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Thinking of you
A close-up of a greasy, glorious pile of fries!
I’m honored. Truly. Nothing says romance like sodium and fryer grease.
They’re hot, salty, and a little emotionally unavailable.
Felt accurate.
Are you flirting with me or describing yourself?
Why not both?
Daring. I like it.
The pool cueclacks against the cue ball, sending it gliding across green felt before it knocks into a stripe and drops it clean into the corner pocket. Still got it. Notthat it matters.
The Brother’spool hall is buzzing in that late-night New York way—neon-soaked, jukebox howling the Killers, and a tang of beer and fried something sticking to every surface.
I’m here early. Not for the beer. Not even for the game. Just... to think.
I line up another shot, not really trying, and sink a solid this time. Go figure. I chalk the cue again, slower now, stalling. My phone buzzes from the ledge next to my drink.
Dad.
I stare at the screen a beat too long before finally swiping to answer.
“Yeah?”
“Still alive, then,” comes his voice—dry, clipped, always one notch shy of accusation. The same tone he’s used for years. It’s a reflex he can’t unlearn.
I close my eyes for a beat. “Been busy.”
“Too busy for the man who raised you?”
The words are mechanical. He’s said them before. He says them every time and can’t remember.
“I’m sorry,” I say, deciding not to tell him we spoke last week. “I’ve got a big account I’m working on.”
There’s a pause, then the familiar click of him settling deeper into the past.
“So tell me,” he says, briskly, “what have you got lined up to win it?”
Pacing a straight line behind the table, my fingers trailing the worn edge. “We’ve got a solid pitch,” I say. “Clean campaign. Strategy’s tight.”
He exhales, unimpressed. “Substance doesn’t close. Leverage does.”
There it is. The old playbook. The only one he remembers how to open.
“You’ve got dirt on a few of the firms, don’t you?” he presses. “Use it.”
“No.”
“Then get some. You want power, Nolan? Play smarter. Not fairer.”
The old anger rises, bitter and too familiar, but I shove it down and brace a hand against the wall. “That’s not how I operate,” I say carefully.
