FOUR
MATTHEW
“I THINK YOU NEED TO GET LAID, MAN,” Jonathan said. “Look at your shoulders. You’re uptight, and the muscles in your right arm are bigger than your left.” He waved his finger at my body. “You’re jerking off too much.”
Jonathan and I had been best friends for three years. We met at a charity event where my mother and his father were the ringleaders. We spent the night drinking his dad’s expensive scotch while our parents partied and rubbed elbows with some of the world’s richest. We had been inseparable ever since. When you saw one of us, the other wasn’t usually far behind.
He was my wingman, my sidekick—the brother I never had—and when my back was against the wall, he was the one in front of me holding off the fight until I was loose again.
We got into a lot of shit over the years. My indiscretions were not nearly as bad as his were, though. Where you might find me speeding or gambling, his vice of choice was guns. If an AK-47 was anywhere on the streets of Charleston, you could be sure Jonathan’s fingerprints were on it somewhere. I never understood why he sold guns because it wasn’t like he needed the money, but then I’d remember the rush I got when I placed a large bet, and I understood.
He was reclining in a deck chair sipping scotch from a crystal glass in a seven-hundred-dollar pair of Thom Browne swim shorts and Cartier sunglasses. Swept back from his face, his long blond hair was wet from a dip in the deck-top pool on his father’s two-hundred-foot yacht. If Jonathan was nothing else, he was definitely over the top. But the one thing he wasn’t was wrong.
He was right. Since the night of Lilly’s party, I had been feeling off—uptight—angry. I thought getting revenge on Devin would make everything feel better, but it didn’t. All that night got me was fucked up nose, two black eyes, and a pissed-off mother once Mrs. Sheffield, Lilly’s mom, gave her a call.
Rich women ran in packs like fucking chatty wolves, ready to gossip about and pick apart their prey. I should have known my mom would hear of it and bitch. She was always bitching about something.
I was a grown man.
Why the fuck was my mommy getting phone calls like I was a third grader?
It pissed me off.
Still, I was feeling itchy and ready for a confrontation.
“Pussy won’t fix this. I’m restless. I’m bored.”
And I was.
Life was getting monotonous. All my friends were settling down, career choices made, and lives figured out, but that wasn’t me. It wasn’t the life I wanted, but at the same time, I hated being behind the crowd. Jonathan was the only friend I had left who was still down to party. I wasn’t worried about him settling down anytime soon.
“Pussy fixes everything, Matt.” He chuckled, taking another swig from his drink.
Lounging in his chair, he directed his face toward the sky and let the sun bake him.
“Listen,” he said without looking at me. “Have a drink and lounge in the sun. We’ll go to The Waterfront later tonight and bring a little party to Charleston. That’ll loosen you up a bit.”
Sprawled out on Jonathan’s father’s yacht with a drink in my hand and the sun on my cheeks, I still couldn’t shake the feeling buried in my center.
What was it I needed?
I couldn’t figure that out, and it was strange for me since I usually had everything I wanted. I only knew that every now and again when I closed my eyes, a memory of scarlet hair and jade eyes flashed through my mind.
The entire situation with Devin had turned to shit, and I didn’t really accomplish anything besides pushing them together. One good thing did happen that night, though. I fell into the arms of the first woman to catch my attention in a long while.
Having sex with the same type of girl was starting to bore me. She was different all around. Different body style, a different reaction to my flirting, but most importantly, she seemed disgusted by me, which was nice for a change.
I was sick of ass kissers and money chasers.
She was far from that. At least, the ass-kissing part. I had no clue if she was a paper chaser.
But it didn’t matter either way. I wanted her.
I was even considering stupid things like going back to the jewelry store to flirt, but I probably needed to stay away from that place. My revenge scheme hadn’t worked, and honestly, I’d lost a decent friend in Devin. I didn’t have many of those—Jonathan being the last friend I had left—so making another stupid move wasn’t in my best interest.
“Why’s it so dead up here?” Curtis, Jonathan’s younger brother, asked as he climbed the stairs to the top deck. “I thought you boys would have planned a party for the weekend.”
