Carl

 

I’m always direct, even in the most awkward of circumstances. And these were awkward circumstances. Really fucking awkward.

“We’re already acquainted,” I said, and David’s eyes grew wide in perfect unison with Katie’s.

There it was. The familiarity I’d experienced. Not one I’d have ever pinpointed, not without seeing them side by side in the flesh, but it was the eyes. The brows. The cheekbones, too, maybe.

She jumped in before I had a chance to expand, and I watched in morbid fascination as she flustered and blustered her way through an explanation.

A shitty cop-out explanation.

“I, um, I know Rick,” she told David. “He’s a designer. We’re friends. We know each other, met online, and I met Carl, through Rick, because Rick is, um, Rick is Carl’s…”

Don’t say fucking friend. I despise it when people get all fucking wimpy and avoid calling a spade a spade.

David gave a little gesture, shook his head. “Yes, yes, Katie, Carl’s boyfriend. I know Rick well.”

Katie was a far deeper shade of pink than I’d ever seen her, even when I’d complimented her on taking two dicks in her tight little pussy.

I looked her up and down, and my professionalism was offended by the girl before me. If I hadn’t known better I’d have dismissed her as a waste of time, a sulky child, just like her sister. Her fucking sister. A self-entitled little ratbag who expects an easy ride.

Bite me, baby. Her t-shirt was faded and shrunken, and I could see at least an inch of her belly, the curve of her hips heading into the top of some thoroughly tattered denim.

She looked away from me, folded her arms, and I registered her embarrassment.

She’d a whole case full of clothes back home at ours, I’d lugged them back and forth to the car enough to know, and every single item I’d seen her in would have been better suited to the office than the mess she’d chosen to rock up here in.

David was smiling. “Well, what a small world.” His eyes met mine. “You didn’t mention you’d met my daughter, Carl. This is a surprise.”

Wasn’t it just.

He laughed a little. “Didn’t you realise? Did you two not… talk? Surely you talked?”

David wanted answers, I could tell, but direct has its limits. I couldn’t tell the guy she’d called him a blank space on her birth certificate. Couldn’t tell him that she claimed she had no father, knew no father, that she wanted nothing to do with her fucking father.

And yet here she was.

Large as life in Daddy’s office.

My office.

And lucky number twenty on my internship programme.

“I guess I didn’t put two and two together,” I said, and my eyes were burning hers.

“I’m surprised you didn’t realise, Katie,” he said. “I’ve been working with Carl for twenty years. This is extraordinary.” He handed me a batch of application paperwork, blank. “Katie hasn’t officially applied yet, Carl. She’ll need talking through the procedure.”

“You’re starting late,” I said to her. “You’ll have some work to do. A lot of work to do.”

She closed her eyes, embarrassment practically steaming from her. And then she shrugged. “Sure, whatever.”

Her nonchalance made me bristle.

David’s phone started buzzing on the table top. “No rest for the wicked,” he said. He checked out the caller ID before sighing and indicating the door. He slapped my back on the way past.

“I’ll leave her in your hands, Carl,” he said. “Take good care of my little girl now.”

He could count on that.

“Sit,” I said, and Katie sat.

I took David’s seat and stared at her, and she stared at me.

“This is fucking awkward,” she said.

“No fucking shit,” I said. I reclined in my seat and weighed her up, piecing together the situation. “So, you’re the love child?”

“Something like that.” Her expression was sour. “I’m the love child and you’re the sugar daddy. Brilliant. Just brilliant.”

“You said he was a blank space on your birth certificate.”

Her eyes were like fire. “He is a blank space on my birth certificate! He’s an idiot, a prick, I don’t know how you can even stand to work with him.”

I couldn’t comprehend her venom. “David’s the best man I know, Rick excluded. The best man I’ve ever known.”

“Poor you, then,” she snapped. “Your standards must be pretty low.”

“No,” I said. “They’re not.”

I pushed the application form in her direction, but she didn’t take it. “I’m here because he’s blackmailing me,” she said. “Holding Harrison Gables to ransom unless I do six months on this intern thing.” I looked at her blankly until she continued. “Harrison Gables is a horse whisperer, from the States. The best.”

