Chapter 1

Mason

“You need to get out, Mase,” Winston said. “Loosen up. Get some strange. You know, live a little!”

The lavish wedding reception was in full swing around us, but for some reason, Winston felt like now was a good time to break my balls. It didn’t bother me. Winston had been my best friend for years, so I was used to his random criticisms about my life.

“I am out, Winston,” I said. “We’re here at a perfectly nice party in a tent bigger than most people’s homes, and we’ve got a great view of the L.A. skyline. Just have a drink and stop fucking with me already.”

Winston laughed. “I’m not fucking with you. I’m just trying to help. And this isn’t getting out, my man. You’re still surrounded by the wealthy elite.”

“You’re one of these wealthy, elite, too,” I reminded him.

He waved my comment away. “Not in spirit. I go out into the world and hang out with real people. You should try it. It’ll change your life.”

“I’m not trading my tailored suits for your ratty jeans just to go into town and slum it,” I said. “That’s not what I call living.”

“I’m not slumming it. I’m just doing research on how the others live.”

I loved Winston like a brother, but man was he an idiot. We came from billions of dollars’ worth of money, and he spent his time running around the streets of L.A. in a T-shirt and worn-out jeans, rubbing shoulders with people who gawked over others carrying more than fifty bucks in their pocket. It was insane.

“You’re too fucking uptight, Mase,” Winston said.

“Yes, you keep saying that, but repeating it isn’t going to help loosen me up.”

“You have your whole life mapped out already,” Winston said, “almost to the day.”

I snorted. “No, I don’t.”

Winston laughed. “How’s this? Later, you’re gonna take that hot little thing you brought to the wedding back to your hotel. You’ll probably fuck her, but you’ll leave her there and never talk to her again.”

I grinned. “Probably, but that’s not having my life mapped out. I just call that a fun evening.”

“Okay,” Winston said. “In about two weeks, you’ll jettison off to St. Barts, spend your winter in Aspen pretending to like skiing, but you’ll part ways around Christmastime to spend it in New York. But between Barts and skiing, you’ll travel to Milan to get some shopping done for the next chick you’ll have on your arm, because this nameless model you brought to this wedding will be long gone by then.”

My hand clenched around my scotch glass while Winston continued to rattle off my life. Sure, it was planned, and sure, I did some of the same things every year, but why the fuck did that matter?

My dick sank itself into countless beautiful women from all walks of life: models, heiresses, Hollywood up-and-coming sweethearts. I loved spoiling them, and then I loved burying myself between their legs when they wanted to show their gratitude for that spoiling.

“You’re predictable, Mase.”

“And you’re an asshole, Dub.”

I sipped my scotch and looked out at all the people gathered at this wedding reception. I pinpointed celebrities with movies coming out this year and politicians who’d just shown up in the news for fucking prostitutes in coke houses. I saw people with old money rolling their shoulders back and silently making predictions about how long the couple would stay together. I saw people with new money glittering in the evening sunset.

I could always tell when people came from old money versus new money. People with old money walked with sticks up their asses and had perpetual divots in their lips from the silver spoon constantly hanging out of them, and people from new money were hard to look at because all they did was glitter and shine from the new shit they’d bought on a whim.

Both were pathetic in my opinion, just for different reasons.

The newly-wedded couple looked happy, but their smiles didn’t quite match their eyes. That was the thing about wealthy families: They kept arranged marriages alive. Talk about having your whole life planned out.

My life would end up just like that of these two unhappy people. My dick throbbed for any tight piece of ass that came into my vision because, eventually, I’d be forced to settle down with someone my age who also had money just so we could keep that money between the families. No marrying someone beneath us so they could spend it all, and no staying single so we could destroy the family reputation.

I wondered if the bride knew her husband had been fucking her maid of honor just before he’d walked down the aisle today.

“So, how long do you think it’ll last?” Winston asked.

“Depends on how much of his money she gets to spend,” I murmured.

“You think there’s a prenup?”

“Jesus Christ, there better be,” I said.

“I wonder if he knows she was sucking old man Richardson’s cock in her bridal suite earlier,” Winston mused out loud.

“Wait,” I said, “the man who makes homemade ice cream all summer for the kids?”

“Yep. She was sucking his cream down just fine a couple hours before the wedding.”

“Oh, so it’s a match made in heaven,” I said, shaking my head.

“You think so?”

“Yeah. The groom was totally plowing the maid of honor a half hour before she walked down that aisle.”

“Oh, shit!” Winston said.

“They’ll be just fine,” I said. “Marriage is probably easier when neither spouse gives a shit about the other.”

