Notorious (NeXt Book 1) Page 4

  “I don’t hesitate when I see someone I like. I think you like me too. I mean, unless you were checking out Alex the other day, but I didn’t get the feeling you were. You seemed more interested in me,” he says in that smooth way that seems so natural to him.

  Hearing he likes me makes every ounce of anxiety that lives inside me rear its ugly head. I should have never looked out that kitchen window at him. That’s what I get for listening to Dr. Thorpe and Meadow.

  Put yourself out there, Hailey. Let people know you like them. Try it.

  This is what happens when I take their advice. I end up in a parking lot talking to some gorgeous guy and feeling like the only thing I want to do is run away before I say or do something so utterly ridiculous that I humiliate myself.

  Looking down at my keys I’m gripping tightly in my hand, I mumble, “I have to go. You should go inside and have one of the lemon desserts I made. You might like them.”

  And then before he can say another word, possibly that it was a mistake to come here today because I’m just a basket case, I run inside the restaurant and hide in the kitchen back near my station.

  Ten minutes later, after pretending like I was looking for something just in case someone saw me tear back here, I look out that same kitchen door window where he saw me checking him out the other day and see there’s no red Jaguar in the parking lot. For a moment, relief washes over me, but then that’s replaced by regret, like always when I push people away like I just did with Cade.

  I sneak out the back door of the restaurant this time and walk out to my car, silently berating myself for being exactly who I swore I wouldn’t be anymore. But if you’re not ready, you’re not ready. It doesn’t matter what the horse looks like or that he likes you.

  By the time I reach my car, I can’t remember what I wanted to do today because all I want to do now is go home and crawl underneath the covers. As I slide into the driver’s seat, a white piece of paper stuck under one of my windshield wipers flaps in the breeze. When I grab it and open it up, I see it’s from Cade.

  Hey, give me a call sometime. I think we could have fun. I promise I don’t bite. Unless you want me to. 555-2466

  Cade March

  Quickly, I stuff the note into my pocket and decide right there and then there’s no way I’m ever going to call him. I may be afraid to get back on the dating horse, but some people you should be afraid of.

  Men like Cade March.

  Chapter Six

  Cade

  After checking my phone for the fifth time, I toss it onto the other side of the bed in disgust. She got my note. I’m sure of it. So why hasn’t she called? It’s been almost twenty-four hours.

  Maybe this arteest isn’t for me.

  Bullshit. She and I could be having a good time if only she’d call. I should have stuck around to get her number, but after watching her run away into the restaurant, I can’t be blamed for calling an audible. It’s not every day a woman flees from me like she’s running from a house fire.

  She’ll call. They always do. And why not? Who doesn’t want to have a good time?

  I close my eyes and ease my palm over my cock. Just thinking about her gets me hard. I can only imagine how incredible it’s going to feel to actually kiss her. After that, it’s all good from there.

  And then in the middle of my daydream about how fucking fantastic it’s going to be with Hailey, I hear a voice I know all too well call out my name. Thanks for crashing my fantasy, Dad.

  “Cade? Where are you? It’s the middle of the day.”

  I know damn well what time it is. Why does he have to do his Big Ben impression for me this afternoon?

  Quickly, I get into a pair of shorts and scrub the remnants of last night’s sleep from my face before heading out into my living room. There, standing in the middle next to the coffee table, my father swivels his head left and right examining the room like he’s never seen the place before.

  “Hey, Dad. How did you get in?”

  It’s a valid question, if not a polite one. I’m all for family togetherness, but just walking up into my condo and interrupting what was going to be a fine jerk off session is a bridge too far.

  “You left the door open. Pretty trusting, don’t you think?” he says with all the disapproval he can fit into those few words.

  “Not trusting. Forgetful. I thought I locked it when I went to bed,” I say before turning to walk toward the kitchen. “Can I get you anything, Dad?”

  “No, not unless it’s juice. Your mother has me on this juice cleanse for the next two days. I think she might be trying to kill me.”

  I look back at him and see in his expression he’s serious. “She’s not trying to kill you. She’s just trying to make you healthier. I might have orange juice, but I can’t promise it’s still good. Someone left it after the party a couple weekends ago.”

  He follows behind, begging off the possibly rancid juice that’s sitting in the back of my refrigerator. “I’m good. I’m thinking I might just stick with water until this whole cleanse thing is up. Water has to be better for you than juice.”

  I grab a bottle of spring water and hand it over the refrigerator door to him. “It might be, but it doesn’t have the vitamins and nutrients juice has.”

  My father thinks about that for a moment and smiles. “Don’t tell your mother then. I just know I can’t drink another glass of carrot juice or I’m going to turn into a rabbit. Does my skin look orange to you? Someone at the club said I was looking a little orange and asked if I went heavy on the self-tanner. As if I’d use that shit. If I didn’t need all the bartenders I could find, I’d fire that little shit Antonio. Asshole.”

