“So?”
“So what if you leave? Where will I be then?”
“Why would I leave, Rochelle? I’m the guy who never complains. I’m the guy who sticks around. I’m the guy who makes it work, no matter what.”
Right. Back to the game he’s playing. I should run away right now. Never look back. Because Bric is always playing. He’s always got a motivation. And that motivation has nothing to do with me. Or Quin, for that matter. As much as he likes to play up that tight friendship the three of them share, it’s just a screen to keep the world from knowing who he really is.
“And you don’t want me. You want us.”
“Right,” he says. I’m boring him, I can tell. “Which is why I don’t see the problem.”
But I do. I see it very clearly. As long as I want them both, we’re fine. But the minute I don’t want Bric, we’re right back to where we started last year when I told Quin I loved him.
“You want me to bail out, Rochelle?”
“No,” I say. I don’t want him to bail. I need him to keep Quin.
“Good. Because I like that baby.”
“What?” I laugh.
“I’m serious,” he says. “She’s so fucking cute I just want to squeeze her. She had her little fingers all wrapped around my hand while I was feeding her today. God, I can’t stand it. We make good babies together.”
“I have no idea what to say to that, other than you don’t know for sure that you’re her father.”
“Doesn’t matter. I like her. I’m digging that little pumpkin and I’m gonna spoil her rotten.”
“That’s what I call her,” I say, laughing a little. Feeling maybe just a little better.
“She’s like a little chubby pumpkin. Did she trick-or-treat this year?”
“She was five months old, Bric. No.”
“Good. Next year will be her first time and I’m gonna pick that costume out.”
“Whatever.”
“Holy fuck, you know what I just realized?”
“What?”
“Christmas is coming up. OK, I gotta go. I have so much shit to do. See you tonight and kiss that pumpkin for me.”
He hangs up before I can respond. Again.
What a strange turn of events. Never in a million years would I have pictured Elias Bricman as a doting father.
Maybe he’s not so bad after all.
At five-thirty Quin knocks on my hotel-room door with a bellhop and a luggage cart. Ten minutes later we’re downstairs packing all my things into Quin’s Suburban. I’ve been telling him about my car since he appeared at the door, but he waves me off and pays the hotel to have it driven over to wherever we’re going.
Our destination is a building on Wynkoop Street, near Union Station. I know where we are before Quin even pulls into the garage.
“This is Bric’s place, right?”
“Is it?” Quin asks, shutting off the truck and taking a look around.
“He brought me here that first time we met. I was telling him about how much I loved the new lofts near the station and he started bragging about his new place. So he brought me here to show it off.”
“I’ve never even been here. I knew he had a place, but I always pictured him down in Cherry Creek with all the other assholes in this city. He stays at the Club as far as I know.”
If it bothers Quin that Bric is bringing me to his home, he doesn’t show it. I get the baby and put her in the stroller, and then help Quin with the stuff I’ll need right away. The spot we park in is very close to the elevator, right next to Bric’s car. Quin punches a button—which acts like a buzzer.
“Buzzing you up,” Bric’s voice says through an intercom.
The elevator doors open, we load all my stuff inside, and a few seconds later the elevator doors close and we ascend up to the top floor.
I remember that first night pretty clearly. I’d been in town a while, but I’d been living in a hotel room. So when Elias Bricman, all dressed up in his five-thousand-dollar suit, asked me if I wanted to go home with him, I said sure.
We were at a party. A corporate event that I crashed because I knew he’d be there. I knew a lot about Elias Bricman before I met him at that party. I lost track of him at one point, so I went outside and there he was, looking up at the sky, unlit cigar in his mouth.
He turned and looked at me, pointed a finger, and said, “You don’t belong here.”
For a second I thought that meant he knew I was a crasher. But then I realized he was flirting. Bric is… kinda hard not to notice. Tall, dark, and handsome are just the first words that pop into your head when you meet him. The others are sexy-as-fuck, hot-as-fuck, and boy-I’d-like-him-to-fuck-me.
His body is big with muscles, but not too bulky. He’s well over six feet tall. And his face. Damn, that face. A perfectly-shaped square jaw, full lips that know exactly how to lick a girl between her legs, and the most unusual eyes. Dark, indigo blue. They look brown, almost black if you don’t see them up close and in the light. But they’re not. They’re blue, like ink.
I was wearing a gold velvet dress I bought at a vintage clothing booth at a local antique mall. It was low-cut and in excellent condition, but very unusual. It got me noticed by Elias Bricman that night. And then Quin Foster too. The rest is history. I called it my lucky dress from that day forward. In fact, I think I met Chella wearing that dress as well. That day she bought my book.
The elevator doors open to half a dozen people bustling about. A few are dressed like maids and a few more look like workers. Some guy messing with the TV. Someone over by one of the windows with a drill. And another one talking to Bric off to the left.
Elias Bricman owns the coolest, trendiest loft condo in the whole state, I’m pretty sure of it. As soon as you step out of the elevator you know it’s a special place. The design is that unique combination of modern and rustic you only find in the Rocky Mountains. Exposed brick walls and aged metal accents complement the honey-toned wooden ceiling beams that make you think of a very expensive barn. The floors are an ash-colored hardwood that might clash with the beams and the brick, but the metal accents pull it all together.
The main room is huge and long, with two distinct living sections. Right in front of the elevator is an intimate seating area with three chairs that face a tall window framing the city outside. I’m pretty sure Bric puts chairs in front of all his windows for Smith, even if Smith has never been here.
The loft is right in the heart of lower downtown Denver, or LoDo, as it’s called by the locals, facing the west. Three blocks from Coors Field, across the street from Union Station, and a five-minute walk to the northern edge of the 16th Street Mall. The view of the mountains is worth a million dollars all by itself.