“Thanks,” I tell her warmly and it feels weird to just leave it at that.
I put my arm around Nadine and push her in toward them, forcing her to act nice. She says hello to them, gives them a smile, but it’s still apparent that she doesn’t want to be there. She likes to let people know when she’s been inconvenienced, especially when it comes to me. It’s like she expects to get a “Girlfriend of the Year” award just for letting me out of the house.
“Have you met Penny?!” James suddenly yells, like an afterthought.
Actually no and I’ve been waiting to for a few weeks now, ever since James told me he was finally seeing someone. He would remember that but he’s drunk and from the way he’s looking at Steph, I feel like he’s asking her more than me.
Before anyone can say anything, James cups his hands over his mouth and hollers, “Penny!” loudly across the bar. The boy may not be able to sing, but he sure can yell. I think every head in the bar looked at us for one second before they carried on.
And out of the darkness of the porno magazine floors and shady-VW vans comes a chick that couldn’t be better suited for James.
For one, she’s covered in tattoos, her dark blood red lips sport a ring, she’s got orangey Bettie Page “fuck me” hair and a feminine sway to her toughened leather look. She’s also wearing sexy secretary glasses that show off her winged liner. The lenses look thick too, so she must legitimately need them, unlike all the hipsters in the city.
For two, she goes right up to James and slaps him on the butt, hard, with a loud, “Hey sex god, you miss me?”
James looks torn between being proud and embarrassed. I think he’s a little of both.
He gives us a quick, flustered look. “Linden, Steph, Nadine, this is Penny.”
She’s chewing gum now, her mouth wide and that gum just snapping away inside. But she’s smiling, even though she’s appraising us all. She’s already keeping me on my toes. I approve.
“Nice to meet you,” she says and I realize she’s got a Jersey accent. Even more fitting now. I have faith this rockabilly chick can pummel some sense into James when I’m not around.
“Likewise,” I tell her.
‘You’re the birthday boy,” she notes.
I nod. “I am.”
Suddenly she yells. “Shots are on me!” and then slams her hands down on the bar, demanding the attention of the bartender. He looks at her warily as she yells something about Jaegermeister.
I shiver. I think that drink should be outlawed past your twenties.
“She’s darling,” I say to James with a faux-upper crust accent.
“She’s a handful,” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck.
“I can see that.”
I guess my no-Jaeger clause won’t kick in until I’m thirty-one. We all do a shot of the vile liquid before heading to the VW bus in the bar.
To my surprise, only Steph’s friend Nicola is there and Steph’s boyfriend, Aaron, is nowhere to be seen.
I hang back for a second and tug at her sleeve. “Where’s Aaron?”
Her delicate features look strained for a second, then she shrugs it off. “He’s in LA for the weekend. Modeling stuff, you know.”
“Oh yeah, I totally know,” I say mockingly. “All those days I spent on the circuit, showing off my nuts to strangers.”
She squints at me, not amused. “He’s a model. He’s not a porn star.”
“Sure, sure,” I say. I love bugging her about Aaron, it’s one of my new favorite hobbies. The guy is all right, I guess, but he’s not the smartest pig in the pen. In fact, he’s three years younger than Steph and has a lot of growing up to do. Not that I’m one to talk – I’m as immature as they come – but honestly he’s just not good enough for her. I’m not sure anyone is.
But that’s the overprotective friend in me talking. She seems happy.
While she punches me quickly in the arm, I nod at Nicola. “What’s she doing here?”
Steph lowers her voice, turning her back to her friend who is saying hello to Nadine as everyone joins her on the seats. “She needed a night out.”
Nicola is not only fairly prim and proper but she’s a single mom to a two-year old son. In the past, before she got knocked up and left hanging by her pussy-chasing ex, I used to see her quite a lot, even if we didn’t frequent the same kind of scene.
