KING: A Daddy's Best Friend Romance

I smile at her, watching how her demeanor has changed from just that small piece of news. I can see hope flickering in her, maybe even the seeds of triumph. She looks stronger.

And for a second, it occurs to me I maybe should have woken her up. Instead of trying to manage everything myself, I should have given her the information, assumed that she had something worthwhile to contribute to this. Again, I've underestimated her. I silently vow that will be the last time. From now on, we’re partners. Equal partners.

She stands up, bouncing lightly on her toes and smiles with real happiness.

“Why are you so happy?”

“Because I'm almost certain that I know who this is,” she said slyly, winking at me. “How do you feel about a trip to back to the States? Maybe a legal battle or two? Do you have some kind of shark lawyer we could get to beat the snot out of this woman, the way she so richly deserves?”

I glance at my laptop, thinking about how my teams are quickly falling into disarray without my attention.

But then I snap the laptop close. It's time to get serious about one thing, really focus my energies on it.

“Just let me make a phone call,” I suggest, already scrolling in my phone for Richard Branson's number. “We can be back in New York in no time.”

21

Jordan

Head monster. What a completely ironic way for her to name her company. I mean, it's a clue, certainly. She knew that if I ever heard the name, I would know it was her. And I would know why. Even better, I'd know Kelsey was still behind it.

It's Britt.

I sit behind her in the courtroom, staring daggers into the back of her head. She saw me when I came in but her eyes skated over the top of me as though magnetically repelled.

She's going to be sorry, I think to myself as we sit there on the long, church-like wooden benches of the courthouse. I can’t make Kelsey sorry, but Britt? No mercy for this one.

I'm going to make sure she's extremely sorry, if it takes every last penny I have got left.

The funny thing is, “head monster” was something nasty Kelsey had said about her. We were hanging out, sitting on top of the picnic benches outside the diner one summer and Kelsey had pointed her out. She was hanging half in and half out of some guy’s car across the parking lot, talking with him.

Britt didn't know we were there, and maybe that's what made Kelsey so snide. Maybe she felt that Britt should know exactly where Kelsey was at all times so that she could give Kelsey her undivided attention. I don't know. But she was suddenly angry at Britt for no reason I could ascertain.

“She should just lean right through that window and suck him off right there,” Kelsey spat.

I looked up from my French fries. “What are you talking about?”

Kelsey jerked her chin toward Britt's general direction. “That's Tony Delgado she's talking to. There in the Trans Am, leaning into his car like she’s some kind of… I don't know, hooker or something.”

I squinted, trying to make her out. I could only really see Britt’s bottom half, and I wasn't even really sure it was her.

“She does that, you know,” Kelsey sneered. “She loves it. She's probably sucked off half the guys we went to high school with. Total head monster.”

I chuckled, thinking that was such a stupid, middle school thing to say. Head monster. As if.

But the name kind of stuck, as names do. Kelsey started saying it in conversation to other people and eventually it sort of trickled back to Britt. That way Britt would know one day, without her knowledge, Kelsey had a vicious conversation about her for no reason.

That was sort of Kelsey's way, to make sure that you knew no matter what, she had an arsenal of weapons pointed right at you, for no other reason than the fact that she could.

And now, sitting behind her in the courthouse, I feel kind of bad for her. She got the same kind of shitty treatment that I did, but I didn't go so far as to masochistically name my company in honor of one of Kelsey's hissy fits.

Then again, I shouldn't feel bad for her. She's making a lot of money off me. A lot. And despite what people say, money is not the root of all evil. It actually makes a lot of things pretty okay. She’s probably doing fine.

The bailiff finally calls our case and we shuffle to the front of the courthouse, still not looking each other in the eye. R assured me that this was a fairly simple procedure, getting an injunction to force the website to cease operations.

But the judge doesn't seem to see it that way.

After only a few minutes’ worth of testimony, the judge looks at me over her glasses and clicks her pen several times.