The Love Of Money - S02 E185

Story 1 month ago

The Love Of Money - S02 E185

Read Story: SEASON 2 EPISODE 185

Thursday, September 26th, 9:54 pm

Much-needed laughter filled the air.

It was like opening the valve on a boiler to release all that building pressure—a sweet reprieve from all the building grief.

Dillon, Jonah, Kwan, Richie, Vikram, and Chandler. My friends surrounded me—both new and old—and as I sat there, I watched them interact with each other.

Erin had been right. I needed this.

“…And then this fool pops one of those Betty Crocker Tupperware lids out of his fucking freezer—and the motherfucker is full of frozen piss!”

“How have I never heard this story before!?” Richie demanded, shooting me an accusatory glare.

Dillon placed a hand on Richie’s shoulder and grinned wildly. “Oh, come talk to me. I’ll give you all the dirt on this motherfucker.”

He leaned forward, elbows on the table, barely suppressing his laughter long enough to continue. “So Marcus walks down the hall with this disc of frozen piss and shoves that motherfucker under Jeff’s door as hard as he can.”

Chandler leaned back in his chair, his expression twisting in disgust. “Ugh! Disgusting!”

“You don’t know the half of it, dude!” Dillon cackled. “Forget the weekend! That poor asshole didn’t come back to his dorm until halfway through the next week! His whole room smelled like piss!”

“Frozen pee?” Vikram asked incredulously. “Seriously… where do you even come up with that?”

“Dude gets creative in a prank war,” Kwan said, lifting his beer. “College would’ve been a lot less fun without him.”

“Between him and Dillon, I imagine college was a blast,” Richie said.

“Shit… that’s all I did,” Dillon replied, smirking.

“You lasted… what, two semesters?” Jonah chimed in.

Dillon shrugged. “School wasn’t for me, and I don’t need it. I like what I do.”

“And you do it very well,” I said, raising my beer toward him.

Dillon grinned. “Hell yeah, I do.”

I sipped my beer and did my best to live in the moment, not dwelling on anything else.

That was hard.

It had been five days since I’d sent Ryo Tanaka’s finger to his father, and I still hadn’t heard a word. It was all I’d thought about since Chloe snipped that little finger off like it was a dead twig on the end of a tree. Now, all I wanted to know was what Hiro Tanaka was thinking.

And I hadn’t heard a goddamn thing.

The world was roiling around me. The dogs of war were nipping at my heels, and all I could do for the past several days was check my phone every fifteen minutes like some high school boy waiting for a girl to call him back.

I checked my phone again.

Nothing.

“Why do you keep checking your phone?” Kwan asked, craning his neck to peek over the table where my phone was partially hidden. “Everyone you know is here.”

“My mom’s not here,” I pointed out.

“You’re texting your mom?”

I hesitated. “No.”

“Then who are you texting?”

“I’m just checking my phone,” I insisted. “I’m a busy guy. I don’t know if you’ve seen the news, but I’ve got a lot going on.”

Dillon, Jonah, and Kwan had a vague understanding of what was happening in my world. They knew I was in some kind of corporate entanglement with other rich people, but that was about it. Chandler and Vikram knew a little more. None of them knew that I had Ryo Tanaka locked in one of my apartments, nursing a days-old stump where his pinky used to be.

Vikram was the only one who knew the NYPD suspected me of killing Rajesh Desai.

If they all knew everything going on in my life, I suspected they would have a little more sympathy for my distraction.

“Oh, let the boy read his messages in peace,” Chandler said. “He has board members, managers, lawyers, and regulations officers breathing down his neck. Frankly, I’m surprised that he has time to bash around with the lot of us.”

“Yeah… about that,” Jonah said, setting down his beer. “Thanks for this, buddy. We all know you’ve got a lot going on right now. Hell—you’ve already been through a lot.”

He looked around the table. “But I think we can all agree that we owe a lot to you. If it weren’t for you, I would’ve never met Rachel.”

Rachel was Honey’s actual name, and in the time that they’d met, they had gone from fuck buddies to an actual couple. They were even discussing the possibility of moving in together.

“I would’ve never met Kelly,” Dillon said.

Not really in a relationship, Kelly and Dillon were more classified as friends with benefits… still allowing each other to sleep with others, which I had benefitted from.

“I would’ve lost my position at VistaVision and likely wouldn’t be there at all,” Chandler added grimly. I had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn’t thrilled about his title right about now. He hadn’t been subjected to my level of hell, but the CEO of VistaVision had gone through his fair share of woes since last Friday.

“I wouldn’t have met Venus,” Vikram said, “or been able to spend some time with her in a Scottish castle.”

“My big bro’s hooking me up with a free place to live off-campus,” my eighteen-year-old brother said. “And he’s letting me drink beer.”

Everyone turned toward Kwan.