He was basically a smaller, younger version of Jonathan. Jonathan had been a football star in his high school and had gone on to a prestigious college where he earned a worthless two-year degree, but Curtis hadn’t even done that. Like Jonathan and me, he lived off his family’s money.
“Piss off, Curtis,” Jonathan said, lighting a cigarette and taking yet another pull from his glass. “No one wants to party with you. Every time we do, you piss yourself and pass out.”
“Once!” Curtis shouted, sitting in the chair beside us. “I pass out one fucking time, and you refuse to let that shit go.”
“Nope,” Jonathan said, popping the P with his lips.
Later that night, we made an appearance at one of Charleston’s exclusive bars, The Waterfront. It was a nice piece of property, and The Waterfront bar had a good crowd. Square sectionals covered in weather-friendly tweed lined by industrial tables crowded the outside deck. Palm trees lit from their bases bordered the deck, backed by the Carolina sky and the famous Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge.
The place was packed; people spilled out of the bar and onto the outside deck until the unseasonally humid air around us began to feel even more suffocating. I knew almost everyone there—all money and no morals. There was cash to be spent falling out of the pockets of the rich in hopes of showing off. I sat in the corner with Jonathan and Curtis, enjoying the occasional fall breeze sliding off the water as it cut through the palms and skimmed my hair.
Dangling a glass of scotch from my fingertips, I drowned the uneasy feeling inside with expensive alcohol and loud music.
“Hey, Matthew,” Corrine purred in my ear.
I hadn’t seen in her about two months, but she used to be my favorite late-night booty call.
She was all tit, paid for by the last rich fuck she’d landed.
“Hey, pretty girl, how have you been?”
Opening my arms, I accepted her when she curled into my lap.
Her skirt rode up her thighs, allowing a bit of ass cheek loose, and her expensive Valentino pumps dug into my leg. She was tiny, yet she was still a lap full.
“I’m better now,” she said in my ear so I could hear her well.
The music seemed to get louder with each passing hour.
She flicked her wavy, brunette hair from her shoulder and bit her bottom lip sensually.
“Seems I always make your night better, huh?” I grinned over my glass before I swallowed the rest of the brown liquid.
It burned my throat, and I welcomed the sting.
“You’re such a flirt.” She giggled, pushing at my shoulder.
“You love it.”
They all did.
“I know something I love more.”
I knew, too.
Sex.
She wanted my cock, and she would get it.
I patted the back of her ass and nodded toward the bathrooms. “You get a head start. I’ll meet you there in a bit.”
She grinned and climbed from my lap. After she disappeared into the crowd, I swallowed the last of my drink.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” I said, standing from my chair.
“Lucky fuck,” Jonathan muttered when I walked by.
Corrine was waiting where I told her to wait, and I got straight to the deed, turning her around and flipping her skirt up over her naked ass. Dirty girls never wore panties.
As I took her from behind in the women’s bathroom, the smacking of our bodies echoing loudly all around us, it occurred to me I was no longer enjoying sex the way I used to. It was a motion, an action that came so naturally to me that I sometimes did it without feeling. I fucked, literally, with my eyes closed until either I came or my dick went limp from trying for so long.
Opening my eyes, I took in the area around us. All luxury and straight lines. Marble countertops and fresh flowers. They even had a lounger couch in the corner like the women who pissed in their establishment needed a moment to gather themselves before the leaving the restroom.
Who the fuck put a couch in their bathroom?
Rich fucks.
That was who.
I left as soon as I pulled from Corrine’s body, leaving Jonathan and Curtis without even saying goodbye. I would never hear the end of that from them, but I was suddenly feeling suffocated by the bar lights and loud music. Even the thought of going to sit on the deck to feel the fresh air on my skin felt suffocating. The alcohol I had consumed throughout the day and night was souring in my stomach, making me feel nauseated and dizzy.
Regret settled into my center, and my chest burned with guilt. I didn’t understand why I was feeling these things, but it was making my body stiff with emotions I never felt or understood.
