“Yeah, I know a lot of women Luc, but none who won’t chase you for months after the date. You just got rid of Laurie; I don’t think you want to jump right back in the shark-infested waters so soon. I’m telling you, this is the perfect solution for tonight. I’ll even set it up if you want.”
I run my hand through my hair, wanting to growl in frustration. Has my life gotten to the point where I am seriously considering Aidan’s suggestion? Recalling the last dinner I attended where Monique cornered me outside the men’s room, practically sticking her tongue down my throat, makes me look at Aidan and say, “Do it. Get an address for me to pick her up. I don’t want to spend all evening hunting a stranger in the parking lot of the restaurant. If this turns out bad, you’re fired.”
Aidan smiles, knowing my threat doesn’t hold substance. We have been friends for most of our lives and always have each other’s backs. We first met back in elementary school. He was getting his first-grade ass kicked by a third grader when I jumped onto the back of his tormentor. I grabbed Aidan’s hand and jerked him to his feet, and we proceeded to deliver a few kicks of our own to the bully before we were pulled into the principal’s office. From that moment on, we were inseparable. I’d never admitted to Aidan that I almost pissed my fucking pants that day when I jumped on that asshole for him. I’d been scared out of my mind and was grateful the bastard had tripped from the surprise attack and done most of the work for me.
Aidan had grown up with the standard house, dog, and white picket fence. He was an only child whose parents doted on him. I lived with my Aunt Fae; my parents died in a car accident when I was five, so my dad’s sister had taken custody of me. When I reached twenty-one, I took the sizable inheritance from my parents and bought my first company, an ailing software firm that was operating in the red. Within a year, I had turned it around, and Quinn Software was born. Back when the other kids were reading comic books, I was reading Business Week and the Wall Street Journal. At twenty-nine, I was at the top and everyone wanted a piece of me, especially the women. With the weight of responsibility I carried, sometimes twenty-nine had never felt so damn old.
Our brotherhood had taken a small shift the day Cassie Wyatt moved into the neighborhood and enrolled in our school. Like us, Cassie-or Cass, as we soon started to call her-had been a social outcast and easy-pickings for the mean girls. She had taken to following us around on her bike even when we tried to shoo her away. After a while, her sheer determination to make friends had won both of us over, and she was officially in the club. Her father, who tended to drink too much and work too little, had raised Cass. She always put off going home until the last possible minute. As a teenager, she would fall into what I later would recognize as a manic-depressive state where she would cycle from off-the-chart highs to almost-suicidal lows.
Aidan had been in love with her for most of our childhood and all of his teenage years. Cass, though, only ever had eyes for me. Sure, she loved him as a friend, but as we grew older, she saw more in me, and eventually I returned her feelings. If I hadn’t been such a competitive bastard, I would have backed off and hoped she turned to Aidan. Would it have changed anything? That question had haunted me for years. We dated through high school and were still together in college until one night changed all of us forever. Shaking off the feelings that threatened to choke me, I tune back into Aidan’s taunting.
“For you, my friend, I will request the best they have. Maybe a nice, chubby blonde?” Aidan jokes.
At that moment, my assistant comes in to let me know my next appointment has arrived. “Thanks, Cindy. How about dragging Aidan out of my office so I can stay on schedule?” I sit back in my chair and smile as Cindy-always a sucker for punctuality-literally removes Aidan from his chair and hustles him out the door. God, I love that woman, and she deserves a bonus just for putting up with my moody ass every day.
She is in her mid-fifties and has been with me for five years. After her two sons left home for college, she returned to the workforce, and I am grateful to have her. She runs my office like an army sergeant, and I suspect she has moved me firmly into the role of another son. She is a good judge of character and had never liked Laurie; I caught her rolling her eyes behind Laurie’s back on more than one occasion. As she ushers in my next appointment, I have to wonder just what in the hell I am getting myself into, letting Aidan hire a date for me from an escort service. I imagine some bubble-gum-chewing Barbie doll showing up tonight. Knowing Aidan, she will have huge tits and very little upstairs. If it keeps Monique off me for the evening, though, who cares if the only current events the woman knows are the words to the latest Britney Spears song.
Lia