“I see.” I pulled the application form back. “In that case this intern thing isn’t for you. I’ve already got one joyrider on my programme, I don’t need another.”

She pursed her pretty lips. “Verity?”

“Yes, Verity.” I slid the paperwork back in the file. “I’ll tell your father your application was unsuccessful.”

“You’ll what?!”

“I’m serious,” I said. “I turned down over fifty worthwhile candidates for this year’s scheme. Fifty people who wanted it, fifty people who’d have worked hard for it, fifty people who were devastated when they didn’t make it. We have room for twenty on this programme, and right now I have eighteen who want to be here and one who doesn’t. I doubt Verity will last another week as it stands, and I’m not taking on another timewaster.”

“You’ll fire Verity?!” she laughed a bitter laugh. “That’ll be quite a turn up for the books. Princess Verity usually has the whole world fawning at her pretty feet.”

“Not here she doesn’t,” I said. “Not with me.”

“She won’t let you fire her,” she scoffed. “Not with Harrison Gables at stake.”

“She won’t get a choice, believe me.”

Blue eyes looked at me and softened. “I don’t like telling people about my father. I wasn’t trying to lie, or hide anything, I just don’t…”

“Surely you did due diligence?” I said. “When you were scoping out our profile, Rick and I, surely you… checked? Surely you recognised where I worked? Surely you knew? You should have known, Katie, rather than rolling up at some stranger’s house without the most basic idea of who they were.”

“I did check you out. I checked both of you out. I knew you worked for some swanky agency in Cheltenham, some tech thing. I didn’t know you worked with the sperm donor. His office is in Stroud, not Cheltenham. Your company name isn’t even the same as his.”

“It’s a subsidiary,” I said. “Surely you’d have recognised it?”

She shook her head, but I found it hard to believe. “I’m serious,” she said. “I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to forget about David Faverley and his stupid life and his stupid businesses. The last thing I’d have been interested in is which stupid companies he owns and which he doesn’t. I couldn’t care less.”

I leaned closer. “Why hate him so much? I don’t understand.”

“Because he’s an asshole! Because he’s a judgmental prick! Because he ruined my mum’s life! Because every time he’s ever looked at me I felt worthless, because of him, because I’ve never been good enough for an asshole like him. And I don’t want to be,” she said. “I don’t want to be good enough for him, not ever, he can go fuck himself.”

This wasn’t the Katie I knew, not that I really knew Katie at all.

“You seem surprised,” she said. “Like he’s a fucking saint or something.”

“Not a saint,” I said. “But David is a great man. A fair man. And he’s not judgmental, I’ve never found him to be judgmental once, not in twenty years.” I held up my hands. “I’m perplexed. I know the story, and I know they’re always tougher in real life, when you’re the one living them, but this, this hate, I struggle to match the venom to the man. Genuinely.”

“He judges alright,” she sneered. “Believe me. You’ve just never seen it.”

I sighed, and thought through my options, figured honesty was the best policy. It usually is.

“David Faverley can’t be judgmental,” I said. “It simply isn’t in his character.”

“So you think.”

“So I know,” I continued. “And I know that, because if it was in David Faverley’s nature to be judgmental, if he viewed people through some bigoted, egocentric, self-righteous view of the world, he’d definitely, not in a million fucking years, never ever have employed a loser like me.”

* * *

Katie

 

“A loser?” I laughed, because it seemed so ridiculous. “You’re not a loser, Carl. You wouldn’t even know how to be a loser. Look at you.”

“Not anymore,” he said. “Your father saw something in me when nobody else would cast me a second glance. He took a risk on a kid with nothing but a big old chip on his shoulder, and he was patient, and kind, and he persisted and tried, and put the effort in until I became something more.”

“I’m sure you’re being overly harsh on yourself.” I was sure, too. Very sure. But he shook his head.

