Flynn
Romanand I walk out of the coffee shop, looking back at the pretty barista one last time before we slip into the backseat of our town car.
“To the office, Jack.” I say to the driver over the seat as I hand him one of the danishes.
“Thanks, sir.” He says as he turns on his blinker and merges with traffic.
I hand one of the coffee cakes to Roman as we ride in silence to work, both of us lost in our thoughts. Neither of us speaks until we pull through the shipyard gates and the car pulls into our spot by the front door to our offices.
“She’s not going to show, you know.” Roman mumbles as he opens his door and steps out.
“Oh, c’mon Rome! Don’t be so pessimistic. She was interested. You saw how she was looking at us.”
“Nope. She’s not going to be there tonight.” He says as we head up the stairs to our offices.
Roman and I own a shipping company. Our families have always been close and we grew up living next door to each other. There weren't a lot of other kids our age in our neighborhood so we spent all of our free time together. We were in the same grade in school and became inseparable from a young age. Our families were close too and when we graduated college and told them we wanted to run a shipping company they were supportive, even putting up money as an investment so we could get started.
Our offices are down by the docks and the last couple of years have been good to us. We bought this shipyard and expanded. We paid back our parents’ investments years ago and now we have more money than we know what to do with.
Now that the company is successful and Roman and I aren’t working 18-hour days, we’ve started to realize how empty our lives are with just the two of us in it. We need to find our girl and start our family.
Roman and I figured out from an early age that we liked to share women. After sleeping with women by ourselves, we talked about it and decided that we’d rather share women and so we’ve been sharing ever since.
We haven’t met the girl that we want to share for the rest of our lives yet but now that business is going so well, maybe it’s time to start really looking for her. No more of these pointless one-night stands with women that we don’t want to spend any real time with or get to know for longer than a couple of hours.
The girl from the coffee shop flashes in my mind. Aspen. There was something about her. Something different, a weird kind of energy passed between us when she looked in my eyes.
“Have faith, brother. She’ll be there.” I say to Roman as we both walk into our separate offices.
We bury ourselves in work, returning emails and calls and going over deals. One of our assistants runs out and grabs lunch and I go into Roman’s office so we can eat together while we work through some final details. I try to bring up Aspen again but he shoots me down yet again.
“You didn’t feel something when we saw her this morning?” I ask. I have to know if he thinks that she could be it and he’s just remaining silent because he doesn’t want to jinx it or get his hopes up, or if he didn’t feel anything for her.
“Of course I did. But I’m better at reading people than you are and I know that girl isn’t going to show up tonight.” His brown eyes meet mine and I see that even though he thinks she won’t be there; he’s hoping that she will.
“$1,000 bucks says she shows.” I bet as I grab my trash and stand up from his desk.
“Deal.” He says not even looking up from his computer screen.
I laugh as I toss out my trash and head back to my office. We finish up at work and leave at 5 pm, fighting the rush hour traffic to get back to our Upper East Side townhouse. It’s Roman’s night to cook dinner and I head upstairs to shower and change while he works in the kitchen. I do the dishes while he takes his turn in the shower and by 8 pm we’re both too anxious to stay home another minute.
We call for the town car and tease each other as we ride up to the nightclub. The bouncer lets us in as soon as we step up to the velvet rope and we weave our way through the crowd and to the VIP section. I keep my eyes open for Aspen and I don’t even need to look to know that Roman is doing the same thing.
“We’re early.” I say. “She could still show up.”
Roman just shakes his head as he takes a seat on one of the plush couches. Immediately, a perky waitress appears at our sides and takes our orders. She disappears through the crowd and I look around at the people around us. Still no sign of Aspen.
The waitress returns with our drinks and Roman hands over his card to open a tab. I see her giving him flirty eyes and I want to smile when he ignores her obvious attempts.
I take a sip of my drink as the first group of girls makes their way over to us. The scantily clad girls all look the same over time and I know that both Roman and I are starting to grow tired from the monotony of these nights out.
“I’m giving her until 9:30 to show and then I’m leaving.” Roman leans over and says as one of the drunk girls tries to climb into his lap.
I nod my agreement as two very drunk girls sit on either side of me and both whisper in my ear at the same time. I lean back in my seat and try to ignore them, taking another drink of my whiskey. They don’t interpret my silence as a sign of my indifference or pick up on my lack of interest and instead, both start to paw at me. I push one of their hands off my leg when it starts to get a little too far north from my knee.
Roman shoots me an annoyed look as he pries a girl’s hands from around his neck. She’s wrapped herself around him and from the looks of it is trying to attach her lips to his body permanently. He pushes her away gently and tells her that we’re waiting for someone. The girl pouts but takes it better than the two wrapped around me. They whisper how well they can keep a secret in my ear and that my girlfriend doesn’t need to know.
“I’m not that kind of guy.” I say as I unwrap myself from them once again.