Just a Number (Downtown #1) Read online

  My lover-of-romance friend had no barriers keeping her from charging ahead into mergers of the heart. Ugh! Mergers. I was out to forget about eminent business issues out of my hand. I was out to focus on a hard acquisition of sorts. It appeared I could no longer concentrate on anything anymore.

  How many martinis had slid down my throat? I leaned my head on Tomasina’s shoulder and smiled up at her. “I know that look; Lolo has hit the wall.” She pet my hair, tucking a strand behind my ear. “Sorry, boys, time to get the girl home before she turns into a pumpkin.”

  “Thumbelina, we have to get a horse to ride home if the pumpkin bursts.” I giggled.

  “I forgot to tell you. We’re not princesses. You’re not a princess. You are a strong, corporate woman that writes her own ticket. No fucking fairytales.” With those last words, I remembered her pulling me to my unsteady feet and moving us forward toward the door.

  Chapter Two

  Dash

  Back in town on business, I dropped my overnight bag just inside the door. Then, I attempted to take a quick, much needed, shower to wash off hours of stale airplane air, when there was a loud thudding on my door. “Hold on. I’m coming.”

  “Open up already,” a male voice commanded while continuing to pound.

  Throwing open the door, my longtime friend, Trey breezed past to the guest bath. Waiting for him to reappear, I walked into the kitchen and pulled out a couple beers. A few minutes later, he joined me. I held out an opened bottle. Taking it, we clinked them and took a swig. “Oh, that tastes so good.” Setting down my bottle, I looked at my friend who would be needing another beer within seconds. “What’s going on? How did you know I would be here?”

  “Have anything stronger?” Trey was not the biggest drinker. I knew something was definitely troubling him.

  “I haven’t gotten around to stocking my liquor cabinet just yet. We’re supposed to meet the guys for a drink. Let me grab a shower and change…”

  “I can’t wait that long. Let’s go.” He was already heading for the door. Phone to ear, car service on speed dial, he asked for an immediate pick-up. I downed the rest of my beer, put my jacket back on and moved after him, quickly.

  Damn! I swear those cars came out of nowhere. Stepping outside of my building, a sedan sat, waiting for us. Once inside, I pushed for him to spill his woes. “You want to tell me what is going on?”

  “Fuck! Man!” He was running his fingers through his hair, tugging occasionally. He was the most well put-together, polished guy you’d ever see. GQ scientist is what we labeled him, among other things. This was hard to observe. “I only want to say it once.”

  “Okay, dude.” I gripped his shoulder firmly. “Let’s get you a shot or two. Then you can spill your shit to all of us.” He just nodded. I swear we drove ten miles instead of seven blocks. I’d never wanted to get to a bar as fast as I did at that moment. I needed reinforcements. I didn’t do the emotional consoling thing. I was the guy that taught you to meditate and push all negative thoughts from your head. If I had suggested that, I’m pretty sure a fist might have flown my way.

  Thank God! Walking through entrance to the lounge, Leo and Rex were easy to spot right away. The demand for them was crucial. One, to talk Trey through his situation logically and calmly. The other, to deter his mind from whatever brought him such misery with games, bets, and debauchery. We all had our strengths and, when we put them together, we made one hell of a team—a force to be reckoned with.

  I met my three buddies in an advanced marketing/advertising class. We were assigned to work on a semester project together. We were to come up with a product; develop it, patent it, market it, and sell it.

  Putting each of our specialties together, we each took on the task. Leo, a political science major, headed up our legal department, focusing on the copyright and patent part. Rex, an advance graphic design student, designed our packaging and advertisements. Trey, a biochemical engineering nerd, handled the product testing, development, and manufacturing. I rounded out the group with my public relations skills.

  After doing all of this, we thought; why not make a real product? And that is what we did. With the help of research students and professional chemists, we put out an all natural, edible erection product. Though we, as young men, didn’t need it at the time, we thought one day we might.

