“Those other players you had? The ones who came before Jordan?”
“Yes,” he says. “We always thought of each other. We submitted to each other in certain respects. We were equals and we didn’t take more than our share. And we did this with one end in mind.”
“What end?” I ask. Not to be snotty, but because I’m really interested in knowing how he perceives winning.
“To keep the game going for as long as possible.”
“But you’re not in that game, Bric.”
“Elias,” he says, an edge to his voice. “Stop thinking of me as Bric and start thinking of me as Elias.”
“Elias,” I say, conceding. Because I do, in fact, call him Bric in my head. “That game ended. You lost all your players.”
“Yes,” he says. “And now I have two new players. You and Jordan. So I’m invested, Nadia. That’s my point. I will consider your needs ahead of mine. Submit to you when it’s in your best interest.”
“How big of you,” I say, finishing my taco and wiping my mouth.
“And if you’d just submit to me instead of making snide comments at every revelation I hand out, then you’d learn the lesson I’m trying to teach.”
Learn the lesson. I just smile. Because this oaf really thinks he needs to teach me a lesson. “You’re fucking my mind, Bric.” I use that name for him on purpose. “Not my body. And we both know this.”
“And you like it, Nadia. Or you wouldn’t be here.” He stands up, grabs his coat off the dining room chair, shrugs it on, and then leans in to kiss me on the cheek. “I’ll pick you up from work at two tomorrow,” he says, backing away, reaching into his pocket to jingle his car keys. “We’re going shopping for furniture.”
I watch him walk away. He pulls open the front door, then hesitates and gives me a sidelong glance over his shoulder. “I’ll make sure Jordan comes tomorrow. So you can give me a complete answer to my earlier question.”
Even though I don’t want to… I think about him. For a long time after he leaves. While I brush my teeth and climb in bed. When I’m masturbating to give myself the last orgasm he denied me. Denied me, I remind myself. Under the pretense of taking care of me. Not using me up and throwing me away. And even as I drift off, spent from an exhausting day of rehearsal and mind-fucking, I’m still thinking about how he’s playing his game.
Do I want to live with them?
Yes, Elias, I decide. I want to live with you. You’re already bending your rules for me and we’ve barely just begun to play.
Imagine how much further I can push him if I have twenty-four-hour access.
My world goes fuzzy and I enter dream space picturing all the many, many ways I will get to know them…
Chapter Twenty-Three - Bric
“Your brother has called six times, Bric. I’m running out of excuses.”
I glance up at Margaret in between signing the stack of documents she needs. She’s got a disapproving look on her face. “Just stop answering,” I say. “I left home twenty years ago for this very fucking reason. I’m not going to deal with all that drama.”
“It sounds important. Something about Luc.”
I continue signing papers and sliding them across the desk for Margaret to collect. But it pisses me off that my family is interfering in my life. I leave them alone, why can’t they do me the same courtesy? “Luc is a grown-ass man, Margaret. He’s like…” Fuck. How old is he now?
“He’s twenty-one,” Margaret says, annoyed that I don’t know how old my youngest brother is. “Still a child in my mind. And Abrem sounded desperate to talk to you.”
“Well, next time tell Abrem, ‘Galatians 6:7.’ He’ll know what that means.” A man reaps what he sows. Abrem was always the one in control back home. Hated when I had an opinion on anything. And now he’s just pissed off that he and Benjamin have let things get so bad. I sign the last piece of paper and slide it across my desk with one push of my finger. “I have nothing to do with Luc’s problems and, therefore, I have nothing to do with Luc’s solution. I barely know him.”
Margaret sighs at my last remark. But it’s true. I left home when Luc was just a baby. And yeah, I see him once a year—when he actually shows up for the Labor Day family reunion party. He’s missed all but one since all this drug bullshit started back when he was seventeen.
“Or better yet,” I say, glancing at my watch and feeling the need to get out of here and stop this conversation, “tell Abrem to call Jason or Keren, not me. They know him best.” I get up to escape Margaret, but she puts a hand on my arm. I stop and look down at her. “What?”
“You know they’ve already tried that, Elias. Jason and Keren live at home. Do you really think Abrem hasn’t talked to them already?”
“I can’t help Luc, Margaret. No one can. He doesn’t want help. He likes his life, OK? Just like I like mine.”
“Your lifestyle, you mean?” she says, cutting through my words with a knife. “But your lifestyle isn’t going to get anyone killed, is it?”
I shrug off her hand and grab my coat off the chair. “I’m done with this conversation. I have things to do today. I’m moving in to a new place this weekend and—”
“You can’t run from everything, you know.”
“Margaret,” I say, all patience gone. “Stop trying—”
“You can’t,” she continues, ignoring my brush-off, “pretend everything is perfect and not expect it to catch up with you eventually, Elias.”
“I don’t need another mother.” And then I laugh. “OK? You’re important to me and I love having you at the Club. I wouldn’t know what to do without you. But Margaret, back the fuck off right the fuck now.”
“Fine,” she says as I shrug on my coat and adjust my collar. “I’ll just pretend it’s not happening. I’ll just—”
I know she’s going to get mean. I can feel her stinging words on the tip of her tongue. And when Margaret gets mean, she holds nothing back.
But she stops herself at the last second.
“I’ll just take care of these contracts,” she says in her normal Margaret-is-all-business voice. “Have a nice afternoon, Bric.”
“Bric,” I mumble as she leaves me standing in my office. But it’s satisfying to hear the change in her tone. All business again. Just the way I like her.
By the time I get over to the ballet company, I’m twenty minutes late. Nadia comes rushing out of the door into the cold, wrapping her coat tightly around her body. She pulls the car door open before I can even get out to open it for her, and slides into the passenger seat, slamming it shut.
“You’re late,” she says, annoyed.
Well, I’m annoyed too, so I don’t give a shit. “I run a business, Nadia. I will occasionally be a few minutes late for things.”
“More than twenty minutes, Bric. I could’ve gone home,” she says. “All you had to do was call.”
“I got caught up in business,” I snap.
Nadia recoils at my anger, turns her head and looks out the window.
“Sorry,” I say, pulling back onto the street. “I was thoughtless. I’ll call you next time and let you know.”