I clenched my jaw as I read the letter over again. How the hell these were getting past the mailroom was beyond me. I was supposed to have my mail heavily screened. Especially now, with these threats getting to me. Did my security team not know how to fucking filter out mail? The damn thing didn’t even have a return address. Why the hell would they send something up here without a damn return address? I told them if anything looked off about a package or an envelope, to screen it and have it held in the mailroom until I could attend to it.

Yet I was staring right at it. On my damn desk.

I picked up the letter and opened it, allowing all my other mail to wall to the wayside. It was all junk anyway. Anyone that was important had my direct email and office phone number. I tossed the useless magazines in the trash can before I ripped open the letter, my eyes scanning the lines quickly.

Boulder,

Debts are to be paid in kind, and yours is still unfulfilled. Did you think you could hide behind your company? My reach grows, just like yours. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about what happened that night. Your debt is accruing interest, and the longer you wait, the more expensive it will become to pay it off. I suggest you get in contact with me so we can figure out a payment plan.

The damn thing wasn’t even signed! I slammed the letter onto my desk before I leaned back in my chair. Boulder. A name I hadn’t been called in years. Not since my youth, when I was young and dumb and looking for anything to fill that nasty hole I had gaping for the world to see. If those fuckers thought for one moment they could threaten me into paying whatever sum of money they thought I owed them to keep their mouths shut, they had another thing coming. I did what I had to do to create a life my family would be proud of, and those assholes weren’t gonna rob me blind because they thought they had some kinship right to me.

Not on my watch.

“Knock knock.”

“Hello, James.”

“That bad of a day, huh?” he asked.

I turned my chair back around and slid a bunch of things into my desk.

Including the letter.

“Something like that,” I said.

“Care to talk about it?” he asked.

“It’s not important. More personal than anything.”

“And here I thought our goals for this coming year were finally getting to you.”

“You mean the development of personal home security and our own line of smart-home technology? Nah. Not one bit,” I said with a grin.

“I just approved the prototype to be sent for testing. I should know by the end of the day tomorrow what the first round of issues are we need to fix.”

“I knew I made you COO for a reason,” I said.

“And here I thought it was because of my rugged good looks.”

“You have rugged good looks like I have boyish charm.”

“Fuck you. I have rugged good looks when I grow my beard out.”

“Which is never, because your wife hates it,” I said. “I told you that would happen when you got married, James. First it was your wardrobe, then it was your facial hair. Pretty soon, she’ll be wanting you to quit, invest in a houseboat, and move to Michigan.”

“You’re the one that put it in her head that the suits I wore weren’t nice enough,” he said.

“Because they weren’t. I pay you seven fucking figures to do all the shit I don’t wanna do and you walk into work with baggy suits and coats not fit to your body? The hell you doin’ with all that money I’m giving you?”

“Investing so I don’t have to work my whole damn life.”

“That’s… actually very smart. I commend you for that,” I said.

“Hey, look at that. You’re on the news. Again.”

I turned my head to look at the television running silently in the corner of my office. It was video footage of me and the girl I had taken out last night. She was hanging off my arm as the two of us walked into some restaurant she liked. I grabbed my remote and unmuted the television, smiling every time the reporter mentioned my name.

I loved hearing my name in the news. It was like free advertisement for my company.

“You know, I think she’s a good thing for you,” James said. “It’s the longest you’ve ever been with someone. Four weeks. Hell of a milestone for a man like you.”

“Then I hate to break your heart, but I ended things with her this morning,” I said.

“Fucking he-... Robert. What did you do?”

“What do you mean, ‘what did I do?’? Why don’t you ever ask what she did?”

“Because the last time I asked that question you actually tried to sell me on the fact that a woman not liking steak was a bad thing.”

“I don’t trust women that don’t eat,” I said.

“She didn’t not eat, Robert. She just didn’t eat steak.”

“Anyway, what’s done is done.”

“Okay. Robert. I’m getting a little concerned-”

“I know that tone of voice, and I’m not having this conversation now.”

“I’m worried about this path you’re traveling,” he said.

“Why, James? Are you jealous? I’d be jealous. You got married and your best friend is still prancing around with the finest pieces of ass in New York City. You’re the one who… decided to relegate yourself to one pussy the rest of your life.”

“And it was the best thing to ever happen to me. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It added a dimension to my life that no amount of work or money or sleeping around ever did.”

