Kaden
I see Mark Anthony head towards me, and I smile grimly. I’m about to get an earful and I’m not sure I’m up for it, but on the other hand, I don’t really have much of a choice, do I? I am the client and I do pay him stupid amounts of money to be my attorney, but he also doesn’t hesitate to tell me when he thinks I’m being a dumbass bastard.
"Kaden, you dumbass bastard, what were you thinking?" he hisses, holding out his hand and shaking mine as if this is a normal meeting. As if he isn’t bailing my ass out of jail. He smiles broadly for the cameras, the reporters all wanting a shot of us greeting each other, and then the police shoo the reporters away, telling them that they have their picture – they can go now.
I know they’ll be waiting for us outside, but at least now I don’t have to pretend to be happy while getting my ass chewed by Mark. My smile instantly drops the second that the door closes behind the reporters, and I sink down onto the bench in the visiting area.
"I was just…bored," I say with a shrug, not meeting Mark’s eyes.
Truth time (which I am absolutely not going to tell Mark this, but I’ll tell you): I’d first seen the girl on the dance floor of the Bungalow 8. She was amazing. She could dance. I loved watching her out on the floor, and had just decided to buy her a drink when they started shutting the place down.
I was one of the last people to leave, and saw her with a group of friends, discussing how hard it was to get an Uber. I was standing off to the side in the shadows, debating whether or not to approach her or just keep showing up at the Bungalow and hope she comes back at some point, when she loudly announces, "I’m gonna cop a squat."
I thought I’d bust a rib, trying to keep my laughter in. I like it when girls say it the way it is, and…well, she was definitely doing that. I stayed in the shadows and watched the whole thing – the futile trip down to the closed Starbucks, back to the club, then down the alleyway, all in search of a place for her to go pee.
I’d just pushed out of the shadows, ready to go home and try to meet up with her another night (because what kind of weird stalker follows a girl down an alleyway and tries to pick up on her while she’s peeing on a pile of napkins?) when a cop car passes by, driving real slow. I’d stopped and melted back into the shadows. A cop was never a good sign. He flipped a U-turn and stopped across the street, and then headed down the same alleyway. He’d spotted the girl, and I knew she was going to get in trouble for urinating in public.
So…I reacted. Was it smart? No. And my lawyer is right to chew my ass about it. But I don’t regret it. Leading the boys in blue on a merry chase for a while was more excitement than I’d had in a long time.
Plus, bonus points – the girl got away. Well, at least they didn’t bring her into the same precinct as me.
I wonder for a moment when she’d show up at the nightclub again. It’s not like I have any other way of tracking her down.
"Bored?!" Mark thunders, jerking me back to the present. "You’re a multi-billionaire. How on god’s green earth are you bored?!"
I shrug again. "Maybe I’m bored because of that."
He sits back and just stares at me. "You have too much money and time on your hands?" he asks sarcastically.
"Something like that."
The truth is, I hit it big two years ago, when I bet some serious cash on the oil prices going down when everyone else thought they were going up. When the oil prices took a sharp tumble as more oil reserves opened up in Alaska, my bet paid off. In a big way.
I don’t need to work another day in my life – hell, my hypothetical grandkids won’t need to work a day in their lives either – but I didn’t step down as the CEO of my investment firm and float off into the sunset on my yacht. Who wants to just sit around all day and have their every need taken care of, almost before they can think of it? It sounds good in theory, but I get bored easily.
I can wipe my own ass, thankyouverymuch. I don’t need someone to do it for me.
Speaking of getting bored easily, that character flaw is what got me into this trouble to begin with. Lately, even the challenge of making my clients boatloads of money wasn’t much of a challenge.
I need something new. Something interesting. Something I can do that keeps my interest for more than three minutes.
I hear my lawyer mumbling something that sounds like, "God save me from spoiled rich kids," but when I ask him to repeat himself louder, he brushes me off. "Nothing, nothing," he says brusquely. "I’m here to post bail. I’ll get you out, and with any luck, I’ll get you off with just some fines."
"Thanks," I say gratefully. Because as bored as I’ve been lately, not even I am bored enough to want to continue to sit around in a jail cell all day long. That’s a new level of boredom that I just can’t stomach.
As my lawyer takes off to get the paperwork done and out of the way, I stare at my hands clasped in front of me, my hands cuffed together like a common criminal. I really need to find something to do with myself that doesn’t include breaking the windshields of police cruisers. Maybe I should try hang-gliding. I’ve heard it’s a lot of fun. It would certainly mean less time behind bars.
Either way, I’m going to put in a word with the bartender at the Bungalow 8. A few Benjamins might convince him to keep an eye out for Ms. Mystery. Greasing palms has never failed me before, and she’s worth whatever I need to pay.