I catch a whiff of her flowery, fresh perfume as Steph leans in and whispers, “Also, she’s in love with her gynecologist. So I’m doing a pre-emptive strike before something happens in that department, trying to show her there are other men out there. Ones that aren’t paid to look at your vagina.”
I glance over at Nicola in her black silky looking dress and pulled back hair. She looks completely out of place in the shagging wagon but I’m grateful it’s she that’s here and not Aaron.
“Should I act like myself and dash her hopes that good men do exist?” I ask her, leaning in closer, hoping to catch her sweet fucking scent again.
Steph rolls her eyes. “Just be nice, cowboy.”
I can’t help but smile. Cowboy – she hasn’t called me that in months. It makes me feel warm, and maybe a bit hard. I want to bask in this feeling but I realize I can’t.
I never can.
I sit down at the table beside Nadine, ignoring the blaze in her dark eyes. She wants me to know she’s pissed off for whatever reason, probably talking to Steph. Maybe she caught me trying to smell her. It wouldn’t be the first time.
James hands me a beer from out of nowhere and I gulp it down. The draft here is pouring great tonight out of the keg and my thirties are starting to sink in a bit.
It’s such a fucking relief just to be out with my friends, especially when we don’t seem to do this as much anymore. With James with Penny and Steph with Aaron, and of course me with Nadine, I’m starting to worry if this is the start of things to come. As we get older, get more involved with our significant others, with our lives, and trying to make the most of those quickly ticking years, I think the ties that bind us will become more strained.
I don’t want to be forty, married to Nadine with a couple of brats, and have nobody around me, just a couple of people I used to love, used to know.
I don’t want to lose them. But as I look around the table, I’m wondering if that’s just the way things go in life. Age brought us together, age will tear us apart.
Okay, now I’m just being drunk and overdramatic. I’m about to suggest we do another shot – no fucking Jaeger this time, sorry Penny – but Nadine suddenly turns to me and moans, “Linden, I have a headache.”
She does suffer from migraines from time to time, so I can’t be sure that she’s just making it up so I can take her home.
“All right,” I whisper back. I suppose she’s saving me from a massive hangover tomorrow anyway. I look at everyone else, my eyes resting on Steph’s only briefly. “Sorry you wankers, we have to get going.”
James lets out a cry of disgust. “What the hell man? You just got here.”
“Over an hour ago,” I point out. He’s too drunk to notice the passage of time anyway.
“Was I too much?” Penny asks James, trying to be quiet but failing.
“No one was too much,” I tell her. “I’ve got to meet my parents tomorrow so I need to call it a night.”
“Your parents are in town?” Steph asks, surprised.
I quickly glance over at her and recognize the look in her eyes. It’s almost the same that Nadine had when I told her it was just going to be me and them. Hell, had Steph wanted to meet them too? She’d already met the pain in the ass that is my brother and now she wants to see the rest of my family? Suddenly my parents are the most popular people around. Well, with everyone but me.
“Yeah it was kind of last minute. For my birthday.”
“Well let me know how that goes,” she says and for a moment it’s like we’re back at my place, hanging out on the couch and talking about our families. She knows nearly everything abo
ut them and our relationship, just as I know the same about hers.
I miss that. Tonight has shown me that I’m missing a lot of things.
I can feel Nadine nudge me, wanting us to get out of there.
“Will do,” I say to Steph, sending her a knowing look. If it comes to me needing to vent, she will be the first I’ll call.
Before James can attempt to squeeze out of the table and tackle me, I put my arm around Nadine’s waist and usher her away. I wave goodbye to everyone over my shoulder and hear James call me a “pussy.”
Once back in the flat, after the cab has dropped off Nadine, I settle into bed. It still smells like sex from earlier, while my mouth tastes like beer and I already have a headache. I’m not prepared for tomorrow whatsoever and I as lie there in the dark, my mind races around and around on the same loop.
Everything is changing. I’m nowhere but I’m somewhere and it’s not where I want to be.
I don’t really know what I want.