“You’re just saying that to justify the fact that you secretly hate that your wife hates your facial hair.”

“You’re missing the point,” he said. “You’re thirty five years old. You have everything you could’ve ever wanted out of life.”

“Nu-uh-uh. Not true. I have not purchased my crimson red Lamborghini convertible yet.”

“Seriously?” James asked.

“Seriously,” I said with a grin. “It’s my next major purchase. And it’s going to be the sweetest ride on the road. You wait and see.”

“If you weren’t my best friend I’d think you were absolutely pathetic.”

“Apology accepted. Now, what are we getting into tonight? You told the wife at home I had you for the night, right?”

“I did. She’s not expecting me back until much later. But I figured I would choose what we did tonight.”

“Long as you’re not dragging me to the symphony, I’m good.”

“Trust me, I’m not dragging you to the symphony. Not after what happened last time,” he said.

“It’s not my fault it was boring.”

“You were snoring so loud the maestro stopped the damn concert!”

“Then you should’ve woken me up!”

“I did! Twice!”

“Are you still mad at me because I won’t listen to your whole ‘you should settle down’ speech? Because this seems like a tense way to start off our guys night,” I said.

“No, I’m waiting for you to shut up so I can give you the news,” he said.

“What news? There’s news? I was just on it. Were you on it, too?”

“We’re pregnant, Robert.”

“I knew I should’ve worn a condom on our last date. I thought you said you went and got Plan B?” I asked with a grin.

“You’re an asshole.”

“And you’re going to be a great mother.”

The two of us chuckled as I embraced my friend. I couldn’t believe it. The man who had been with me since the inception of my company was going to be a first time dad. At forty two years old. I couldn’t imagine being a father. And I was never going to have to. Family was leverage. Something people could hold over someone else’s head. They were people that sank into the very marrow of others and created emotional connections as deep as the universe and as expansive as the layout of the stars. Family meant leverage, and leverage meant emotions.

But family also meant you had something to lose.

And I had lost enough.

“You know you’re going to be sixty years old when that child graduated high school,” I said.

“Fuck me, Robert.”

“You’ll probably be wheelchair bound with the way you eat. All those chicken wings and ranch sauce’ll catch up to you. Might make you blind.”

“You’re an ass,” James said.

“Hearing aids. If your child joins band in college, you’ll need hearing aids. You got enough money invested for those? I hear they’re expensive.”

“Fine. You can make all the jokes you want. But Delilah and I are very happy, and you were the first person I could think of to tell.”

“Not… your parents or anything?” I asked.

“After my parents, you asshat.”

“And here I thought I was supposed to be the first,” I said with a wink. “Okay. Hit me with it. Where are we going to celebrate the fact that sex has consequences?”

“Turandot.”

“Come again?” I asked.

“Turandot.”

“Is that a… new club in town? Or something?”

“It’s an opera. By Puccini?”

“Vladimir Puccini?”

“That’s Putin.”

“I know that, you asshole. I told you that you weren’t dragging me to the symphony.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m taking you to the opera,” James said.

“It has a symphony,” I said.

“It has a pit orchestra.”

“What the hell’s the difference?” I asked.

“About forty different musicians and their placement on stage. Now come on. I have two box seat tickets to the most sought after operatic performance of the season. The lead soprano is supposed to be out of this world.”

“Hot? Out of this world hot?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“No, she’s not hot? Or no, you don’t want me pursuing her?”

“No to both,” he said.

“Getting a little jealous that daddy might need some rebound sex?”

“You’re keeping it in your pants and going with me to this performance. You’re going to stay awake, you’re going to enjoy it, and then we’re going to talk about how awesome it was afterwards.”

“You know what would make this awesome for me?” I asked.

“What?”

“If I was drunk beforehand. So let’s hit up that place you like so much for food and drinks, then we can head to Tarantula.”

“Turandot.”

“Whatever,” I said.

I grinned at James before the two of us embraced one last time. I was happy for him. I really was. I knew there were men out there that wanted this for their lives. They wanted the wife and the home and the children. They wanted the picket fence and picking strawberries with their kids and going to their terrible flute recitals. I’d watched many of the men I knew in the businessworld get married to women that were good for them.

But it wasn’t something I wanted. I had a family once, and I lost them.

And I wasn’t going to build another one only to lose it to the shadows that still reached out for me.