up onto all fours. "You show your face around here again and you'll be eating through a tube, mother fucker." It was a threat, and not an empty one, but my voice was calm. I had purged all the rage.
"It's a chance to audition for a job. You ever hear of Hex?" At my raised brow, he reached into his pocket and produced a card with just his name and address on it. "Now you have. Tomorrow at nine."
So then I had my audition, making the ring so slick with blood that it had to be hosed off afterward.
But then I had a job.
It was the first time in years that I didn't truly have to worry about money, wasn't living paycheck-to-paycheck. Because Ross Ward paid a nice chunk of royalties to us. And me, well, I drew a crowd with my particular brand of animalistic violence.
I changed my name.
I completely got rid of the ties to my past.
Pretty soon, the money piled enough to get me an actual residence, just an apartment, but at least it was a pay-by-the-month instead of pay-by-the-night kind of place.
It was right about then that I got a letter in the mail, it being the first time I had ever surfaced on paper.
I knew the stationary the second I pulled it out of my PO Box. Because only the Scott family invested in expensive linen-like paper with stamped calligraphy on it.
And since there was only my grandfather left, I figured it was from him.
To "Pagan" Richard Scott,
I have been looking for you for six years, since the same week you ran off. It was a quest that found renewed passion after your father passed, you being my only living descendent. But you could have been anywhere, the private investigators informed me, and there was no trace of you.
It wasn't until this week that you finally became a blip on their radar. In Navesink Bank of all places. Only half an hour away.
I understand your need for your own freedom. I respect your determination to make it on your own. I think your father, for all his protestation to the contrary, admired it as well.
By all accounts, you have become a headstrong, stubborn man, and as such, I don't expect a warm family reunion.
But I am writing to tell you that your trust did fall into your hands at twenty-one. I have enclosed the account details for your modest sum that you are free to do with as you please.
With regards,
Richard Scott, Sr.
That 'modest sum' he wrote of? It was five-million dollars. And, to him, that truly was a modest amount of money. It was the equivalent to a normal grandparent giving you five-hundred bucks for your high school graduation.
But it was more money than I had ever known.
And I was tempted. I was so tempted to take it all, to figure out a way to invest it, maybe ask Ward for his advice since he was living high on the hog.
But, in the end, all I did was take the money out for my beach house, figuring they owed me a real home for the first time in my life.
The rest just sat there.
Until I took out the money for Kennedy.
Fact of the matter was, I had been born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I had never even understood the concept of hunger. Even leaving all that behind, things just... fell into place for me. I made a very nice living between Hex and The Henchmen, way more than I needed which was why I felt fine about blowing it on off-roading toys that I knew I was going to crash and sports cars that were completely overpriced.
And then there was this woman, this fucking amazing, beautiful, resilient woman, who had been fed nothing but shit, had met with nothing but resistance to her trying to better her life.
It came down to the fact that... she fucking deserved a goddamn leg-up already. That was enough reason for me to dip into that account that had sat untouched for years since I bought the beach house.
It had just been sitting there; I might as well have put it to use. Especially for a worthy cause.
Because, at the end of the day, I knew Kennedy was good for it. I knew she would take that space and make it into something fucking amazing; she would find a way to make it thrive.
Because she was still hungry.
Maybe not in the physical way, but in a very soul-deep kind of way. She was hungry to prove herself, to prove to everyone else who had ever doubted her, who had refused to invest in her, that she was worth it. That she could rise up from the ashes of her past and fucking soar.
At the end of my story, her lips started twitching, watching me with eyes that somehow didn't see me any differently even though the image of the rough and dirty biker and cage fighter had to have been marred slightly by learning I got a goddamn Lambo for my sixteenth birthday.
"So, what does the inside of a Rolls Royce smell like?"
"Money," I said with a smirk. "It smells like fucking money."
She smiled at that, reaching out to hook a finger into my belt hoop, the first time since I walked in that she even got close to touching me.
"You really should have talked to me about this before you did this."
"Would you have fucking let me do it if I had?"
Her lips curved up. "That'd be a no."
"Which is why I had to do it behind your fucking back. You're too goddamn stubborn."
"You're the stubborn one."
"Says the woman arguing over who is the most stubborn," I said with a smirk as I slid my hands over her hips to fold across her lower back, pulling the bottom half of her body against mine.
Her hands rose to press into my chest as her head ducked for a minute, trying to get her thoughts together, trying to put a mask on. It wouldn't work, of course, she wore every goddamn emotion on her face. But I understood the need for self-preservation in the face of something that brought out a lot in you. Her eyes rose and while she certainly tried not to seem emotional, it was in her big eyes, in the depth of her voice. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," I said, leaning in to take her lips for a moment, feeling her melt into me. "Oh, there is one stipulation. It is actually in the contract too. I made it all legally binding and shit."