  My father’s stream of consciousness makes me laugh. One second he’s talking about turning into a rabbit, and the next he’s threatening one of his bartenders.

  “So what can I do for you, Dad? I’m guessing it’s important since you didn’t bother to even knock before you came in.”

  “It’s not like I broke in, Cade. The door was unlocked, so I walked in.”

  Why this sounds right to him I have no idea. It’s not like I’m still a kid living in his house and he found my bedroom door unlocked.

  “Yeah, you said. Do you routinely check to see if people’s front doors are unlocked when you go to someone’s house?” I ask as I take my place across the kitchen from him and lean back against the countertop.

  His expression hardens into a grimace. “You aren’t someone. You’re my son.”

  Somewhere in there I sense there’s a sentiment I should be unhappy with, but there’s no point in getting into it with my father today. He’s just being his usual dad self.

  “Got it. So what’s up?”

  He looks around my kitchen that could use some cleaning and sighs. Okay, maybe it could use a sandblasting to dislodge the crusty food stuck on the stove. And the countertops.

  “So, is this what you’re planning to do today? Just hang around?” he asks before wincing, like my condo is causing him some terrible pain.

  I can’t help but get defensive when he does this. It’s not like it’s rare that this happens either. Lately, it seems like at least once a month, he drops in and examines my place like some kind of disgruntled housekeeper come to heap shame on someone for not keeping it tidy enough.

  “Well, I wasn’t even up when you barged in, Dad, so I’d say I’ve accomplished a few things already today,” I snap back, all the while smiling because I really don’t need to get into an argument with my father not a half hour after waking up.

  More wincing is followed by him silently taking a drink of water while I wait for the inevitable discussion that’s going to occur. I know my father too well to believe he’s going to be able to leave here without giving me the lecture about how it’s time for me to grow up and settle down.

  At twenty-three.

  It’s the height of hypocrisy too, if you ask me. I’ve heard the stories of how legendary his twenties were working at Club X and living a
life others could only dream about. Money, women, and all the alcohol he could want was his everyday life.

  Yet I’m expected to be settled down into a responsible life at my age.

  “Do you have any job prospects, Cade? It’s been a year since you graduated from college. You have a degree, you’re a smart guy, and I have to think there are hundreds of companies that would love to have you work for them.”

  As he speaks, I anticipate every word that will come out of his mouth next. I’ve heard this speech so many times, I could give it to myself. That would actually be better. It would cut out the middle man and make having to do this with him a thing of the past.

  That wouldn’t work for the great Stefan March, though. No, he enjoys coming over here on his monthly tour of my house, sighing disapprovingly as he scans the rooms and mentally ticks off all my household failures, and then giving me his same old dissertation on how I should be working at a job he would have never considered at my age and likely wouldn’t even now.

  “Dad, you know the answer, so why do you ask the question? I haven’t found what I want to do yet. I have time. It’s not like being twenty-three and unsure of my future makes me a lost cause. I have money, so I’m not going to be homeless anytime soon. Don’t worry. I got this.”

  My father narrows his eyes like he can’t believe what I’m saying. “You got what, Cade?”

  I spread my arms out and smile. “This. Life.”

  “You’ve got a condo because of your trust fund your mother and I set up. You’ve got that car of yours because of that same trust fund. Don’t you think it’s time to make your own way in life?”

  “I am. I’m just not doing it the way you would prescribe for me.”

  He acts like that trust fund isn’t exactly like the money he got from his father all those years ago that allowed him and his brothers to start up Club X. Fuck, he’s such a hypocrite!

  Taking a step forward, he lets out another frustrated sigh and sets his water bottle on the island that separates us. “Cade, you have the very skills necessary to take over the club. You’d be perfect. I’m not going to be running it forever, and it’s turnkey. Literally, you’d walk in and it would set you up for life. Then you could do whatever you want with it. Change it to be exactly what you want it to be. It’s there for the taking.”

  And there’s the pitch that comes right near the end of every one of these monthly discussions. Now it’s my turn to say that’s not what I want to do and his turn to get angry, throw his hands up in the air, and storm out.

  At least all of this is predictable. I have to give him that.

  “Dad, I don’t want to manage a club or own a club or do anything with your club. It’s not who I am.”

  Right on cue, disappointment fills his dark eyes and he lowers his head to look at the floor. “Your mother and I always thought we were doing right by you when we set up that trust fund to begin paying out when you were twenty-one. We wanted to make sure we took care of the future because we love you, son.”

  He stops for a moment and looks up at me with anguish written all over his face. This isn’t how our usual talks go. Why isn’t he raging like always? This is when he’s supposed to list all the ways I should be acting like an adult and how I should have some job that he approves of by now.

