68
JEREMY LET himself into the apartment where he’d let Alena stay. He’d come back here a handful of times in the increasingly unlikely hope that she would’ve returned. She still had a key, after all: it wasn’t impossible that she would just come back. But as time passed this stopped being a real possibility, and Jeremy knew it.
The fifth of scotch in the kitchen was three-quarters empty; Jeremy poured most of it into a glass. He thought he would’ve forgotten about Alena by now, but instead her absence continued to gnaw at him. He missed her, he realized, marveling a little at the thought of it. Having her just vanish from his life had created a mystery that seemed only to grow with the passing of days.
All this drama over a stupid misunderstanding. Of course Jeremy hadn’t meant to suggest that she should sleep with Mattar; could that really be what she thought? Have a drink with the guy, maybe flirt a little, sure, but nothing else. Just basic friendliness. It wasn’t anything the least bit different from what she used to do around the clubs. Show Mattar a good time while he was in town, let him look at a pretty girl who was there to be seen. That was the only idea. He wanted to explain to her, make Alena understand that he hadn’t been whoring her out, not at all. He wouldn’t do that; they were dating, for Christ’s sake. He had feelings for her, real feelings.
Jeremy walked over to the living room window, which faced the Hudson River, New Jersey vaguely visible in the distance. It was time to grow up, Jeremy told himself, as he often did. It was time to put away childish things, straighten himself out, stop drinking so much, getting high, focus his energies on the company. The Aurora was still a mess, but at least the full truth hadn’t come out, not even to his father, and Jeremy didn’t lose sleep anymore thinking he was going to jail. It’d been too close a call, though, and if that didn’t tell him it was time to change things, then he didn’t know what would.
Jeremy took a sip of scotch, the whiskey warming his chest. F*cking idiot: all these grand pronouncements about changing his life with a drink in his hand. And all this crap about how Alena had misunderstood him, when Jeremy himself had only the vaguest of understandings of what he’d been up to that stupid night. He hadn’t trusted Alena, wanted to hurt her before she could hurt him, wanted to show her who had the power. He was no different from his sister or his father, the way they all wielded their money as a weapon, let its power isolate them.
If he was going to try to change his life, it needed to start with Alena. He needed a chance to explain, to give them both an opportunity to really try to be together, no bullshit this time. He pictured her on this couch, her robe undone, her body all soaring curves and sharp angles. He wanted to f*ck her so bad right then and there that her absence made him feel like screaming.
He could track her down, Jeremy realized. Of course he could, with the resources at his disposal. Why not? Jeremy pulled out his cell and made a call.
“Darryl? What’s up, it’s Jeremy here. Listen, I’ve got a little situation I’m hoping you can help me out with.”
“My man JR,” Darryl Loomis replied. “Helping out with situations is what I do.”