  Fortunately, I still do not need the cream, but it can be found in vitamin stores, natural foods, and health shops—mint and cinamint flavors. We have all made a very nice profit over the years, along with the A+ grade we received while shocking our professor and fellow students with our graphic presentation on storyboards. No demonstrations. No animals tested. Trey, along with a laboratory staff, ran test studies.

  Trey. That was our focus of the night. It turned out his longtime fiancée had had enough. She wanted the dress and a date to go with the ring he gave her five years ago. He said he loved her; he just wasn’t ready to take the long walk down the aisle of matrimonial bliss. Another man was. Arriving home to his empty house earlier, he found a wedding announcement.

  Stephanie Ann Kramer and Daniel Paul Jackson

  were married on Saturday before their families and

  friends in a civil ceremony in Las Vegas, Nevada

  Talk about a fucking sucker punch. Along with the newspaper clipping and her engagement ring, sat a short note. It said that the groom was her high school sweetheart. He had recently contacted her on social media. One of those cheating apps. No. Not the one hacked and blabbed all over the wire. Let’s face it; they’re all potential cheating sites. Anyhow, he told her he never stopped loving her and, if he could, he would marry her on the spot. She obviously liked that idea as she had become Mrs. Daniel Jackson, according to the newspaper clipping. Her last words were: I’m sorry. I love you. I wish you happiness. Ironic words for a Dear John note.

  Dirt all laid out on the table, it was time for the usual guy pep talk bullshit. Let me just say, we’re all assholes. Even the good ones. It’s our way to cope. To avoid. To sweep our feelings under the rug. Enough said; let the assholisms and drinks fly free.

  What a bitch!

  Fuck her!

  You’re better off without!

  There’s pussy everywhere!

  She wasn’t right for you!

  Good riddance!

  I can’t tell you who said which expression. It was pretty much a bunch of rants and repeats of the same words. But you get it; we raked her over the coals. We had his back. He was right. She was wrong. God!—I was glad I didn’t do that relationship shit.

  Moving on, we caught up on the rest of the crap going on in our lives, and ribbed each other. No one escaped a bit of ridicule all in the name of friendship and juvenile male bonding. Of course, I was sure to get my turn.

  “Our boy has a bit of a beard going on. Must be reading romance novels on plane trips,” only Rex would make that remark. He would definitely know if that was a trend to be read about. However, I wasn’t going to be the one to rat him out. He would have to be the one that divulged his literary expertise.

  “Mountain man thing going on?” Everything not clean cut and shaven had to be wild and rugged to our perfectly groomed Trey. Used to stark, sterile laboratories, he was meticulous.

  “Not your usually sexy stubble,” Leo added, causing us to laugh at him.

  “I knew you found me sexy.” I wiggled my eyebrows at him.

  “Ha! That’s what I hear from Cindy. ‘Why don’t you skip shaving today? Leave some scruff like Dash.’ Ugh!” Leo rolled his eyes and took a swig from his IPA bottle.

  “So, Cinnamon has a thing for me?” I teased him with a nudge. Which prompted him to lovingly punch my arm. “Hey! Easy; I have to go work a retreat in a couple days.” We loved to badger our non-bachelor buddy.

  Leo, married with kids, always met us for a quick drink, and then he was out the door. He was the wildest of our group of college buddies, but he found Cinnamon and that was it. Her name is not really Cinnamon but to u
s she would be forever labeled spicily.

  After graduation and while some of us were in graduate school, we rented a house together. Small quarters, thin walls—you get the idea. Anyway, Leo fell hopelessly in love with a fellow law student named Cindy. Well, she was in favor of giving our boy blue balls and we often heard his distress and begging. Yes, I did say thin walls. “Cin-baby. Come on. I love you. You know you’re the one. Cin-come-on, Cin-come-on, Cin-come-on.” We fell all over ourselves. And of course, being assholes, we would chant—when she wasn’t around—his words until they started to sound like Cinnamon. We then referred to Cindy as Cinnamon. It just caught on. Habit. One we don’t ever plan to break. We love her; she’s the best and she knows it. I believe she gets a kick out of the nickname and likes that it gets to Leo. It put a grin on his face, too.

