KING: A Daddy's Best Friend Romance

That’s apparently what it takes. The redhead pulls back, and I let her wrist go when she does. Flirtatiousness turns on a dime into vitriol, and she looks like she might slap me. I kind of hope she does.

Instead, she huffs, rolls her eyes, and stalks away muttering, “You’re not all that, anyway, jerk.”

Just as the next tumbler is set down in front of me, another stranger maneuvers into the space on my other side. This one isn’t a pretty girl, but a dude. I don’t remember his name—some B-list celebrity my father paid to make an appearance, but I barely keep track of the A-list.

“You’d think they’d teach social graces in high-end boarding schools,” the man says. He’s the sort of handsome that gets you into lots of panties, but not into the lead role of a Michael Bay film; the kind you have to milk for all it’s worth until it disappears.

“They don’t,” I scoff. “They teach investment banking, economics, and whore-spotting. All valuable skills, I assure you. I think they have a learning annex for the general public. I could hook you up.”

“Fuck you, prick,” the man mutters, and gets ready to leave.

Maybe it‘s the whiskey. Maybe it’s the leftover disgust from seeing my father balls-deep in South America. Maybe it’s the magic of those last lingering traces of adrenaline still in my system from desecrating the speed limit on the way to the lounge. Whatever the case is, I take exception at that very moment to any loser who’s so desperate to hang on to a last shred of career that he’d whore himself out for Reginald’s PR circus talking down to him.

I turn, and deliver a left cross right into almost-pretty-boy’s plastic fucking jaw.

Every member of security knows who I am; that’s a given. It doesn

’t stop them from intervening with impressive speed, and it doesn’t stop the police from very publicly handcuffing me and marching me to a squad car while half the population of the lounge, as well as the paparazzi vultures who live in the bushes near the place, whip out cell phones and cameras to record the event for posterity.

Just like they always do. After all, it’s so much more satisfying to watch the mighty fall than to bother having a life of your own, right?

The cops don’t talk much as they cart me across town, and they don’t have to. We all know where we’re headed, and it isn’t a cell.

Sure enough, twenty minutes later we pull up in front of the family mansion and they let me out with a cursory, polite indication that I should be more careful.

“I’ll do that,” I tell the officer, rubbing my wrists where the cuffs had chafed me on the drive over.

He glances down at my hands. “Sorry about that, Mr. Ferry. Procedure.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I sigh. The house looms over me, and by the time the cops pull away from it I’ve forgotten them. Inside, Daddy is no doubt waiting to deliver his disapproval.

I straighten my jacket, and put on my best shit-eating grin as I push through the great carved doors and stroll into the foyer. Sure enough, Reginald is waiting in the receiving room, eyes hard, jaw clenched, fingers steepled. How long has been there? Did he sit down just like that the moment he got the call? That would be like him; Reginald does like a show.

“Just what the fuck is wrong with you?” he asks. Entirely rhetorical.

“A complete lack of consequences,” I say anyway. “What can I say? I’m spoiled.”

Reginald’s face darkens, well past the point of show business and into serious territory. Cut-out-of-the-will territory. I don’t flinch—I never flinch—but I give up the grin in exchange for the flat affect that hides the twinge of nervousness in my guts.

“Get out of my sight,” he growls.

For the sake of dignity, I stand there a moment longer, locked in a staring contest that I know I’m going to lose—but by God, I’m going to show him it’s my choice to leave. Five, six, seven, eight, nine…

Ten seconds seems like enough. I jam my hands into the pockets of my slacks and turn on a heel, stroll casually away, and only let out the breath I’m holding when I’m well out of sight.

My suite is on the third floor, and when I get there I shed clothes in a trail to the bed. The room tilts dangerously back and forth, like a yacht on the open sea, and I let it tip me over and onto the bed. Above me, the sunroof is, for now, a moon roof and the sliver of white looks down disapprovingly. Everyone gets a free shot at criticism tonight, I suppose.

I hate that my father has that effect on me. Like a trained dog, there’s something Pavlovian about his disapproval, about his heavy, stony glare that turns me into a petulant toddler again. I’d give anything to get out from under his thumb. The longer I’m here, the stronger his hold is. If there’s one thing that can be said about my father, it’s that he never lets go of his possessions. Especially one of his own flesh and blood.

Morning slaps me in the face, digging at my eyes with its thumbs. Groaning, I roll over and reach for a pillow to fend off the assault. Just past my sanctuary, a note stands on my bedside table. I have to squint to read it.

“Terrace. Noon. We’ll be taking the boat out.” Reginald’s handwriting is hasty, efficient, minimalist. Even in short notes his demands leave no room for argument.

It’s already ten thirty in the morning. So I complain to no one all the way to the bathroom, where a cold shower drives some of the fog away—not all of it, but enough for me to be functional.

By the time I’m done in there, breakfast is waiting for me. Two boiled eggs, a slab of greasy bacon, and a bloody Mary.

Good old Esmeralda; that lady has psychic powers and zero judgment. She’s been watching over my father and me since I was two, making meals just like this one since I turned fifteen.