But I know I don’t have it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LINDEN
“Linden Stewart McGregor.”
Yes, my father, in his thick Aberdeen brogue, just called me by my full name. I don’t think I’ve heard him address me that way since I was a wee fuck, playing with his heirloom wooden boats and breaking the masts for fun.
I manage a smile, just as phony as his is, I’m sure.
“Dad,” I tell him, not willing to do the same. He might try and be seen as a quasi-politician, authority figure to me, but he’s still just my fucking father. I’m not Bram, I won’t relate to him in the way that he wants, the way that everyone else does.
My father strides across the marble floors of the hotel, looking lean and healthy. He’d quit smoking a few years ago and took up a lifestyle that required a lot of tennis and racquetball and rounds of golf, all chased with too much Scotch. While I inherited his height, he’s never been one to put on muscle like I have. Then again he runs like a wind-up toy – I doubt he could put on weight if he tried.
He shakes my hand, firm, and I return it even firmer. He doesn’t even wince, just smiles like he’s actually glad I’m here.
“Good to see you, son,” he says, his blue eyes nearly twinkling. His skin is bronze now, which means he’s been taking more trips to St. Barts and other hoity-toity places where the rich and privileged pretend they won’t get skin cancer. I wonder if he brings mum with him on these trips or leaves her at home.
I quickly scan the lobby and notice she’s not here. I’m relieved but that familiar pang of guilt strikes my chest, as it always does when I’m glad she’s not around.
“Where’s mum?” I ask, not willing to return the sentiment.
His jaw tenses for a brief moment. “She’s having a lie-down,” he says far too brightly and that smooth expression goes back on his face. Always the politician.
“You mean she’s sleeping in? It’s still the morning.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder and ushers me toward the elevators. “Let’s have brunch, shall we? We have a lot to talk about.”
My chest feels tighter. This was what I was afraid of, that my father had something serious he wanted to talk to me about and that’s why he came. I have no idea what he’s going to say, all I know is I’m not going to like it and for some damn reason I have a really hard time when it comes to my parents.
It’s part of the reason – or maybe all of the reason – why I moved to San Francisco to begin with.
We take the elevator to a restaurant on the top floor. It’s not only on Nob Hill, but it’s a tall structure to boot, so we have a crazy view of the city. Today there’s fog moving in by the Golden Gate, covering the hills of Marin, but other than that it’s sunny and beautiful.
We sit down amid fine diners picking away at their thirty-dollar eggs Benedicts and I realize I’m a bit underdressed. I’m in grey jeans and a black collared shirt with zippers at the chest pockets, something Steph gave to me one day, saying she had too many in stock and it was too late to send it back.
She was lying, which I loved. She’d just wanted me to have it. It’s my favorite shirt now.
“You’re looking happy,” my father muses and I realize I’m grinning.
I quickly turn my mouth down and clear my throat. “Life is pretty good out here.”
He raises a discerning brow. “Are you sure?” He didn’t even need to ask that, I know what that damn eyebrow arch means.
I nod and busy myself with my coffee, black and unadulterated. “Aye.”
“And you have a girlfriend now?”
“Aye.”
“Nadia?”
“Nadine.”
“I knew a girl named Nadia once,” he said, getting this dreamy look in his eyes. I’ve never seen my father look remotely dreamy before. It’s mildly disturbing.
“Yeah. Nadia,” I say, not even bothering to correct him.
“Do you love her?” he asks, his expression turning serious.
“Of course I love her,” I tell him as my throat feels like it’s closing up. I must have burned it with the coffee. The truth is, I’ve never told Nadine that I love her because I’m not sure that I do. “I’ve been with her six months now.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
I give my dad a look, not sure where he is going with this. Since when has he ever grilled me about my love life? If anyone needs grilling, it’s Bram.
“Well, anyway, I’m happy,” I assure him.
“How come she isn’t here now?”
I absently tug at my ear. “I just…it didn’t seem right.”
