“I dunno how.”
“You’re about to learn then,” I tell her, handing her a small stack of the cards while I take the rest in my hands, showing her how to shuffle them.
She tries to mirror my movements, but she struggles a little bit to master it. She has the general idea down after a minute, at least.
“You would be such a good dad,” Rowan comments, and I roar a laugh.
“I’m a gooduncle.” I take my hands and press them on either side of Macie’s tiny ears, covering them. “Only person who’s gonna call me ‘daddy’ is someone else’s daughter.”
Rowanrecoils, curling her lip at me in disapproval. “You are so disgusting. I take it back.”
I shrug and pull my hands from Macie’s ears. “We gonna kick their butts, kid, or what?”
We dive into the game, alternating who gives hints and who guesses, each of them a kid friendly clue like jogging or washing dishes. I’m used to...a very different version of the game, but this one is kinda fun, too, for a kids’ game.
I’m counting this toward my wholesome points leading up to our grand opening.
•
Stepping out of the stretch limo, I smooth my hands down the front of my suit - a black three piece printed with bronze damask, because if I have to wear a suit, I’m wearing a fucking awesome one. I walk past the massive crowd waiting to get into the building, just like I wanted them to be, and pass the security with a lazy two-finger salute. There are at least three hundred people crowded outside, trying to get into Vision for its opening night; but they don’t know there’s a list, and only about half of them will be coming in, leaving the rest of them to wonder what the fuck was so exclusive about tonight.
It’s all by design; keep the invitations quiet, advertise wide about the grand opening to draw in a crowd, turn them away at the door, and drive them back to find out what they missed out on. From the looks of it, it’s going exactly as I wanted it to. Everybody wants to get a piece of something they can’t be part of.
Music is already pouring out of the sound system, perfectly crisp and clear as it fills the air, just like I wanted. Logan and his team did a fucking great job with both the interior and the electrical work. Above me, on two separate platforms hung from the ceiling, there are beautiful fucking women dressed in black leather lingerie that leaves little to theimagination, swaying their hips and working their bodies inside the plexiglass walls like they were born to be in there.
I move through the building crowd until I find my business partners, clapping each of them on the shoulder when I see them. “Check this shit out, boys!” I shout, throwing my arms out to my sides. “Does this, or does this not, make your fucking dicks hard?”
Emmett shoves a shot glass into my hand with a laugh, shaking his head while he shouts over the music. “No, but I’m not a weirdo, either.”
“Yeah,” I shout into his ear, “so you can have all the Instagram models. I’ll take the ones in the leather.”
I clink my glass against Emmett’s, tossing the shot back and letting the liquor burn on its way down with a satisfied sigh.
I stop at the bar for another shot and a margarita before moving through the club, bobbing my head and sipping on my drink as the place starts to fill up with people finding their way to the bar and the dance floor. There are already more than a hundred people inside, each of them a socialite or some kind of obnoxious social media influencer Mariah dug up to invite. I’ve had her running the social media pages for Vision since her impressive deep-diving in search of Noelle. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like having a personal fucking FBI agent; if you want someone found, forget hiring professionals, give a gen z’er a couple of hours and an energy drink.
I pass by Mariah on the way to the employee lounge, sliding a hand over the exposed skin at her back as I do. A lacy red top covers her chest, cutting off just over her pierced belly button, and a faux-leather skirt wraps around her lower half, sitting low on her hips. I meet her eyes, giving my nose a few small flicks as I incline my head toward the lounge.
“With my boss?” She laughs.
“The same boss that knows the sounds you make when you come?” I shrug. “Doesn’t seem like much of a jump.”
With a playful slap to my bicep, she follows me toward the lounge, ducking behind the EMPLOYEES ONLY door. I pull a small baggie from my jacket’s breast pocket, opening it to pour some of the pure, white powder onto my hand between my index finger and thumb. I offer Mariah my hand and she plugs one nostril, hovering over the powder with the other while she breathes it in, grimacing at the burn.
I tap more of the powder onto the same spot on my hand, this time pulling it to my own face as I dip my nose to meet it, sniffing the powder to pull it into my sinuses. I pinch my nostrils together and give another sniff as I lean my head back, making sure I’ve gotten all of it, and I let out a satisfied sigh when my throat starts to tingle.
“Now,” I tell her, licking my finger to pick up the powder still stuck to my skin. I bring it to my mouth and rub it along my gums. “Get out there and impress those Instagram people you brought, darlin’,” I tell her with a hard smack to the ass.
Stuffing the almost-empty baggie back into my jacket pocket, I push the door open and step back out into the party. Bass thrums through my bones while I weave through the thick crowd of people.
A blanket of euphoria washes over me as I finally lock eyes onto my friends again, standing near the bar. Colt hands his wife a glass, probably filled with water, and he brings his own drink to his mouth for a sip.
I slap my hand down on the bar, holding up two fingers to the bartender. “Two tequilas!” I shout over the music. Rowan shakes her head at me, and I let out a low whistle at her, taking her hand in mine. Her hair is pushed over one shoulder, styled into big loose curls and held in place at the side with a bunch of pins. She’s wearing a red dress that spills onto the floor around her feet, with a deep slit up the side. I lift her hand over her head and give her a little spin while she laughs. “Your wife looks fucking hot, man,” I tell my best friend.
“I know,” he answers, reaching up to brush a thumb over her cheek.
Reaching for the tequila shooters on the bar, I offer one to him, but he shakes his head, gesturing with his glass. “I’m on soda tonight. That’s all you.”
“Opening fucking night, old bastard,” I say, clinking the glasses together before downing the first shot, not giving it enough time to burn down my throat before I swallow down the second. I set the empty glasses back onto the bar and reach for Rowan’s face, pulling her close to press a kiss to her cheek, then do the same with Colt, who shoves me away with a laugh. “God love ya,” I tell them. “Gonna go find your kid.”