“A stint in juvenile detention. Petty theft. Carjacking. Vandalism.” He paused. “Fighting. Fights I knew I’d lose. Fights I fought anyway, just because I was on the edge and didn’t know how else to express myself.” He clasped his hands together on the table top. “I had nothing. A couple of ex foster parents who’d already got the next kid in line by the time I left. Some friends not worth shit.”

I swallowed, throat dry. “What did you do?”

He looked right at me. “I grew up, a little, just enough to know I had to get out. So I set myself up with a couple of tools, a bucket, anything I could get my hands on. Legitimately get my hands on.” He smiled at some distant memory. “I washed your dad’s car. He was at a junction in Gloucester one day, in his sparkling BMW, and I approached his window and asked him if I could clean his bumpers while he was waiting. He said no at first, but I was persistent, told him there was mud down there, that it would dry on and be a bitch to take off later. Told him I’d do a good job at a fair price, and then asked him again.”

“And he said yes?”

He smiled. “He said yes. He pulled his car in at the car park up the street and he waited while I cleaned it. He said to give him the whole works, no expense spared, but the car was clean apart from the bumpers, and I told him so, charged him less when he offered me the cash, because I hadn’t earned it. He asked me where I was from and where I was going, and I shrugged and told him I didn’t know where I was going but I was from a block of flats just round the corner.”

“And what? He gave you a job?”

“He gave me an opportunity in life where everyone else put the boot in. He gave me his business card and asked me to go to his office. He said he could do with people around him who are honest, and hardworking, and hungry for a chance to do better.” He looked at the ceiling. “That was me.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.

“Whatever issues you’ve had with your father, Katie, I’ve never seen anything to indicate he’s a prick. Not a single thing in twenty years, not in the way you’ve said he is.”

“He fucked my mum when she was his secretary,” I said. “Got her knocked up and fired her and ruined her life. And then he didn’t want to know her, or me. Not until he rolled up when I was ten years old, wanting another little trophy to show off at corporate event day, most likely, a little blonde kid to tag along with his proper children. Now do you get it? He ruined my mum’s whole life. Ruined her. Used her and spat her out when she got pregnant, and me along with her.” I stared at Carl and his eyes were shocked, and stern, and full of something. Pity, maybe. “What?” I said. “What’s that face for?”

He shrugged. “I’m just taken aback.”

“Why? Why taken aback? I told you already, the guy’s a prick.”

“I’m taken aback, because that isn’t the story I heard, not by a clear mile.”

“Well, he wouldn’t have wanted to tell you the actual truth, would he?” I said. “Of course he wouldn’t!” He went to speak but changed his mind, I saw him waiver, saw him close his mouth and check himself and turn the other cheek.

He looked at his watch. “I think we should wrap this up,” he said. “Before this goes any further.”

I shrugged. “But I haven’t even filled in my form yet. When am I supposed to start?”

“My position still stands,” he said. “Your application is unsuccessful. You’re free to leave.”

I couldn’t believe it. He was actually serious.

“No!” I said. “I need to do this, for Harrison Gables. I’ll do it!”

He shook his head. “You’re not in it for the right reasons.”

“So?”

“So, it matters,” he said. “It matters to me.” And I laughed, I laughed so hard he scowled at me. “What? What’s suddenly so funny?”

“You’ll pay me for sex, but you won’t let me work with you, because I’m working with you for the wrong reasons. Have you any idea how fucking ridiculous that sounds?”

“I don’t care how ridiculous it sounds, that’s the truth of it.”

“You’ll be my sugar daddy, but not my boss?”

He nodded. “If you want to see it that way. I prefer not to.”

I couldn’t help but pull a face. “How do you want to see it?”

“Not here,” he said. “This isn’t a conversation for the office. I have things to do.”

He stood to leave and plastered a smile on his face, and this was over, my Harrison Gables dream was over.

“Wait,” I said. “Just wait a minute.”

But he didn’t wait. “I have to go,” he said. “I’ve got nineteen people depending on my guidance in Cheltenham.”

“And what about me?”

He shrugged. “Find some other way to fulfil your dreams, something that your heart is in.”

“But I…” I blustered. “I’d be good. I could work hard. I could do really well.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Bite me, baby. That’s how you choose to attend an interview?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t come here for an interview, I came here to tell my stupid father to get stuffed.”

