Never Say Forever

“He signed the NDA—”

Not that it will stop him from telling Remy, if he decides he needs to know. But would Remy tell Rose? My money says not. Our lives and lies are tangled, and though we never speak of it, we both the knots are there.

“—then I just told him the truth. How Ardeo started as a means to help your Navy brothers. How when we came back from that shithole, things weren’t the same. How we weren’t the same. Divorces. Cheating girlfriends, people around us who didn’t understand why we weren’t who we used to be. How they couldn’t understand. But he got it.”

“He would.” Active combat can only be understood by those who’ve lived it.

“He also said it didn’t explain a thing. So then I told him how, in the beginning, Addison was this close,” he holds his thumb and forefinger an inch apart in front of his face, “to blowing his goddamn brains out when Laurie left him. I said, you took him to therapy. And when that didn’t work, you held a fuckin’ birthday party for him when it wasn’t even his birthday.”

“You still griping about that?” I wasn’t sure if Addison would make his next birthday. There was little for any of us to celebrate around that time. But men rarely need an event to enjoy pussy.

“My birthday was next, Car. If anyone should’ve been taking three women to bed, it should’ve been me.”

“I can’t believe we’re still having this conversation. It worked, didn’t it?”

“If marrying a hooker is what you call success.”

“She was a stripper, not a hooker. And he didn’t marry her.” One man’s meat is another man’s poison, so they say.

Tucker sniffs and leans his elbows against the balustrade. “So your friend down there? I told him how Ardeo was born out of the sex fogged air, post fuck fest in the a.m.”

“So basically, you told the man we had an orgy to cheer up a buddy.”

“The kind that Bacchus would’ve killed to get an invite to.” He shoots me a sly grin.

“It was a good party,” I agree.

“And then I told him how I had an epiphany—”

“How you had an epiphany? That’s not how I remember it.”

“That my epiphany was with your contacts, money, and reputation, plus my business acumen, we could really build something running a very particular kind of party for the rich fucks, and the famous fucks, of this world you inhabit. Charge those rich to fucks to get their rocks off with anonymity.”

Ardeo nights are, I suppose, their fuck you to the world for people who live their lives in the public eye, their every moved scrutinised. On nights like these, for the membership price and their signature on a watertight NDA, they can explore every kink imaginable, and they can do it with an audience. Or they can watch. Whatever their preference is. One thing’s for sure; you’ll never read of their exploits on Page Six.

“You know it.”

“I do.” I’ve heard him tell this story before. “If you build it, they will come.”

“Even squirt, some of them.”

“You really are fucking crass.”

“I’m also so very fuckin’ happy in my work.”

And that right there is the reason I don’t regret a thing. That I’ve been able to help the men in my company move on with their lives is the reason I’m standing here. From Tucker and Addison as co-owners to the guys who work in supplies and security. We’re not all here just to get our dicks wet.

“Well, hello sweet darlin’.” Tucker wiggles his fingers in a wave to someone below. “Your guy will see it all for himself tonight.” His gaze lifts to mine. “I told him if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be living the life I do. Hell, none of us would.”

I slide him a look of disgust. I hate it when he tries to sell me of all people on this. It was a business plan, plain and simple, just not the kind you could ever take to a bank. Not that we needed funds then or now, and the business has paid for itself a hundred times over. Why wouldn’t it? Sex sells. Privacy with it, whether a resort weekend, a night in a manor house in London, a chateau in France, or from a superyacht in the Maldives. Rich people pay us to cater to their proclivities. But it’s not about them. It’s about helping the men I fought alongside find their place once more in the world.

And then later, it became about benefitting Rose’s foundation kind of poetically.

“How’d he take it?” I eventually ask.

“He seemed stunned at first, then he started asking about you.”

“And you told him what?”

“That I think you’re a little crazy. That I’m a little jealous. That we all are.”

“Un-fucking-believable,” I mutter.

“That’s what he said. Along with; how can a little dick be worth that much? You know what I told him?”