Beautiful Elixir

  “I’m glad you know a guy.” An ironic smile comes and goes on those beautiful lips. “I’m hoping to gainfully employ your guy. Is there any way we can get a hold of him this afternoon? I’ve got an American Express Black Card burning a hole in my pocket, and I’m not afraid to use it.” She offers a shrug with her partial plea. “Caleb, I will do anything if you can make this go away for me.” Her eyes widen, watering on cue, and it’s all I can do to keep myself from launching across the desk to hold her.

  My heart wrenches for Kennedy. I can’t help but wonder if she gave the same plea to Keith for him to take it all down. I might have recommended it as her attorney if I didn’t greedily want her all for myself. I am, after all, a convenience, the exact man for the job if you will, albeit more of a middleman in this case. And is it too late to make this all go away? I don’t exactly have an expertise in this type of thing. Solomon in all his striped glory bounces through my mind. I suppose I could give him a call, in prison.

  “Look, I’m going to be honest with you. This is going to be tough.” My eyes bear into hers a moment too long. Kennedy is beautiful, and smart, but do I really know her all that well? Her judgment seems to have taken a leave of absence.

  She blinks a dry smile. “I know what you’re thinking. But I didn’t mean to star in those, at least not voluntarily.” Her gaze floats down her chest. “It turns out Keith liked to preserve the memories of our private moments for later. Much later. And, as of this morning, he thought it would be a good idea to share them with the rest of the world. He sent a link to every Greek house at Yeats. There I am, naked as the day I was born and far more developed for all to see. This is going to ruin my family, Caleb. I’ll never get into law school, never mind joining a decent practice. I’m already done, and I haven’t even gotten out of the gate.” Her gaze beams into mine with needlelike precision as if daring me to believe her.

  My mind reels trying to process it all. Just the thought of having her entire future swiped from underneath her makes my blood boil. Who the hell gave that bastard the permission to hack her existence to pieces? To whittle her opportunities to nothing in some bout of juvenile revenge?

  “Anything else?” I fold my hands in a show of false calm. There’s a strange sense of pride brewing in me knowing that she came to me with this.

  “Yes. It’s not just up on that site. I put my name in the search engine and found those videos at dozens of different places. I want his ass brought down. I want Keith Stearns to pay for ruining both me and my family.”

  “Defamation. It’s cut and dry. But he could claim you wanted these movies made, then it becomes a game of he said she said.” And it will. I’ve seen enough of these relationship battles play out in court. It never ends well—every side a loser.

  Her head bows with defeat.

  “Nevertheless—consider it done.” I tap my fingers over her computer before sliding it back. I won’t need it. I can work a search engine with the best of them, and I have a feeling I’ll be pouring over footage tonight. A spear of guilt knifes me at the thought. I’m the exact kind of pervert Kennedy doesn’t want watching this garbage—the kind that jacks off in the shower with those videos replaying behind my eyelids. Little does she know that’s been going on for years now. I didn’t need a play by play.

  “Excuse me.” Zoey pops her head in and looks from me to Kennedy with an eye of suspicion. Zoey has made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that she is ready and willing to gift me her body at the drop of my pants. She’s tempted me far beyond the measures any normal man should bear, not that I’m not normal, but my heart and all that my pants have to offer belong to Kennedy. At least that’s what I’ve convinced myself of. Now it’s time to convince Kennedy of the very same thing.

  “Warren is here.” Zoey wrinkles her nose as if he disgusted her, but I know for a fact she’s slept with him on more than one occasion. Not that Warren shouldn’t disgust people. His story is he got wasted and tried to have sex with his then-girlfriend, Reese, Kennedy’s stepsister. Her story, per her statement, is that he stormed her bedroom drunk and forced his fingers in places they shouldn’t have been just before trying to get his dick in on the action. Ace threw him out the window. Actually they flew out together, but I’m pretty sure Ace was trying to break Warren’s neck. I know I would’ve if anyone tried this with Kennedy, and they have. Keith Stearns better watch his soon-to-be-broken neck when I’m around.