I took a sip of my scotch and slowly turned my view toward the sun setting over the skyline. L.A. was beautiful when I didn’t have to deal with pathetic individuals. But everyone here was pathetic in their own way.

The bride and groom would live in a loveless marriage and spend way too much money covering up their unhappiness, all because neither of them could say ‘no’ to mommy and daddy dearests’ demands to marry within their high-society circles. The people wining and dining here at the reception plastered on their fake smiles while people whispered in the corners about whose mouth had been wrapped around whose cock. It was all such a fucking joke.

“You like them rolling green hills?” Winston asked.

I stared out over the scenery. It really was beautiful. Green hills rose and fell like giant waves frozen in time. They’d been here long before these jackasses teetering around on the dance floor, and they’d be here long after.

“Yeah…”

The lights of L.A. pierced a sky that was quickly dimming, and I couldn’t help but think that it would be nice to live out here. It was quiet, it was picturesque, and I could stay away from the drunk, dancing idiots who were starting to give me a headache.

“Those rolling hills are something,” Winston said. “Like those curves of that beautiful woman staring you down at the bar.”

“Is my date pissed or what?” I asked before I looked over at her.

“I’d be, too, if I wore that type of dress and didn’t have your hands on me,” Winston quipped.

“Oh, you want these hands on you, huh?” I smirked. I trotted toward him, batted my eyelashes, and slipped my arm around his waist as he tried to wiggle away.

“Dude!”

“Oh, Winston!” I said in a mocking voice. “Your dick is so big! Put it in me, please! Look at my dress, Winston! Do you like it?”

“Get off!” Winston exclaimed.

“You said you wanted it,” I said.

I brought my glass up to my lips before I turned my gaze back to the skyline. Nighttime was taking over, and the clomping of people on the dance floor was growing to a dull roar. Pretty soon I’d make up some excuse to grab my date and get out of here.

She wasn’t very interesting. I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, and she just giggled and pet my arm. I knew what she wanted: a fancy night out while hanging off the arm of a rich man and to feel, just once, like she was the center of someone’s world. She wanted me to buy her something that glittered on her neck so she could go back to her world and tell all her friends about how she’d had a tryst with a billionaire.

And I was willing to give her all of that as long as she gave me that pussy between her long, fluid legs.

“You’re really missing out, Mase,” Winston said.

“Not this again,” I murmured.

“No, really. You know how I know?”

“I’ll bite,” I said. “How do you know, omniscient Winston, that I’m missing out on my life?”

“Because your date is being hit on by a groomsman and you don’t give a single fuck about it.”

I panned my head around and saw what Winston was seeing. My date gripped the collar of one of the drunk groomsmen, and part of me wondered if he was about to puke on her. Yeah, he looked rich. After all, the groom’s party was all wearing Armani tuxedos. But the man she was clinging to was the groom’s best friend from college who owned a coffee shop in the Valley.

Didn’t make more than forty grand a year, I’d suspect.

“She’ll get a rude awakening in the morning,” I murmured.

But Winston was right. I didn’t care. If I was really having fun dating bimbos like her, I would probably care a little bit that someone else was trying to steal her away from me. But I just didn’t.

Eva St. Stevens walked by and flashed me a bright smile.

“Hey, Mason,” she said in a silky voice.

“Eva,” I acknowledged before I tip my glass to her.

“Now there’s a relationship you should be focusing on,” Winston said once she was out of earshot. “Why haven’t you taken Eva anywhere? You know it’s inevitable that the two of you will end up together.”

“You think my mother is already picking out wedding colors?” I asked.

“If I know Belinda like I think I do, she’s probably already planned how many children you’re going to have and what their names will be.”

“So let me get this straight,” I said. “I’m supposed to have a real life before coming back and doing what’s expected of me, right?”

I turned toward Winston, who was taking a long pull of his drink. He finally set his glass down on a tray moving by us and cleared his throat.

“A ‘real life’ doesn’t mean not doing what you’re told,” he said. “You and Eva would be good together, and you know it. She’d be really good at pumping out kids and spending all your money, and you’d be good at filling her with kids and giving her that money. Also, she doesn’t give a shit that you sleep with a new piece of ass every other week. That is true love.”

“Yeah, love for money,” I murmured.

“What I mean is you’re missing out on experiences. You go to the same places and do the same things, and you even sleep with the same kind of women! Dude, change it up. Go tropical in the winter. Screw Barts. Find a fat girl and drill her into your mattress! Do something new for once!”

“Calm down, Sir Drinks-a-Lot. The alcohol’s clouding your hearing.”

