“To the man who has everything,” I said. “May your child keep you young. Because you’re going to need it.”

“I’m going to ignore the underhanded jab there,” James said.

“What? You do have everything. A beautiful wife. A seven-figure job. A beautiful home on the outskirts of New York City that overlooks the skyline. Now you’re adding a child to the mix. What more could you want? You know, besides an unlimited supply of coffee to deal with all the crazy nights your child spends vomiting all over the walls.”

“Pretty sure you’re referencing The Exorcist, but I’ll let it slide,” he said. “And you could have those things, you know. If you wanted.”

“Key word being ‘if’. Why would I want to give up all of the beautiful women who need me, James?”

“Need you?” he asked with a grin.

“Yes. I breathe life into their mundane existence. Take them on trips and show them the world. I treat them the way they should be treated.”

“Before you break up with them for not eating meat.”

“Steak. She ate meat, but not steak. Who doesn’t eat steak?” I asked.

“Do you realize how insane you sound? You know, nevermind. All I’m saying is, it’ll get old. At some point in time, you’re going to want to settle down. It happened with me. Around your age, actually.”

“Well, this man’s still going full steam ahead. Besides, having a family creates ties I don’t want. Extra hats to wear and extra expectations to adhere to. Once that baby comes, your wife’s going to want you home by a certain time and she’ll bitch about all your business trips. The exotic vacations the two of you used to take will be traded in for stay-at-home vacations where you clean up baby puke so she can take a bubble bath. Face it, James. Your life’s about to change.”

“In all the best ways,” he said with a grin. “Thanks for dinner, by the way. This place makes the best food in town.”

“Figured I’d treat you to one last meal out before you walk the plank.”

“Really?” he asked.

“Succumb to the snake.”

“That a line you use on all those women that need you?” he asked.

“Take a hike.”

“There’s a novel idea. I might just do that if you don’t stop with the antics.”

“It’s either making fun of the fact that you’re going to become a father and get boring, or making fun of the opera.”

“What’s wrong with the opera?” he asked.

“Setting aside the fact that it’s boring as fuck? It isn’t sung in a language I can understand, it has nothing to keep me interested, and the people on stage are loud as hell.”

“Because they’re singing without microphones. They’re trained to do that.”

“And it’s annoyingly loud. I mean, come on? Who needs to have that loud of a voice?” I asked.

“A little bit of culture will do you some good,” James said. “Not everything interesting has to involve booze and sex.”

“But all the best things in life have booze and sex,” I said with a grin.

“So that’s what you do in your office all day. I figured you wanked yourself off to pictures of you kissing yourself in the mirror.”

“While drinking, yes. Don’t knock it until you try it,” I said. “I still can’t believe you’re dragging me to this thing, though.”

“You’re the one that agreed to it,” he said.

“So if I don’t want to go, I can simply tell you I don’t want to go and we can do something else?”

“No. You tell me you don’t want to go and I’ll drop you off at your office, go pick up my wife, and we’ll go see it together.”

“There is booze in my office,” I said.

“Stop being an asshole, Robert. So you don’t like opera. I get it. But I’m trying to celebrate something here and you’re-”

“Calm down. Calm down. Get your panties out of your ass crack. I’m just giving you a hard time.”

“Opera was an important societal development when it first came around,” he said. “It was created for high society to enjoy, but it became such a popular form of public entertainment that composers came along and tried to make it available for the masses. It takes talent beyond measure and a strength we couldn’t even dream of to do what these performers are going to do tonight. The hours it takes them to create the stage props and the years the singers have spent training to execute performances like this. We’ll be witnessing centuries of musical evolution and years of hard work all summed up in a matter of two and a half hours.”

“Two and a half hours? Of people trying to rupture my ear drums?” I asked.

“Like I said, the culture will do you a bit of good. Women enjoy a man who’s cultured.”

“Your wife tell you that?” I asked.

“Our first date was to the symphony, so yes.”

“Well, women don’t come to me because I’m cultured, James. They come to me for my money and my-”

“All right, all right. Fine. I get it. But I really do think you’ll change your mind after tonight.”

“Really? And why’s that?” I asked.

“Because even women like the lead soprano can make this interesting for a man like you.”

I watched James pull out his phone as I sipped on my whiskey neat. The two of us had enjoyed our dinners and were simply biding our time until we had to get to this snoozefest of a performance. I leaned back in my chair and crossed my leg over my knee, waiting for him to show me why a loud musical conundrum in a foreign language would somehow be appealing to me.

Then, he turned his phone around.

“Who the fuck is that?” I asked.

“That would be Joanna Leone. One of the two lead sopranos for tonight’s performance.”

I snatched James’ phone from him as my eyes studied the picture. The woman was delectable. A feast for any man’s vision. Her honey blond hair fell all the way to her chest, framing her delicate face in a way that made me want to groan. Her bright blue eyes sparkled in the picture as an innocent smile sat on her lips. I flipped through a couple of pictures of her, my eyes dancing along her curvy features. The dip in her waist was salacious and the swell of her hips luxurious. I could feel heat pooling in my pelvis as I stared at the pictures of her.

James knew me well. I was officially intrigued.

“A little more excited for the performance?” he asked. “I figured that would sway your opinion a bit.”

“You know the way to my heart, James. If I get to see those tits shoved up to her chin all night, then this trip of culture might not be such a bust,” I said with a grin.

“I’m going to ignore the blatant pun you just made.”

“Oh, come on. It was a good one. A really good one, in fact. It was very… titillating.”

“Are you ever going to grow up?”

“Depends. Is your definition of ‘growing up’ getting married and having children?” I asked.