He looked at all of us as if we were crazy. “Don’t look at me. The only thing I’ve got to show for it is a make-out session with a hot MILF who ghosted me.”

Jonah knuckled his shoulder playfully.

“Anyway, you could’ve forgotten about us. But you didn’t. You’re a good friend, Marcus.”

He held up his bottle. “None of us will forget what your friendship means.”

“Here, here,” Kwan and Vikram said together, clinking their bottles against Jonah’s.

“Especially since our best friend’s worth billions of dollars,” Dillon added, bumping the neck of his bottle into the others.

“To Marcus,” Chandler said solemnly, raising his own beer. “A fine young man who has much to teach us about friendship.”

Richie grinned and joined in, his bottle clinking softly with the rest.

I felt the corners of my eyes sting a little at the sentiment they’d just shared.

“Guys… I don’t know what to say.”

I looked around the table—Dillon, with his carefree grin; Jonah, steady as ever; Kwan, quiet and sincere. Since I’d come into my wealth, I’d made two new friends in Vikram and Chandler. Sure, they were technically in my employ, but I was pretty sure I could count them among my friends.

And then there was Richie—my little brother. I made a silent vow, right then and there, that no matter what happened to me in the near future, I’d always be the kind of brother he’d be proud of… the kind of brother he’d want to be around. I wouldn’t be Jacob.

“You’ve all been an important part of my life,” I said, lifting my beer. “You’ve helped shape it into what it is today. I couldn’t do this without each and every one of you. You guys are proof that friendship is worth more than all the money in the world.”

What followed was a round of low murmurs — that awkward, shuffling kind of agreement men give when they’ve reached the limit of their sentimentality. It didn’t matter. They’d said how they felt. I hoped they knew how I felt, too.

“So what’s next?” I asked, reaching across the table to grab a shrimp from one of the platters.

Jonah glanced toward the garden. “Rachel said she and Erin have planned something for us. I figure we hang out until we find out what it is.”

“Yeah,” Dillon snorted. “I’m sure you’d hate to disappoint them.”

My phone started buzzing, and I stood immediately, glancing down to see who it was as I stepped away from the table.

“Who is it?” Dillon asked.

I slowed, reading the screen. Astrid again.

“Is it Natalie?” Kwan asked.

“No,” I said, disappointed that it wasn’t Tanaka.

As usual, I clicked on Astrid’s message to see what little treat she’d sent me this time. At this point, opening them was more habit than hope.

However, unlike the others, this one didn’t have a picture. There was no sexy half-nude selfie that probably took twenty minutes and fifteen retakes before she got it just right. No salacious caption urging me to get my ass over there.

Just two words: Call me.

The abrupt change in tone was almost enough to make me do it.

“So where are you guys at now?” Kwan asked.

I looked up from the phone and blinked at him. “Hm?”

“You and Natalie,” he said. “Are you a couple yet?”

“No.”

It was strange. The night after Hiro’s last attack, Natalie had come over to keep me company while I was in my drunken stupor. That next morning, I’d confessed everything to her, and she’d taken it like a champ. The sex that followed had been spectacular. I’d had better, sure, but for her, it was great. She left me in high spirits, off to grab coffee while I visited Tara in the gym.

The next time I saw her, though, things felt… different.

Considering I’d just cut off Ryo Tanaka’s finger and was now the NYPD’s number-one suspect in Rajesh Desai’s death, I’d been a little too preoccupied to notice at first, but over the next twenty-four hours, there were signs.

If the intimacy between us had been at a level ten that Saturday morning, it was at a six by that evening. Afterward, when I asked her if everything was okay, she told me she was fine, just a little nervous after my morning confession. The Marcus from two months ago would’ve believed that, but after spending so much time surrounded primarily by women, I’d started to pick up on the subtleties of female communication. Something had happened, and I had no clue what.

“We’re playing it slow,” I finally said, shoving my hands into my pockets and forgetting all about Astrid’s cryptic message. Now, my thoughts were drawn to Natalie.

Jonah made a disapproving face. “Why? She’s clearly into you, man. You’ve been pining after her forever. Close the deal.”

“It’s not that simple,” Vikram said, leaning back in his chair. “You’ve seen the women around him.”

He suddenly looked over his shoulder, half expecting one of them to appear. Satisfied that none had, he went on. “I mean, Natalie’s a pretty girl, but stacked against Charity or Erin?”

“Not to mention Shea,” Kwan added.

“Oh! What about that one chick…” Dillon snapped his fingers, trying to remember. “Daria? Your trainer?”

“Tara,” I corrected.

“Dude! She is fucking fine!”

“Don’t I know it,” I murmured.

“It’s Charity,” Richie said suddenly. “If Marcus doesn’t lock that down, he’s an idiot.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Got a little crush, do we?”

Richie turned beet red and took a long sip of beer instead of answering.