I wanted to. The cocky bastard didn’t know when to shut his goddamn trap.
“Delete Posey from your app—I don’t want you contactin’ her again, got it?”
“Or what?”
The bastard had the balls to argue with me.
“Well. I know you. I know your name, I know you live in the city, I know you’re an architect, and it won’t be difficult to find out where. One little drop-in from me will crush your entire career.”
Dude. Since when do I threaten people who aren’t on the playing field with me?
I almost laugh to myself—like I’d ever drop by some dude's office and ruin his job or get him fired. Ha. That ain’t my style, but he doesn’t need to know that. All this asshole knows is I’m holding him hostage in the air, breathing down his neck and making idle threats about his livelihood.
At least it isn’t his manhood.
“When I put you down, you’re not going to turn around, got it?” I fancied myself a mob boss or a hit man, threatening the punks who threaten ‘The Family,’ taking to my role as a protector with abandon. “You’re gonna walk away and not look back.”
I should have been an actor.
I gave him a hard nudge. “Got it?”
The stubborn fuck just nodded his bobble head, pissed off he was being bossed around by a man he couldn’t identify; but if he’d turned around and somehow recognized me? I’d have been fucked.
Fucked real good.
“On the count of three, I’m gonna set you down.”
“Just fucking set me down,”Brian demanded.
“Hey! I’m callin’ the shots here.”
“Jesus Christ,”he muttered.“You’re not a real smart guy, are you?”
“I’m not the one in a Half Nelson Bulldog, idiot.” I leaned closer to growl.“I will chase you down and tackle you if you look back, motherfucker, and trust me when I say—you do not want me to tackle you.”
Although I’d have been lying if I said I wouldn’t have loved the challenge.
In the end, the sleazebag had listened, walking—then running—when I set him down. Ran like Forest Gump to his truck parked on the opposite side of the building in the other parking lot.
Sucker.
A shower sounds good; I need to wash that shithead down the drain and am pleased when I find the bathroom empty once I get upstairs, the day finally taking its toll.
I barely fit in here, this shower stall.
Compared to my shower in my penthouse apartment, this is like being in a box, my elbows hitting the wall and shower curtain every time I reach up to scrub my hair.
Eventually, my thoughts veer straight to the afternoon, trying to convince the old bat who lives next door to lend me her car. I grin as I scrub my scalp, recalling the skeptical look on her face while I tried to wheel and deal and bargain with her. She was a shrewd negotiator, driving up the ante once she knew how determined I was to drive off with her car.
Supply and demand.
She believed my story but was also a greedy little shit, sensing my urgency.
Plot twist: she also recognized me.
“Do you think I’m deaf and blind and don’t read the papers?”She’d croaked at me over the hedge after catching me lingering there, hoping she’d come outside so I wouldn’t have to knock on her door.“I know who you are, young man, but what I don’t know is why you’re sniffing around here.”
Sniffing around here?