“You know why I think you avoid the idea of family?” he asked.

“I haven’t had enough alcohol for this conversation yet, James.”

“I think you avoid the topic because of how you lost yours.”

“Another drink, please!”

“I think you don’t want to subscribe to the idea of love and family because losing yours made you afraid to be vulnerable again.”

“I’m plenty vulnerable when I want to be,” I said. “I’m putting myself out there right now, in fact. I’m going to a performance I know is going to bore the hell out of me because my best friend’s having a baby.”

“You’re too kind, but I’m serious. Robert, you can’t hold onto that forever. At some point in time, you have to be able to move on.”

“Move on?” I asked. “Move on. You’re really sitting there and telling me that I should let go of the death of my entire family? That I should let go watching my own home burn down with my mother, my father, and my baby sister inside? Like it’s nothing but a bad habit or… or a rotten apple?”

“Not what I meant-”

“You think I should drop the fact that I had to grow up in an orphanage because no one wanted to adopt a twelve year old prepubescent boy with anger issues? That running with gangs on the street in some feeble, asinine attempt to fill a gaping hole in my heart is something I should simply… forget? James, I built the empire that feeds your budding family on that hurt. When I clawed my way out of the lifestyle I led as a teenager, I promised myself one thing and one thing only. To create a live my family would be proud of. My inability to be vulnerable, as you put it, is what fueled all the sleepless nights it took to build the company we have now. And you want me to… drop it?”

I felt myself panting as I threw back the fresh drink the waiter had put on the table for me.

“I’m worried about you, Robert.”

“You’re not worried, James. You think I should live my life the way you want me to because you’ve had some grand epiphany on what really matters in life. And that’s wonderful. Good on you. I’m glad we’re celebrating it. But that doesn’t give you the right to shove it down my throat.”

“You can’t use your anger as a way t-”

“You live your life how you choose, and I’ll live my life the way I choose. And what I choose is to enjoy as much of this life as I can while I still have mine. Because my family doesn’t have theirs any longer. My mother doesn’t get to go get her hair done every week anymore. My father doesn’t get to go golfing with his friends any longer. My sister doesn’t get to sneak an extra apple juice up to her room anymore while I try to distract Mom and Dad from it. They don’t get to do that, James.”

“I’m sorry, Robert. I didn’t mean to upset you so badly. And… I think they would be proud of you. Very proud,” James said.

“I know they would be,” I said. “It’s the only thing I do know some days.”

There was a silence that fell over our dinner table and I sighed. I hated it when he did that. When he brought up my damn family in an attempt to prove some idiotic point he was trying to make. James was my best friend. My right-hand man ever since the company was incepted. But he had this pesky personality of always thinking he knew what was right for everyone. It made him a wonderful COO and an expert delegator. And it was something that would make him a wonderful father and provider for his household.

But sometimes, it made for a shit boy’s night out.

“Can we change the subject now?” I asked.

“Gladly.”

“Great. What was that singer’s name again?” I asked.

“Of course. Joanna Leone. I figured that picture of her would change your mind about tonight,” James said. “Though it shouldn’t take attractive women to get you to appreciate art.”

“I appreciate art,” I said. “I’ve enjoyed The Louvre on many of my trips to Paris.”

“And you always gravitate towards the naked sculptures of women,” he said.

“So I appreciate the female form. When was that ever a crime? The female form, in and of itself, is art. Men’s bodies aren’t as beautiful, as supple, or as delicate.”

“You’re insufferable sometimes, you know that?”

“And to think you want to sit through a two and a half hour performance with me,” I said, smirking.

“They would be proud of you, Robert. You know that, right?”

I clenched my jaw, wishing he would drop the fucking subject.

The two of us finished up our drinks before we got into the car I’d ordered for us for the evening. It pulled us right up to the front steps of The Met and we made our way to our box seats. From where we were sitting, the whole of the stage was in our view. People were piling in by the hundreds to fill the seats of the auditorium. The orchestra began tuning and the lights started to dim, and I could feel the whiskey running hot through my veins.

Then, the show began.

The curtains rose and the lights came back up, revealing an intricate stage. People were bustling around, like they were inside a fucking city or something, and their makeup made them almost look Asian. I looked down at the program I had been handed, trying to see if they had some sort of synopsis for the fucking mess I was looking at on stage. The orchestra was striking very harsh tones, and I cringed at every bow that ran across those damn strings.

Until a beautiful voice floated off the stage.

I whipped my head up and saw her. Joanna. In the middle of the stage. She was helping an elderly man off the ground as a song poured from between her lips. It looked effortless for her. She was jostling around trying to help this man, yet the song was fluid and without breaks. Her petite frame was dressed in some baggy ass clothing, which left much to be desired. A disappointment, considering the curves I knew were underneath.

But even with the rags she called a costume, I could feel my cock stiffening.

It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. The way her small body commanded the stage and the way her notes filled the auditorium. It was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. That massive sound coming out of such a small woman. I could see her eyes shining with a silent fury, even from where I was sitting. Her presence held my gaze. I couldn’t move as blood rushed through my veins at lightning speed. Her voice was coated in beauty and her body was dripping with innocence. I couldn’t take my fucking eyes off her. Not for one second.

Not for the entire two and a half fucking hours.

She was sexy as hell. Even with the tattered rags that covered her body on stage, Joanna was entrancing. A spectacle to behold. Her voice was fire and ice and her movements were fluid and graceful. She walked with the fluidity of a swan and held her head with a confidence that made her seem four times the size she was. And every time her eyes made her way to our side of the stage, my cock stiffened.

I wanted her. Every single bit of her.

And I would do whatever I fucking had to in order to get her.