When the valet brought it around, I climbed into my silver Tesla, a gift I had recently purchased for myself, and peeled out of the parking lot.
I was drinking and had no business driving, but I knew I could make it back to my house. I also knew that with the windows down, the fresh air rushing through my car would help to sober me. It was less than a ten-minute drive, and I wasn’t that drunk. At least, I didn’t feel that drunk, but when an ancient Oldsmobile pulled out in front of me, I was too inebriated to turn my wheel quick enough. I clipped the back bumper of the old car with a loud crack.
“Fuck!” I slammed my hand onto my steering wheel.
As if the heavens were punishing me, a police officer was right behind me, and within seconds, his blue lights lit the night sky. Reflecting in my rearview mirror, the light filled my car and the perimeter around me with a blue hue. I blinked my eyes, the flashing making me dizzy.
At least it wasn’t my fault.
I jumped from my car, ready to argue.
“Sir, please get back in your car!” a deep voice demanded from my side.
Tugging my car door open, I fell back onto the heated leather seat and waited. Looking over, I was met by a tall, dark policeman standing over the side of my car and glaring down at me.
“Do you have any idea how fast you were going?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter how fast I was going. That car pulled out in front of me.”
“I’m going to ask you again. Do you know how fast you were going?”
I sighed in aggravation.
My brand-new car would be in the shop. I would have to drive one of my other cars for a while until the damages were fixed. It was going to be a massive inconvenience.
“I don’t know. Fifty or fifty-five?” I asked, unsure of how fast I was going.
He chuckled, shaking his head and making a note on his little pad.
“No. You were going seventy-five in a thirty.”
I whistled, impressed I had gotten my new toy up to those speeds without even feeling it.
“Seventy-five’s good, but I had her up to one-twenty last weekend. She drives like a dream,” I said, caressing my steering wheel similarly to the way I had caressed Corrine earlier in the night.
The policeman wasn’t impressed.
Just then, an older man climbed from the Oldsmobile, speaking with another police officer.
“Of course!” I yelled. “He’s a hundred years old. Old people shouldn’t be allowed to have a license. They’re a menace to society.”
“You know who else shouldn’t be allowed to have a license?” the policeman at my window asked. “Drunk people. Please step out of the car.”
Within thirty minutes, I found myself chuckling drunkenly from the back seat of his patrol car as the tow truck driver pulled my brand-new hundred-thousand-dollar car onto the bed of his shitty truck.
“Hey!” I called out through the glass, beating on the window with my palm. “Watch it, buddy. If you fuck up my car, I’ll kick your ass.”
The officer smacked the window, startling me. “Knock it off, Mr. Ellis. If you break my glass, I’ll kick your ass.”
I sobered up a bit on the ride to the police station. I wish I could say it was my first visit with them, but I would be lying. Honestly, over the years, I’d lost count of my run-ins with the police. It wasn’t that I was a troublemaker; it was that I didn’t really give a fuck about consequences all that much.
I dreaded the phone call I had to make once I was at the station, though. I had gone almost six months without having to call her to bail me out, but I knew it was the only way.
My mother entered the dirty police station as if she owned it. Her crisp white Giorgio Armani blouse made the room around her look dingy and faded. A matching handbag hung from her wrinkled wrist while her nose pointed at the ceiling, showing her superiority to everyone who looked at her.
She moved past me to the front desk, demanding someone speak to her immediately.
“I’m here for my son.” Her haughty tone cut through the lady working the front desk. I saw her plump fingers trembling when she pushed her glasses up her nose.
“What’s your son’s name, ma’am?”
Leaning closer to the counter, she brought her nose down to whisper my name. “Matthew Ellis.”
Feeling her embarrassment in my chest, I stood. “I’m right here.”
My buzz was wearing off, leaving me with one hell of a headache and a turning stomach. Somehow, her being there seemed to intensify it all.
“Really, Matthew? Drinking and driving is so beneath us. Why not call for a car?”
I snorted and shook my head.
“Or better yet,” she continued, “you could’ve called me, son. You know I would’ve been there to make sure you made it home safely.”