  A few too many drinks later, Rex had Trey on the road back to his bachelorhood antics. Once again, they were challenging each other as they did every time we were out. Often they tried to get me to play into their bets… their games, but I wasn’t one to go home with girls from bars or parties. I refused to fall in step with them. And Leo kept them from overstepping boundaries. Kept them within the legal limit of harassment. Kept them from slandering women. Kept their propositioning from being unlawfully inappropriate, and definitely kept them from stalking.

  Trey was in the zone. Ready to join our pal in the serial dating realm, he bowed to Rex as if he was ready to listen to an old, wise master. Of course, Rex loved it, and began speaking to Trey in a masterful sensei voice, “Oh. Trey-son. I have so much to teach you. My recent research has taught me what women want.”

  “Lord, help us.” Leo shook his head.

  “Rex, you need to start working for men on some manly sites.” I knew what he had been up to lately.

  “Trey, don’t listen them. Leo is married; he has no clue. Dash, well… he has his head in a guru temple.” Rex waved me off.

  “And where are you getting your information, Rex?” I knew, but I wanted to hear if he would divulge his source or, I should say, sources.

  “Fuck off, Dash! Okay, Trey, hear it is: Women want you to take what you want, dress slick, be a combination of charming and polite, confident bordering on cocky, show interest in them, and in the bedroom—they want you to take charge. Some even want to be spanked. That Fifty Shades guy changed our lives forever.”

  “Oh, don’t forget the part about how well it all works if you’re a billionaire,” I reminded him as Leo and I almost fell off our stools while Rex tried to shelter Trey from us.

  If only that was all it took. Not that I was looking for anything permanent. I had rules and restrictions to be followed if anyone wanted to enter my bed or whatever bed with me and, more often than not, no bed at all:

  No happily-ever-after.

  No relationship.

  No details of personal life.

  Travel was best for sex. My passion provided me with complimentary transportation and lodging. Other bonuses: Easy hook ups, new faces, new bodies, and new pussies. My healthy cock was never lonely. It had been too long since I had gotten away. Too long since I’d gone without vacation pussy. The retreat could not get here fast enough! I thought viewing the various hookups in progress around me.

  Ready to call it a night, I walked up to the bar to close out our tab. That was when I felt it before I saw it. It was such an ugly word for the temptation that stumbled upon me, quite literally. The one that could have had me breaking every one of my rules.

  Yes, when the dark-haired temptress with icy blue eyes brushed up against me, guided by her tall, willowy friend toward the exit, I fell into a trance. I wanted nothing more than to snatch the gorgeous, geographically-undesirable woman away, but then again, I preferred coherent women underneath me.

  “Yum!” She moved right into my personal space. Lips so close to my face. “I could rock your corporate world. Handle removing your brief… case. Bet you have a nice investment package. Our amalgamation would be off the chart. Boom!” The temptress’ delicate hand smoothed across my shoulder then slid down the length of my silk tie before grasping and wrapping it around her wrist, tugging me toward her. Putting her nose to my neck. God, she smelled so good. I wasn’t sure if I imagined it or not, but I swear she licked me. Then, she was gone.

  I instantly missed her touch as her friend pulled her hands away from my throbbing body, complete with uncomfortably tightened slacks. “Okay, corporate princess…”

  “I’m not a princess. Remember. I’m a tough, corporate, business woman.” A drunken smile brightened her face. So bright, it was burnt into my memory.

  “Yes, yes. Time to get you home to your firm mattress,” her friend said. I wanted to be the one tucking her in.

  “You’re the best, Thumbelina.” She giggled. “But you really should let me take an asset home.” She edged back toward me. I didn’t mind. Her determined friend shook her head, pulled the tempting, suited woman from my body once again, mouthed “sorry,” and they disappeared in the crowd.

  I wondered what her name was. Where she lived. How I would see here again. Her friend’s name was Thumbelina? Seemed easy enough to search online. Though, that definitely was not the right name for her. If memory served me correctly, the character with that name was the size of a thumb. It was probably a sarcastic nickname. Which would mean a dead-end.