“Yeah, you and Eva are expected to be together and pop out kids,” he said. “It just comes with the territory. We were born into a life where financial responsibility isn’t a thing, and in return, we follow orders so we don’t have to worry about where our lives will be going. Do you know how many of them worry about that on a daily basis?”

Winston was pointing out to the skyline, and I knew he meant everyone else who didn’t have the wealth our families did.

I smirked. “Find that out in your research?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. It plagues millions every single damn day, and it’s something you’ll never have to worry about.”

“Then why are you dick deep in the routine of my life, Winston?”

“Because routine doesn’t mean you have to stay comfortable,” he said.

“All right, I’ll bite,” I said. “So, all-knowing Dubyuh, what should I do to get out of my comfort zone?”

“We’ll start small,” Winston said. “If I can carry that tray of full champagne flutes across this crowded floor without spilling or tipping them over, you have to date a real woman. Not some model and not some rich bitch, but an actual, bona fide, regular woman.”

“And if you spill?” I asked.

“Then I’ll move back in with my parents, stop my research, and no longer talk about your sexual escapades with random people I meet.”

“You what?” I sputtered.

“Be right back!”

I watched in shock while Winston gallivanted over and picked up a tray of drinks. I found myself clutching my drink tighter in my hand than I should have been. Winston quickly darted in and out of the drunk and stumbling idiots on the dance floor, and my heart sank to my toes.

He really wasn’t going to fucking make it across that damn floor, was he? I mean, he was carrying twenty fucking glasses full of champagne—and he’d been drinking all day.

I watched him skirt through the dancing people, and even though he teetered a bit, he set the tray of glasses down at the other end of the reception tent. The drinks remained untipped and unspilled.

Fuck me.

Winston strode back over with a cocky smile, and it finally dawned on me.

“Fucking research,” I said.

He grinned. “I waited tables last summer at one of the premier restaurants downtown. Pay up, you rich bastard.”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do now?” I asked.

Winston took my empty scotch glass from me and placed it haphazardly on a nearby table. He plucked two more glasses from the tray of a passing waiter.

“Take out your phone,” he said.

I shoved my hand into my pocket and pulled it out. He stripped it from my palm and began doing something on it. He typed in some letters and then waited for a while, and when he turned it back around, I saw the home screen for some sleazy dating website.

I shook my head. “No fucking way, dude.”

“Make a profile,” he said. “And I’ll know, because I’m gonna look at it before you leave. By the end of the weekend, you have to take some regular, unknown girl out on a date. Just one. That’s all.”

“Fuck me,” I said.

“That’s the plan, Stan,” Winston said.

I sat down at an empty table and made the idiotic profile. I added a picture, filled in some stupid details, and answered some of the asinine questions it wanted me to. Shit like “What’s your favorite food?” and “Do you enjoy traveling?” popped up. If Winston weren’t lurking over my shoulder, I would have just thrown my phone back into my pocket and ripped my date away from that asshole whose lap she was now on.

“Done,” I said.

Winston took the phone from my hand and surveyed my handiwork. When he was satisfied, he hit a button and gave me my phone back.

“Those are the profiles of all the regular women in the city. Find one and let me know when the big date is!”

“Fuck you,” I said.

“No, fuck her,” he said, smiling.

I finished my scotch and gripped my phone in my hand. When I was done, I set the glass on the table and made my way to my limo. I was suddenly very tired, and I didn’t feel like fucking someone’s sloppy seconds. My date was all over a guy who probably couldn’t even afford a hotel room to take her back to, and it made me laugh at the rude awakening coming her way.

“Serves her right,” I murmured.

Having that second scotch hadn’t been a good thing, but I knew the ride home would sober me up enough to enjoy sleeping tonight.

But it didn’t stop me from taking out my phone and flipping through the profiles and ads.

Most of the girls were boring, with stereotypical answers for everything.

“What do you like to eat?” Pizza!

“Do you travel?” If I could afford it!

“What’s your dream vacation?” Two weeks in Bora Bora!

They were all clamoring for men to take care of them, and it only reminded me of the women I shrugged off on a daily basis.

However, a profile with the title “Hot Man Wanted” appeared on my screen, and I couldn’t help but click it. My eyes scanned the ad, and I chuckled at it. It had some humor, a bit of quirkiness, and the owner of the ad even went on a few tangents I found interesting. But it was the last line of the ad that caught my attention and prompted me to send a message:

“I’ve got big dreams, big hopes, big aspirations, and big goals. But, the big ‘O’ has yet to appear in my life. Up for the challenge?”

“Oh, most definitely,” I said to myself.