Chapter Ten
Griffin
–two weeks later
“It really hurts when my dad just overlooks me like that,” says a young woman on a podcast one of my brothers Noah recommended. She’s almost sobbing.
Lady, thank your lucky stars!I think as I drive to Wollstonecraft College, where I teach econometrics with a great deal of annoyance and resignation.
“It’s like he doesn’t even know I exist,” the woman adds.
Oh, cry me a river.I pull out champagne and make toasts when my father forgets my existence. If I could, I’d make him think I was dead. Which might be possible if he were on his own, but he has a pesky assistant who reminds him of the fact that all seven of his sons are still alive.
Which is why I’m getting another bullshit text, which Siri dutifully reads out.
–Dad: So we all agree that this year’s birthday gift will be a baby, correct?
Siri’s delivery is flat and monotone, but there’s nothing flat and monotonous about Joey, the pesky assistant. He has an unnatural fervor to please my father and is also the one who sends texts on my dad’s behalf. The oh-so-important Theodore Preston Lasker would never deign to actually compose his own messages, even to his sons.
I ignore the message because it isn’t worth any time or energy. Dad apparently sent hookers to my brothers over the weekend, but somehow forgot about me. Hopefully he’ll continue to forget. I can find my own bed partners, thank you very much.
Like Purple Girl?
I frown a little. It’s been two weeks, but the memory of that night still has my blood boiling. It wasn’t just the sex, as amazing as that was. It was everything else about her—the way she let things roll off her shoulders. The way she focused on us, rather than what I could do for her career. The unabashed way she clung to me.
Why did she have to sneak out while I was asleep? Women don’t usually pull disappearing acts on me.
What would you have done if you’d known, though? Handcuffed her to the bed?
The image that follows is hot—her hands pulled up and her lush body open for my pleasure and hers. But before the notion can harden my dick further, I kill it.
It was just a one-night stand. So what if it was the best damn sex I’ve ever had?
She left, and I left. I kept our masks as souvenirs from our encounter, but I shouldn’t relive the night so often. I’m not going to see Purple Girl again. She could be anywhere by now. Even if my octogenarian next-door neighbor, Mrs. Kuznetsova, passes away and Purple Girl buys the house and moves in, I wouldn’t know, since we didn’t bother to exchange names.
You exchanged plenty of bodily fluids…
Ah, geez. I have things to do today, and none of them involves Purple Girl. Or this inopportune erection.
Besides, it isn’t like me to waste mental energy on something that can’t be. People overcoming enormous odds to find each other only happens in fairytales. And even then, the stories are ludicrous.
Just look at Cinderella. Prince Charming didn’t get her name despite the fact that they danced at a non-mask ball. The only thing he had was that slipper. The man was so stupid he couldn’t recognize her without her fancy makeup or dress. And yet, even though she was the last woman to try on the slipper, he got the right girl.
Statistically speaking, either the kingdom had fewer than fifty women or Cinderella had very peculiarly shaped and sized feet—which wouldn’t bode well for their future offspring. And given Prince Charming’s obsession with that slipper, I suspect he had a foot fetish.
Then again, of course she would have been the last woman to try it on. Because Charming would have stopped looking when he found her.
My logical econometrics perspective can be a killjoy at times.
The second I park my midnight-blue Prius in the faculty lot, a tall, dark-haired kid rushes toward me. A few sheets of paper flap as he pumps his arms. “Professor Lasker!” he bellows.
I don’t think he realizes how loud he is. He’s one of my most oblivious students.
“I want to talk to you about the midterm!”
Ah, of course. Students bristling with outrage over their grades are undoubtedly crawling around in front of my office like angry ants. It’s a semiannual ritual—the office hours immediately following posting midterm grades is when I get the most visits from students. If they’d spend half that zeal on actually studying the material, we could skip the unpleasant discussion.
This kid is trying to cut the line and ambush me in the parking lot. I don’t think so.