  “Tell Warren I’ll speak with him later.”

  “You’ll speak with me now.” He barrels in past Zoey, who I’m starting to think needs a Taser to subdue the aggressive clientele. “I get a fucking ding on my parole for throwing a house party? What the hell kind of bullshit is that?”

  I cut a bored look to him. We share no familiar features, no familiar mannerisms, and, for sure, no familiarity in general. Warren and I didn’t exactly hang out whenever I popped into town. He’s always had a touch of douchebag in him from as far back as I can remember. I used to wonder how much of that was because of his looks and how much his personality actually played into it. Warren is your stereotypical preppy—life-gifted-on-a-silver-platter type of an ass, but it turns out he’s got the ego to go along with his bank account so no worries to anyone who might judge him solely on the smirk he wears while driving his Ferrari. They’re most likely right. In truth, I’m the one with the Ferrari. Warren drives a Maserati.

  “My guess is a public nuisance complaint. You should really check with your old man before you make any more boneheaded moves. Like breathing.”

  Kennedy openly laughs at the barb, and a twinge of guilt rides through me. I shouldn’t throw Warren under the bus so easily, and in front of two women no less. It has to suck having your balls handed to you every day when you remember why you’re no longer on the Yeats rowing team, at Yeats University in general. I’m guessing it sucks to be Warren McCarthy right about now.

  “Public nuisance? I’ll give them a public nuisance.” He kicks my wastebasket, and the room thunders with the crash. “Don’t just sit there. Throw some money at this, and make it go away. I need my record clean as shit. I’ve applied to Port for the spring.”

  “Clean as shit it will be,” I assure him. With catchphrases like that, he’s fighting Solomon for the not-so brightest McCarthy on the block. Cellblock that is. They also happen to be the only two McCarthy’s with a criminal record. They’re two for two in many respects.

  “Come on, big spender.” Zoey pulls him out by the ear. “I’ll let you buy me coffee.”

  I wait for the click of the door before reverting my full attention to the beautiful creature seated in front of me, and my heart wrenches at what’s happened to her. “Now that I’ve taken you on as my client, I’ll need a few questions answered.”

  “Of course—anything.”

  “Tonight over dinner.”

  Kennedy flashes that easy magazine smile only she knows how to do, the cover girl with the glittery grin. I’m sold—have been for years.

  “And I suppose you’ll be wanting the truth.” A dimple goes off in her cheek as she says it.

  “There is no other option.”

  “Dinner with me? And the truth?” She gargles out a laugh as she slinks to the door. “Some people really do want it all.”

  * * *

  I wait until after lunch, after I finish going through my client list for the day to watch one of the videos. At first I wasn’t going to do it. The stoic, gentleman in me thought better against it, but then the legal eagle in me, the shark, the piranha thought better of that, and decided I needed to know what I was up against—what Kennedy was up against. I choose Sorority Sister Screams only because the title is the most innocent of them all—if you can say that, and I really don’t think you can. Deep Throat Debutant may never get viewed, at least not by me. I hit play, and the screen goes dark for a moment. Pink scrolling handwriting comes up spelling out the title one letter at a time. Classy.

  Kennedy comes into focus, soft at first, a blur of
flesh then an abrupt manipulating of her limbs to get her in a camera-ready position. Kennedy laughs as Keith lands his hands on her knees. She shakes out her dark hair, her shoulders coming into sharp focus as he lies her down over ground zero, and there she is, her perfect body, pale, firm, perky in all the right places. My dick ticks in my boxers, forcing me to reposition it. Down boy. This is all work and no play. Hopefully this will pan out to be a prophecy at best.

  The action begins. Keith’s hairy ass takes over the screen for a few minutes too long. He pulls her lower onto the mattress, spins her body, pinning her thighs back with his greasy mitts. He’s showing her off to the world. Kennedy is on display in a horrifically graphic way, and I’m physically sickened by his actions. Her lashes flutter, her mouth opens with her next breath as he sinks his head over her belly, then lower still, uncomfortably lower, and I shut my laptop because I’ve just concluded all of the research I’ll be conducting.