I clapped slowly, enjoying the show she was putting on for the police station. The lady behind the counter looked away, ignoring the tension in the air around us.
“Good show, Mrs. Ellis, but I’m afraid your stage days are long gone. You’re a little too old, and it’s a little too late to try to play the part of a good mother.”
She hated when I talked about her past. She hated for me to remind her she was just a poor actress working on stage when my father scooped her up and gave her a life of luxury. But more than anything, she despised when I reminded her what a terrible mother she was.
She moved across the room in my direction, closing the space between us so only I would hear her next words. A disgusted grin tilted her maroon lips.
“Aren’t you a little too old for childish games, Matthew? Calling on your mommy when you get in trouble like an errant child. It all disgusts me. The lavish parties and loose women. The outright no-care attitude toward your responsibilities to this family and its name? The Ellis family is a proud family, and your father is probably rolling over in his grave because of the things you do with your life.”
I shook my head.
She had gotten in her digs, as well. She knew I hated when she talked about my father. He was the only person in the world who really gave a shit about my happiness. My mother, on the other hand, threw some money on the problem to cover it up. Everything I had ever done in my life, she just brushed it under the rug without regard whatsoever to the reason I was acting up.
Now, I was older, and I no longer needed her to cover my problems because, unlike her, I didn’t give a shit what others thought about my life and the way I chose to spend my time.
“If Dad were alive, he’d probably join me. We both know how much he loved his lavish parties and loose women.”
My cheek stung when her palm slammed into the side of my face as quick as a whip. The slap rang out around us, echoing off the concrete block walls of the police station.
Covering my cheek and feeling its heat against my palm, I laughed.
Just another day.
Another moment when she disregarded my feelings for her own embarrassment. She couldn’t give a shit less about me. It was always about perception and how everyone else perceived us and the way we lived.
The money.
The houses.
Extravagant vacations.
Everything was all for show.
“How dare you disrespect your father’s memory that way? He was a good man, Matthew. Nothing like his son,” she spat.
My heart ached with her hurtful words, but instead of showing my pain, I looked down at her with dark hate-filled eyes and turned away.
She never knew my father. She only knew the man he pretended to be for everyone else. Behind closed doors, he was funny and caring. He put me first always.
It was me.
Followed by wet women and money.
Then my mother.
And she hated knowing that. She hated that he always chose everything else first.
Maybe if she hadn’t always been a bitch, that wouldn’t have been the case, but it was all in the past now, and I no longer needed her approval and love.
I didn’t need anything from her.
“Well, I hope you’re proud of yourself. You really did it this time,” she said, adjusting her bag on her wrist.
“What do you mean?”
“The old man you hit … he was a judge. The judge. And apparently after hitting him with your car, you insulted him by calling him old and saying he didn’t deserve a license.”
I snickered, remembering saying that.
“Yeah. Laugh it up, son. Unfortunately for you, we can’t buy your way out of this one. I hope you enjoy community service because that’s exactly what you’re getting.”
She moved across the room toward the exit.
“Wait.” I followed behind her, my Versaces squeaking on the cheap laminate flooring. “How do you know? We haven’t even talked to him.”
She turned to face me, her eyes wide and her lips tight with anger. “You don’t own half of Charleston without having a little pull. I made some calls, but this judge you hit can’t be bought. Be glad you got off with community service and not jail time. And because of your little joke about the elderly, you’ll be serving that community service in a nursing home.”
I laughed, sure she was blowing smoke. No way would my mother ever be okay with me working at a nursing home. But when her face remained impassive to my laughter, I knew she wasn’t bluffing.
“You’re serious?” I asked appalled. “They want me to wipe old lady ass because I had a little too much to drink?”
She chuckled, covering her collagen-filled lips with the back of her hand.
“It’s either jail time or ass wiping. You make the choice.”
Before I could respond to her words, she turned on her heel and left me standing there with my mouth open in shock. She wasn’t fucking around this time. There would be no getting out of this punishment, and since the last thing I wanted was to spend time in jail, it was old lady ass for the win.