“By dressing like a petulant teenager?”

I tipped my head against the back of the chair. “Something like that.”

He checked his watch again. “I really should leave, Katie. I have somewhere to be.”

I looked between him, and the door, and the file he’d left on the desk, and I went for it, darted like a snake to the application form he’d put away, and fumbled around the place looking for a pen.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “It’s already been decided.”

I kept looking, but there was nothing, not even a crappy pencil. What kind of useless as shit meeting room was this supposed to be? I sighed. “Give me a pen, please.”

He stood quietly for a few seconds, staring. I held my hand out, waiting.

And then he reached in his inside pocket and pulled out a pen. “This doesn’t change anything,” he said. “This programme is for people who really want to be there.”

“Just button it a minute,” I said, and my fingers were scrawling.

“This isn’t going to affect my decision, Katie. I’m sorry.”

But he was wrong.

Wrong about my dad, and wrong about me, too.

I continued regardless, scribbling and scrawling through all the questions, and he didn’t move, didn’t leave, didn’t say another word to distract me.

I finished and closed the pen lid, handed him the form with a flourish of triumph.

I watched his face as he read it, watched his eyes. Watched the way he looked at me, and then looked at me again, over and over.

“So?” I said. “What now?”

He pulled out his car keys, held them up. “I’m going to Cheltenham, like I said. I have people waiting.” He opened the door, swung it wide. And then he held it there, open. “It’s where the internship is based,” he said. “You’d better come with me.”

* * *

“I’ll check,” he said. “I’ll check everything on that form. I always check.”

“Be my guest. I’m not a liar.”

“I’d certainly hope not.” His eyes dug into me, made my knees feel weak as we made our way through reception. Everyone looked. Everyone.

The automatic doors swooshed open and we stepped outside. He pressed his key fob and I heard the bleep of the Range. I’d walked straight past it on the way in without noticing, in prime position to the left of the main entrance. I can’t believe I hadn’t fucking noticed that. Idiot.

“I’ve got my car,” I said. “I can follow you.”

He shook his head. “Get in. I’m driving.”

I didn’t argue.

I watched his face as he reversed from the space, grateful for the opportunity to check him out when he was otherwise occupied. Scary hot. Scarier hot now I’d seen him in his natural environment.

“They are impressive stats,” he commented. “Quite impressive.”

“I needed the money for Samson’s livery. The bonuses were good.” I leaned against the window. “I give my all. Always. You haven’t seen it so far, not apart from when I was… well…” I smiled. “That doesn’t count, but even with that. I always give my all. It’s who I am.”

“If you don’t, you’ll be out on your ear. That goes for everyone on my programme.”

“Understood.”

“You lied to your father, said you knew me through Rick.”

“It’s not a lie. I do know you through Rick.”

“Misled him, then. Implied we’re just casual acquaintances.”

I smirked at him. “Aren’t we?”

“Is that what you think?” He pulled a pair of shades from his pocket and slipped them on against the glare, and I wished he hadn’t. He was impenetrable in shades. Unreadable.

“What did you want me to say? Yeah, we’ve met. Hey, Pops, I took Carl and Rick in my snatch this weekend. Both of them at the same time. It was a hoot.”

“You could have made it clear we were friends.”

“Friends. That’s what we are?”

“Aren’t we?” He looked at me but all I saw was my own reflection.

“I don’t know what we are,” I admitted.

“Like we said before, Katie. That depends on you.”

“And like I said before. Why on me? Surely it’s your gig?”

He pulled the Range onto the main road. “Us working together, that won’t affect our arrangement, no?”

I shook my head. “I’m not planning on it. It’s separate. I can deal with that.”

“I hope so.”

It seemed funny suddenly — fate. What a dickwad. The universe sure had a sense of humour. “I’ll be fucking the boss,” I laughed. “How totally rad.”

“It’s not going to win you any favours, I promise you.”

“Wouldn’t assume for a second it would.” I watched Stroud pass by the window as we headed towards Cheltenham. “What a crazy six months it’s lining up to be. Six months with you and Rick, six months in this programme. Then Harrison Gables. Then my little yard. Definitely my little yard.”