  Nope. That horrible nightmare was Kennedy’s past. I very much plan on being a part of her future. I only want the best for her, and the best for her right now is keeping myself in the dark when it comes to her sexual escapades with her ex.

  The rest of the afternoon I’m high off the idea of spending an entire uninterrupted evening with Kennedy of all people. Kennedy is a girl who makes you wonder what she’s thinking. You can see the challenge in her as clear as her beautiful eyes. I want a woman who’s able to challenge me. I need that. Deductive logic begs to reason that I need Kennedy. And, God knows, I’m all about deductive logic these days.

  While I was away at NYU, and then later while I was getting started in my career, I did try to forget about her. I tried washing away the memory of those stolen summer kisses, those achingly raw exchanges, away with a few other women. There weren’t many. I wasn’t a serial dater, but I had a few regulars who kept my bed heated and my balls content for the time being. After a while, they each wanted a commitment. No, they never came out and said it, but, before I knew it, I was hanging out with their good friends, double dating with their good friends, having intimate barbeques, planning vacations, then the ultimate buzz kill—the slow lure to meet the parents. I was upfront with each of them that I wasn’t in the market for anything long-term, just another asshole having a good time, but they weren’t listening to my bachelor’s lament. They nodded, confessing to want the same things, but their motives were far from mine. It made me realize two things, there are very few women interested in a good-time arrangement, and the end game to each one of those good times was the hope that I would put a ring on it.

  I wouldn’t mind a long-term commitment with Kennedy, and, for sure, I wouldn’t mind putting a ring on her beautiful finger. She’s the only woman who’s made me so sure of anything in my life. I’m sure about the two of us. I’m hoping she is, too.

  My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Abel interrupting my schoolgirl fantasy of having a white wedding on an exotic shoreline with Kennedy as my bride. I’ve never gone that far in my delusions before. I’m not too sure it’s safe or sane.

  Just giving you an update, it doesn’t look good.

  Solomon, our more colorfully decorated, numerically referred to these days, brother is in the middle of a nightmare of a trial. He’s banished me from the fun zone, or I would have been there for him from day one. Of course, nobody knows this but Sol, which makes me look like a grade A ass. Admittedly Solomon is a fuck up, a fuck up indicted on murder charges, on possession, on having a vehicle that’s registered in his name to be the principle weapon that delivered that fatal blow, and I wish I could say he’s facing the music like a man, but he’s not. He’s very much facing the music like a coward because a man would step up and tell the truth. Solomon believes, with alarming conviction, that he is indeed choosing the path of a real man. That’s where Sol and I draw a line when it comes to the definition of being a man, but I refuse to dig up that point of contention. He has made it unquestionably clear he wants to do this without my “lousy” help. His words not mine. Although, for the record, my help wouldn’t have been lousy, perhaps Abel’s might be, but the help of our father was not forthcoming. In fact, he went on public record to tell his baby boy he’s on his own. And on this miserable point my mother stands with him. Although, in her defense, she doesn’t have the means to see him through this. Solomon is waging this battle on the county’s dime, with the county’s legal squires struggling to avail justice. They won’t win—but then he doesn’t want them to.

  My mother, on the other hand, both humbly and gladly accepts my financial provisions. I want to make sure she’s going to come out the other side of her personal struggles without losing her home, the only real possession in the world my father left her. He made off with his well-to-do practice, with his bevy of fairly attractive, much younger women on the side, and my mother was left with a two-story tract house with a leaky roof and dying crabgrass. And she considers that, in itself, as the crowning moment of her terribly tragic story. I try to push her out of my mind for a moment. I’ll give her a call in the morning, or afternoon if Kennedy decides that a sleepover is in order.

  Appreciate it. I ping the words right back to my big bro. I really am grateful for the update. Abel has been my lifeline to Sol. I’ve been laying low, steering clear of the handful of news outlets that might actually garner some info on it. The case makes me sick. If I dwell on it too long, I might just storm the courtroom and shout out the truth. Although I’m not sure it’s the truth so much as it is something sandwiched between the truth and a lie, sort of the way I’m sandwiched between my brothers in the familial lineup.