“I see,” he says and I think he’s reading way too much into it. Then he shakes his head. “Where are my manners, I haven’t even wished you a happy birthday yet. Happy birthday,” he says and pulls out an envelope from his jacket. He slides it across the table. “This is from your mother and me.”
Birthday presents shouldn’t fill me with suspicion but I have a bad feeling about this. I stare down at it, can see the shape of something inside. I don’t think it’s money, though it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve given me that.
“Go on,” he says, nudging it forward with a flick of his wrist, his cufflinks catching the light. “It won’t bite you. You only turn thirty once, you know.”
Thank god, I think to myself. I take the envelope and open it gingerly.
A key falls out and onto the table.
I raise a brow at my father. “What’s this?”
“Your new flat,” he says.
I’m not easily confused but this time my father has thrown me for a real loop. I’m starting to wonder if he’s all there.
“I don’t get it.”
He chuckles and takes an elegant sip of his tea, which he’s overloaded with milk and sugar. “It’s your birthday present. Your mother and I decided to make some investments. One of those investments is a flat, for you. It’s in the Upper West Side, on Broadway, near the Beacon Theater. You can move in next month.”
I can feel my confusion slowly morph into a simmering kind of rage. “I’m sorry, but…I live here. Right? I have a place here.”
He stares at me for a moment. “You can always sell or rent it out, it’s not permanent.” His words are clipped.
“Yeah, but I am permanent,” I tell him. “This is where my job is. Do you know how hard I fought to get that job? Do you think it’s just easy to get a job flying helicopters?”
“There are more than enough places like that in Manhattan,” he says so smoothly, so patronizingly, that I’m seconds away from flipping over the table and storming out of here. “You’d have no problem securing another – better – job. I’d make sure of that.” He pauses to sip his tea and smacks his lips together. “And if that was no longer your calling, it would be for the best. There is a whole world out there, just waiting for the son of Stewart McGregor.”
My jaw is clamped together and it takes an effort to speak. “I am sure Bram will do you proud then.”
/>
“Oh come on, Linden,” he says suddenly, his eyes flashing and that viper temper of his sneaking out, “you know as well as I do that Bram is useless. You’re the son we have a chance with, we have hope with.”
“Hope for what?”
“To be our son.”
My head jerks back in confusion. “I am your son.”
“But it doesn’t feel like it, does it? Now, eat your food, it’s getting cold.”
I don’t feel like eating. I just want to go a million miles away. I thought I had accomplished that by moving here but I guess I was wrong.
“Now before you start getting all upset,” he says, quietly now. “Just know how lucky you are. We helped you out with your place here while you were training. In fact, we have helped you with everything until recently. You’ve never said how much you’ve appreciated it, but I’m assured you did. And now, now this is helping you too. A large, beautiful flat in Manhattan, just for you. How many young men can say they have that? Only the privileged few and you are a part of that.”
I clear my throat, trying to get my heartbeat under control. “I’m not leaving. I do appreciate everything you’ve done, and I appreciate the flat, but I had no idea that those plans were being made. I have no desire to leave my life here. It’s home.”
His eyes glitter darkly. “All right. Well, the property is ours – yours – if you ever change your mind. Now, I don’t think it’s quite fair that we come all the way here to give you the good news and you don’t even thank your mother yourself.”
Here comes the completely unfair and out of left field guilt trip. “What?”
“When we’re done, we’re going to go up to the room and you’re going to thank her. You’ll also tell her that you’re honored to have such a privilege and that you’re seriously considering the move.”
I nearly shoot out of my chair. “But that’s a lie.”
“We all lie,” he says and then pushes his plate of barely touched eggs away from him.
Moments later, I’m stuck in one awkward elevator ride up to see my mother in their hotel room. As I suspected, the black-out curtains are all drawn shut with only one lamp on, but at least she’s not still in bed. Instead, she’s sitting primly on a chaise and nursing a glass of something dark. It looks like coffee, but I know it’s not.