  “Here’s your card back, sir. Anything else?” Yeah, that beautiful brunette, I thought to myself and walked away. What the hell was I thinking? I was surprised at my loss of control. Mind over body, I reminded myself. I never popped a boner that easily. Not since I was a horny teenager. But, I felt the overwhelming need… desire to perform my relaxation treatments on that uptight business woman.

  Chapter Three

  Willow

  When my alarm sounded, I wanted to throw it across the room. Working was the last thing on my mind. My body was in need of strong coffee and maybe a spicy combo burrito. I drank a bit too much the night before. That may be a big understatement, I realized as I dragged myself through each morning ritual. Many martinis; not a good idea. I remember them being too tasty to stop at just one… or three. I needed to sign up for a detox while at the retreat.

  Too tired to measure coffee grounds, let alone pour water and push a button, I wandered slowly down the street for cup of Joe to go. Looking at the hill ahead, I almost called for a car to deliver me to my building. “I can do it. I can do it,” I silently told my body, promising it a deep tissue massage as an apology. Cutting over to the Bunker Hill stairs, which took me slightly out of my way, I held the rail and pulled my way up. I felt so miserable, I was not sure which was better: the stairs or the slope. I decided as I reached my building, if I still felt this bad at the end of the day, a car service would be carting me home. That, or there was always the possibility of rolling down the hill.

  In my office, I sat with the door closed. Not to hide. Or to nap. But, to drown out the voices of my coworkers. Did they not realize that their volume was set so high? No wonder gossip was rampant. Tucked away, I sipped my heavenly extra-large coffee with the perfect amount of cream, and sorted through my emails as usual.

  Nothing out of the ordinary. A few follow-up requests. The typical spam. Could we ever completely rid ourselves of ads for Viagra, penis enlargements, and designer sunglasses? Would winning notices of lottery and distant family inheritance ever be genuine? Too much to ask for, I imagine. Deleting and scrolling down to the bottom, personal emails appeared. Not completely odd, but to receive one from an unknown email address with my mother’s name was very out of the blue. I had no idea she actually knew how to operate a computer.

  From: Mrs. Dane, your mother

  To: Willow Dane

  No subject

  Yesterday at 9:00 PM

  Hello Dear,

  My friends at book club told me emailing is the latest thing. I just got home. Your father is asleep. So, I thought I would try it out. Our discussion was about a book where a couple mee
ts on a computer. They email back and forth secretly. Hey! This typing reminds me of my typing class in high school. Not electric. Had to push so hard. This keyboard is so much easier. I know you must think I’m dumb. Not a smart college girl, like you. Good thing the ladies gave a few of us lessons. I would never have known how to turn this thing on. I guess I could’ve asked your father, but he’s a busy man. He doesn’t have time to teach me how to use a computer. Next thing I need to learn is how to set up my own email. Hope your father doesn’t get mad that I’m using his email. He’ll be surprised when I tell him what I’ve learned; it’s pretty exciting. If you don’t mind, Willow, I would like to email you from time to time. I know how busy you are. I hope you are allowed to receive personal emails. I’m sorry I didn’t think about that. Please let me know. I will wait to hear from you before I write again.

  Love,

  Your Mother

  As I got to the end of her email, I found big tears rolling down my face. I was not sure why. I talked to my mother here and there (not very often). I received cards from her on all holidays. Yet, to see an email from her, it knocked me for a loop. I wasn’t the only one that got one, either. I received two more emails from family members; both of my brothers had emails from our mother as well. They wanted to know if I knew what was wrong with Mom. Like I knew much about her at all. Because I was the daughter, I should know? Or, was it because I was a woman and should know? Either way, I was baffled.

  Nothing sounded wrong. And yet, it did. My mother was not your typical modern day woman. If I were to describe my mother in one word I would say 1950s. Okay, that’s a number. But if you were to type that in a search engine, the images that would pop up would be my mother… and my father. They were in a time warp in some ways. Or, so they seemed to me. They were everything I didn’t want to be.