  I’m the middle child, the invisible one. The joke has always been Abel can do no wrong, and Solomon can do no right. And who the hell is this Caleb kid again? And so it goes.

  Abel and I get along for the most part, but his golden-child status has always created an unintentional rift between us. He’s pensive, always buried in books, self-secluded, not quite the arguing type. I’ve long suspected he’d rather be hiding out in a stack of books somewhere than performing like a circus monkey in court. I think my father had more to do with the fact he’s a lawyer than his heart did. Abel always threatened to go off somewhere and write a book. He and I have never had too much in common. Something in me has always gravitated toward Solomon who is younger than me by eleven months. We’re all very close in age. My father and mother were very impressed with each other early on in their marriage, not so much later when he began gravitating toward the hemlines of other women’s skirts. Hell, I remember some of the bimbos he had on the side. There was an entire sea of these long lost cheek-pinching special “aunts.”

  Abel texts again. How about you come with me sometime? Next week OK? I think we should ambush Sol. Maybe a visit?

  I growl at his words a moment too long. Solomon made me promise to stay away. He swore up and down he knew what he was doing. My stomach turns to sludge at the thought.

  Maybe.

  I snap up my jacket and head out of the office for the day. Zoey looks up from her phone and meets me at the elevator with her purse.

  “Taking off early?” She gives a little hop, adjusting the strap on the back of her heel. “I guess I’ll go home, too.”

  Zoey usually takes off far earlier than I do, but I don’t bother pointing that out. She’s nice in general. She’s Gavin’s kid sister, so, of course, I gave her the job. Gavin and Demi are two of the nicest people I know in Loveless.

  Zoey is harmless for the most part. Gets my coffee right, doesn’t do much else, but her smile sure brightens up the place.

  She shakes out her vanilla mane. “So like—um, I know I shouldn’t ask, but what’s the deal with Kennedy?”

  “Attorney-client privilege. I’m not entitled to say.” Not sure I’d want to.

  She frowns for the briefest of moments. “Hey, you want to hit dinner?” Her eyebrow lurches high up on her forehead. It’s an interesting maneuver I seem to notice more on women. I first noticed it on Kennedy. There?
??s something attractive about it, the eyebrow waggle in general is off-putting, but from Kennedy it perks me right to attention.

  “I’d love to, but, actually, I’ve got plans.”

  She pulls a blonde curl to her lips and bites over it. Zoey is unmistakably attractive. And, believe me, if Kennedy weren’t haunting me, staining my soul on a cellular level, Zoey would very much garner the position in my bed that she’s gunning for, but it’s simply not available. At least not to her anyway.

  The elevator drops like a ride on some wild rollercoaster giving my stomach that bottoming out feeling I secretly look forward to each day. The ten-year-old in me cheers each time we hit it.

  The doors whoosh open, and I motion for Zoey to step out first. If my mother taught me anything it was to be among that dying breed of gentlemen that open the door for woman and children first.

  “Don’t go making too many plans.” Her lashes flutter hard like the wings of an irate bird. “I’m going to pin you down for some serious one-on-one time soon. I don’t believe a single soul has given you the proper tour of Loveless yet.” Her fingers coil slowly around my tie. Her face swings in uncomfortably close to mine, her breath dusting over my lips. “I’m volunteering, and I won’t let you take that privilege away from me.” She pushes me back with a laugh as she clops her way down the foyer to the glowing world beyond this concrete capsule. “Race you to the top of the hill!” She laughs as she takes off.

  That’s one race Zoey is going to win. I’ve got a florist to visit before I even think of heading up that mountain. I’m pulling out all of the clichéd stops tonight, flowers, surf and turf, expensive as hell bubbly, and a decadent dessert—preferably something creamy that glides well over flesh. I want the signs to be clear as day for Kennedy. I want my every action to scream I’m here now. Let’s do this. I want you more than my next breath.