Aiden is a huge guy, tall and wide, and next to Dmitri’s cold, calculated stare, Aiden looks warm and compassionate.

“Sorry,” I mutter. “We needed all the space we could get for the bikes.”

Aiden laughs. “It’s fine. So you’re Ruth?”

“You heard about me?”

“I think most people have by now,” he says. “I’ve been on business in Ireland, I just got back in tonight.”

“You work with Dmitri and Eric?” I ask.

He nods.

So, he’s a billionaire too?

“I don’t do quite as well as them,” he says, grinning. “Hopefully I’ll get there one day.”

Dmitri grins smugly. I can tell that Dmitri is exploiting Aiden somehow. He probably works for Dmitri in some capacity, and Dmitri keeps a lot of the profit that Aiden generates. It might be the kind of thing where if Aiden wants to do as well as Dmitri, he’d have to bring the man down. Like a Sith Lord killing his master.

But Aiden is no Darth Vader. He seems like he’d probably be happy to just make a fraction of what Eric and Dmitri do—hell, I know I would.

“So slumming it in Brooklyn is becoming the new rich guy fad?” I ask, somewhat—but not entirely—sarcastically.

“It’s more real here,” Dmitri says.

I roll my eyes. “You realize that housing costs here are like way higher than almost anywhere else in the country. Just because it’s affordable compared to Manhattan or downtown San Francisco doesn’t mean you’ve really stepped out of your bubble at all.”

“How far would I have to go to get out of the bubble then?” Dmitri asks. “Because I’m not going to Long Island.”

Aiden looks at me and rolls his eyes. “I stayed on a farm in Ireland. I just commuted into Dublin every morning.”

“Here he goes,” Dmitri says, sighing. “I’m going to go find Maya before I have to hear about the goddamn farm again.”

“I’d usually get back to the farm around three or four in the afternoon,” Aiden says, just to me now. “I’d get a few hours to help and work with my hands before the sun went down.”

“I doubt you were really all that helpful,” I say. I didn’t mean for it to sound rude, but it comes out that way.

Aiden laughs. “Well, I grew up on a farm in western Pennsylvania. It’s not like a cow in Ireland is much different than one in Pennsylvania.”

I smile nervously, “Sorry, I was just thinking about what would happen if I tried to help on a farm. I’d just get in the way.”

He shrugs. “At first you would. But anyone willing to get their hands dirty can help soon enough. It just felt really good to be back in there. Eating something you helped to harvest, or drinking milk you squeezed yourself gives a sense of satisfaction like nothing else.”

“Then why are you here with Dmitri?”

He shakes his head. “Sometimes I don’t even know. You’d think that buying... say... a yacht with money you earned yourself would be the same feeling of eating potatoes you spent months tending, just amplified a million or so times.”

“Is it?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “I think I realize that ultimately I’m just shifting imaginary money around. I’m not working any harder than a farmer—hell, I’m working way less than the farmer I stayed with in Ireland. Probably his daughter does more real work than I do in any given day.”

“So just quit,” I say, sipping my beer.

“I decided I’m going to,” Aiden says. “I’m going to make as much money as I can over the next two years, then I’m going to buy my own farm somewhere upstate and just live my life.” He points to my empty beer. “Want another?”

“Sure,” I say.

He comes back and hands me a White Russian.

“This isn’t a beer,” I say.

“These were buy one get one,” he says.

“I’ll just have one then,” I say, taking the drink from him.

But somehow I don’t just have one. I have three—or at least that’s how many I had before I lost count. Everything that happens from there is lost in fragments.

I remember going out to eat somewhere with Dmitri, Maya, and Aiden. I remember laughing, and I remember Aiden trying to get too close. I remember pushing him away, but I also—unfortunately—remember him in my bedroom.

I wake up alone, for what it’s worth. Guilt overtakes me as I struggle to piece together the previous night. One stupid haircut and fancy dress and I forget who I am?

I look down and see I’m still wearing the damn dress. Relief floods me, if Aiden had taken advantage of me, he wouldn’t have put the dress back on.

There’s a folded note right by the mirror. I grab it and open it, praying it will absolve me of any wrongdoing.

“Hey,

I think you had a bit too much to drink last night. Dmitri showed me where you lived, and I just helped you inside. The dress didn’t look comfortable, but I didn’t want to uh, you know, so I just made sure you got your shoes off. Then I wrote this note... and then I left.

If you’re struggling to remember last night, just know you didn’t do anything stupid or embarrassing.

-Aiden.”

“Fuck,” I whisper.

Getting blackout drunk is embarrassing in and of itself. And I can taste the acidic bile in my throat, so I must have vomited at some point. But thank God nothing else happened. I don’t think I would ever have let Aiden touch me, not with Eric in the picture, but I never get so drunk I can’t remember what happened. I don’t know what could happen in that kind of state. Thankfully Aiden was a gentleman. I imagine what might have happened if it had just been Dmitri alone with me.

I shudder.