We were seated at a booth in the corner, where the strange man invited me to order whatever I’d like, and asked me to be comfortable and enjoy myself. Did he… Think we were on some kind of twisted date?
“Uh, look,” I couldn’t stop myself from saying, squirming in discomfort even though the booth was padded with a thick cushion. “I don’t know what kind of weird pornos you’ve been watching, but I’m notfor sale, okay?”
Obviously amused again, he leaned back a bit, lacing his fingers together on the gleaming table. “I have a wife,” he informed me.
“Yeah, well, my mom has a stove, but she can’t boil water without burning it.”
He chuckled, shaking his head a bit, but didn’t look offended by my assertion. “You’ve got quite a mouth,” he noted. I couldn’t tell if he was put off or endeared by that fact. “I suppose I can see why my son is so smitten with you.”
My stomach sank at his words, my brain immediately solving the mystery of his identity and why he’d been so insistent on talking to me. Shit. He had to be Caelyx’s dad, the billionaire business magnate. And I’d accused him of trying to pay me for sex.
“Awareness dawns,” he observed, but didn’t look any less charmed or amused by my presence than before. “My name is Faulkner Vane.”
He held out a hand across the table, his eyes urging me to shake it, so I did. His nails were smoothly even and manicured, and a simple gold band shimmered on his ring finger. The black polish on my nails and rainbow fruit bat I had tattooed on the inside of my wrist looked wild in comparison, but he didn’t seem to notice or care.
“Aspen,” I responded weakly, but he already knew that.
“Wonderful to finally meet you, Aspen,” he said. “We have a lot to discuss.”
Did we? I was pretty sure I already knew what he was going to say to me. I wasn’t a moron. I couldn’t exactly blame him, but he hadn’t needed to drag me into a restaurant to tell me to stay away from his kid. I’d have gotten the message just fine out on the sidewalk.
When the waiter came up and asked for our drink orders, Faulkner ordered a Sauvignon Blanc and I got a Coke, which was swiftly delivered to us. I didn’t think I could stomach any food, so I didn’t order anything else. When we were finally alone again, Faulkner tapped a finger against his lips, like he was considering.
“Look, I already know what you’re going to say,” I said, only because the stress of waiting for him to start was making my stomach churn. “You want me to stay away from Caelyx, right? But the thing is,” I rushed on, hoping I could get enough out that he wouldn’t interrupt me. “We’re not… I mean, we just work together. And-”
“Stay away from Caelyx?” He cut me off, tilting his head as he assessed me. “I think you should let me explain before we go any further.”
I didn’t think there was any need to explain further, but I zipped my lips and gestured for him to go on. As polite as he seemed, I wasn’t unaware of the fact that this guy could probablycall out a hit on me or my whole family without blinking an eye if I didn’t do what he asked.
“See, I’ve been monitoring my son’s behavior since he left,” he started, before going on to explain that Caelyx’s actions during most of the previous year were exactly what he’d expected; self-destructive and lazy. But then at some point during the previous year, something had changed. Caelyx had stopped sleeping all day and drinking all night, stopped fucking everything that moves, and actually started applying himself in his classes.
I didn’t know much about any of that, but Faulkner seemed relieved that he’d ended up managing to pass most of his classes and scrape together enough credits that the year hadn’t been a complete waste.
But as far as I knew from what Caelyx had told me about his dad, they hadn’t been in contact since he’d gotten kicked out. So how Faulkner had acquired all this knowledge about Caelyx’s sleep schedule and sex life and GPA… I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“And as I’m sure you’re aware, this year has practically been a miracle so far,” he went on. “He’s doing fine in his classes, and he’s actuallyworking, which is something I thought I’d never see. Now, I’m sure this goes without saying, Aspen, but you know what the differentiating factor that caused these changes in my son’s priorities is, right?”
“How should I know?” I asked, my brows furrowed together. I hadn’t even known Caelyx back when he’d been bumming around like a drunk and fucking off in his classes. By the time I’d become friendly enough with Maddox to start hanging out at their house, he’d already started getting his shit together.
“You,” Faulkner said simply, and let the word hang in the air while I gawked at him.
“Me?”
“You,” he repeated, this time quirking his head a little in acknowledgment as he spoke. “I wasn’t sure I understood it correctly at first myself, but I’m positive now.”
Just to give me something to do with my hands, because I suddenly felt incredibly awkward and embarrassed, for reasons I couldn’t even identify myself, I pulled my soda closer and slurped from the straw.
“Well… I don’t know about that,” I managed to stammer out. “Like I said, Caelyx and I just work together. I mean, my roommate is dating his housemate. We have the same friends. But we’re not… I mean, you know, we’re not, uh…”
We weren’t close. That’s what I wanted to say. We were friendly-ish. He went out of his way to annoy me all hours of the day and night, but also he’d given me precisely two back-to-back orgasms in the middle of a fucking cornfield and then tried to kiss me. I wasn’t exactly sure how to describe our relationship anymore.
“I understand,” Faulkner assured me gently. “You don’t have a romantic relationship with him.”
“Right,” I said, somewhat relieved that I hadn’t needed to spell it out. “I’m not important enough to him to influence his behavior, or whatever it is you seem to think.”
“No?” He asked, once again that amused note ringing out in his voice. I wondered how I hadn’t figured it out sooner that he was Caelyx’s dad. That very specific brand of smug arrogance could only be genetic.
“I don’t think so,” I said honestly.