To that, her brows drew together as I pushed away, flipping through the paperwork, and pointing to the passage.
"Pagan!" she hissed, eyes bugging out. "You can't use that word in official documents!"
"Yeah, the girl at the office turned bright red when I added the 'no pussy-colored walls' clause."
"Well what color do you suggest then?"
"Green!" Benny declared through the closed front door, making it clear he had been eavesdropping for a good long while. I expected nothing less. You could see him practically bouncing out front the door. Part of it was because it was a good thing for him that business was expanding, sure. But I was inclined to think a bigger chunk of it had to do with the fact that he just loved Kennedy, had been with her through the ups and downs, tried his best to take care of her. He wanted her to have a break from all the stress as well.
"Or whatever color you want that doesn't look like a vagina," I told her, maybe a bit too charmed when her cheeks went pink. I could say pussy all day to her, but you bring out the technical word and she's looking like a school girl. "Take a trip to Home Depot and look at some swatches. Pick out what you want, and the guys will have it on the walls within the next week."
"It really doesn't feel right that they are being forced into all this work for me."
Kennedy was the kind of girl to do shit herself. From what she said, she had been the one to skim the walls, and bolt the hair cutting chairs to the floor, and any number of other things that needed to be done. Though that was likely to save money, I found I liked her willingness to get her hands dirty.
There was a lot beneath the surface. You took one look at her and all you'd really see was the big blue eyes, the perfect blonde hair, the plump lips, and the goddamn ideal body. On top of that, she dressed nice- lots of dresses and heels.
It was easy to think that's all she was.
But what she was was smart, and funny, and determined, and sweet, and a good friend, a great employer, someone who could take being the butt of a joke as she often was at the compound thanks mostly to Roderick who apparently came from a family with five, yes five, sisters so he was used to doing that big brother thing.
She was that shit that they talked about, that phrase that was thrown around way too easily on chicks that didn't quite live up to it.
She was the whole package.
And I didn't know what she was fucking smoking to make her think she should wrap all that up and offer it to me like Christmas morning, to think I was in any way deserving of it.
I wasn't the kind of man who was familiar with insecurity. But that being said, I had never been in the position to let a woman's possible opinion of me change the way I felt about myself.
Kennedy, as it turned out, was a lot of firsts for me.
She was the first woman I spent more than one night with, the first woman I took back to my house, the first woman who ever cooked for me, the first I learned the whole life story of, the first woman I had ever fucking made love to, and the first whose opinion mattered.
It should have been something that freaked me out, that terrified me. A man like me, so used to living life exactly how I wanted, without having to answer to anyone, it shouldn't have been an easy transition.
But in trading in a tiny bit of that freedom, I got, in exchange, Kennedy.
Seemed like a fair fucking trade-off if you asked me.
What did that mean long-term? Honestly, fuck if I knew. All I knew was, I liked having her around. I liked waking up with her soft body curled against mine. And, let's face it, her tit in my hand. Because that was how we slept every damn night. I liked hearing her laugh, even when I was in the other room and it was Cy or Roderick or Cash getting that reaction out of her. I liked listening to her tell stories about being a tomboy before she found makeup and heels. I liked how she got along with my brothers. I liked listening to her on the phone some nights bullshitting with Benny or his boyfriend.
And I think it went without saying, that I liked it a fuckuva lot being inside her. In fact, I liked it enough that four days before, I dragged her with me to the clinic to get tests run. It had been too long for the both of us and while she was on the Pill, we wanted to make sure shit was in the clear before we took that step.
The night before was the first time we ditched the condoms, the first time I had ever ditched a condom, and got to be in her with nothing between us.
It was maybe the first time in my life that sex seemed like more than just sex.
So, in my mind, that shit was all pointing to something serious. While I was nowhere near ready to start saying the love or commitment words, I was committed.
I was invested in giving it a shot.
"Alright, alright, get your lovey-dovey shit out of the way. Kenny and I have a date at the Home Depot. Or as I like to call it, Men R Us. Don't give me that look," he said to Kennedy. "You know my man and I have a strict look all you want, get the engine revved up, and bring it on home for the ride agreement. So go on, kiss her, grab her tit. Get it over with."
I chuckled at that, taking her lips in mine until she swayed against me.
"Go get your non-pussy color. The guys and I have a lot of work to do. We can take this to a notary tomorrow."
"Yes, yes, cute and all that. Thank you and whatnot. Now go." Benny was impatient to have her alone, to talk, to gush about shit.
I smiled, releasing Kennedy, and leaving them to celebrate.
Though the real celebration would come much later.
In bed.
Where she showed me her gratitude. Naked.
Yeah, fair fucking trade.