“You’re doing this purely for some horse whisperer? Not for the money, or the experience? Just for him.”

I nodded. “Just for him.”

He steered around a bend, and I watched his hands on the steering wheel. Big fingers, long. He had great hands. “What if the programme had been a year? Two years?”

“It’s not,” I answered. “Luckily.”

“But if it had?”

“I’d have had to think about it.”

He tipped his head. “You’d have done it, wouldn’t you? Sacrificed a year, maybe two, for what you wanted? Something that could change your life forever?”

I let out a breath. “I guess. Probably. Yeah, probably. I mean, for one shot like that, one chance at something. Harrison Gables doesn’t normally take students.”

We sped towards Cheltenham, and I looked at my tatty jeans. I was tempted to ask Carl if we could go back to my car, grab a change of clothes from my case. Should have thought. Should’ve. Should’ve.

Wouldn’t do me much good now to think of should’ve.

“What about the yard? What if a couple of years could set you up in a yard of your own?”

I laughed. “I already told you, nobody is going to give me that kind of cash. Not even with your snazzy six month training programme under my belt.”

“Don’t be so sure,” he said, and he sounded serious. His tone made my mouth dry.

“If you say so.”

“What if they did? Would you take it?”

The car felt hot, stuffy. “I’m not sure. Depends on what it was. I’d have to think about it.”

“A year out, maybe two, away from your dream in exchange for a yard of your own. Would you do it?”

I smirked at him, clapped my hands. “This is like the would you rather game. I knew you enjoyed it really.” I laughed again. “I knew you loved it.”

“I’m serious,” he said, and I felt it in my gut. In my jittery knees. A sign zipped past us. Cheltenham 5 miles. Part of me wanted this day to be over, part of me didn’t.

“Serious about what?” I said, and I was still laughing. “Serious about some random company giving me an unbelievable sum of money for two years in some undisclosed job role? How am I supposed to be serious about that? How am I supposed to even answer that?” I picked at the threads on my torn jeans, heart thumping and I didn’t even know why. “Yeah, I’d do it. If I could, I mean, probably. Who wouldn’t?”

“You’d do it?”

I shrugged. “Jeez, Carl, I dunno. This is the cruddiest would you rather I’ve ever played. Yours don’t even make sense.”

And neither did he. Not when he veered the car from the road and into a pull in. It was quick, last minute, throwing me around in my seat while I gripped the arm rail.

“Shit!” I said. “What was that?”

The engine was still running, the car still rumbling as the traffic passed us by.

“Two years,” he said, “and the yard would be yours. Would you take it?”

“The yard is worth over two hundred grand, Carl.” I shook my head in disbelief. “Who the hell would give me two hundred grand for a couple of years? And what for? What would they even want me for?”

He pulled off his shades and leaned in, and my heart pounded, and I clutched the side of my seat and I didn’t even know why.

“There’s something they would want…” he said. “But it wouldn’t be a job, Katie, not a nine to five. Not another internship programme.”

“What then?! A kidney?” I laughed a nervous laugh.

He shook his head, and smiled a little. “No, not a kidney. But it’s not too dissimilar… not really…”

“And you know these people?” I laughed to ease the tension. “These weirdos who’d buy my not a kidney for two hundred grand?”

He leaned further, reached out a hand, rested it on my shaking knee and squeezed. It sparked, and I wanted it. Wanted him.

“What are you saying, Carl? I don’t… I don’t understand.”

I wanted to understand, but more than that I wanted to feel. Wanted to feel him. There was a brooding in his eyes. A darkness. A desperation. It made me feel all fucked up, all goofy and wired and desperate myself.

“Katie…” he said, and I was back on the Brighton balcony, when I thought he would kiss me, right before Rick came out.

And I was scared again, nervous again, needy again. Just like I had been in that moment.

“What?” I said. “What is it? What do you want me to do?”

He took a breath, and he swallowed, and cleared his throat.

And then the fucking Bluetooth rang through the speakers.