  But that doesn’t seem to be happening this time. Interesting. My father has changed things up on me.

  “We see now we made a mistake, and we intend on rectifying that. From this year on, the payments won’t occur unless you have a job. We don’t care if it’s flipping burgers or delivering pizzas. A job is a job, and as long as you’re doing an honest day’s work and you’re happy doing it, we’ll be happy for you.”

  I stand there in my kitchen staring at him, stunned at what he’s just said. “You’re taking my trust fund away from me?”

  “No, Cade. You will, if you don’t get a job. Again, your mother and I don’t care what you choose to do, as long as it’s legal and you earn money doing it. We put no restrictions whatsoever on you. Now, if you want, you can work at the club and this will be solved. I always need bartenders, and since you have no interest in managing the club, maybe you’d like to do a job that’s less work and more fun. It’s entirely up to you.”

  Barely able to contain my anger at this blackmail he’s decided to use on me, I snap, “So as long as I work behind the bar serving those goddamned drunks you call customers, you won’t cut me off? Nice, Dad. Hell of a way to treat your only son.”

  He takes a sip of water and smiles. He’s won, so why not? “The choice is up to you. You can start whenever you want. Or not. If you want to do something else, do it. If you want to start up a business and make things, do it. If you want to deliver those pizzas or flip those burgers I mentioned before, do it. Just do something, for Christ’s sake, Cade!”

  And there’s the anger I’m used to in our lovely talks. At least he didn’t disappoint me with that.

  As he’s leaving, I quietly give him what he wants. “I’ll do some bartending at the club starting this week.”

  My father doesn’t say a word before walking out of the kitchen. From the other room, I hear him say, “Afternoon, Alex. Your cousin is in there. How are things going?”

  Sounding as happy as a clam, Alex answers, “Great, Stefan! Nice seeing you. Have a good one!”

  By the time he pokes his head around the wall, it’s all I can do to force myself to say hi. “You just missed a delightful conversation with my father, the wonderful and hypocritical Stefan March.”

  A look of pain comes over my cousin’s face. “Was it that day already this month? I thought those talks came later in the month and not so early. So did it go the same as always?”

  I shake my head, still amazed at what he pulled on me. “No. Daddy’s got a brand new routine, and it’s utter bullshit.”

  Chapter Seven

  Cade

  Alex waits to hear what I mean by that and finally says, “A brand new routine? What does that mean?”

  “Seems I’m not going to get any money this year from my trust if I don’t get a job.”

  As much as I wish Alex would be supportive on this, I can see by the look on his face and the shrug he gives to my announcement that he either isn’t surprised or may even think what my father’s doing is cool.

  “Thanks for being there for me, man.”

  “Cade, I’m your best friend, but even I can say it’s time you stopped playing around. You’ve been back from school for almost a year. You can’t be surprised he and your mother pulled this card on you.”

  Huffing my disgust at that little nugget of truth coming from Alex, of all people, I head over to the refrigerator and grab the two of us beers. I hand him his and push past him on my way to the living room.

  At least I can enjoy a couple more days of freedom before I get chained to the workaday world. Leaning back, I close my eyes and take a sip of ice cold beer while the realization that I haven’t even had breakfast yet runs through my head.

  Oh well. Forget doughnuts. Beer is now the breakfast of champions.

  “Come on, Cade. It’s not so bad. I work, and it hasn’t made me some uptight pain in the ass who doesn’t have fun. As my father likes to say, the world is your oyster. You can work at any number of jobs. Just find something you like and do it.”

  I look across the room to see he’s serious about this. “The world is my oyster? Dude. And you’ve always been a pain in the ass. You working at your job has nothing to do with that.”

  “Fuck you too,” he says with a chuckle, lifting his beer in the air. “To Cade finally joining the ranks of us working stiffs.”

  That toast sucks, but I take a drink of my beer anyway. “What kills me is he was even worse than me at this age. Remember hearing the stories your father and Kane were telling a few summers ago at the Fourth of July party about my father? To hear them talk, Stefan March spent all his days sleeping and all his nights partying. So that was okay for him, but now he’s
older so he wants to make sure I don’t have any fun? He acts like responsibility is some wonderful thing and having a job is the mark of a good person. What a fraud he is.”

  Alex nods, even though I have a feeling he agrees with my father at least a little. “By the way they were talking, all three of them were living the life. I guess time changes you, though. We’ll probably be that way when we get to be their age.”

  I couldn’t be more horrified at that prospect than if he had the power to show me the future himself. “No. Fucking. Way. I’m not going to turn into that. No, thanks.”

  “So what kind of job are you thinking you might want? You have a degree in business from a good school, so it’s not like you’re not qualified for a lot.”

  Just the thought of what job I might want to get makes my head hurt. If I knew what I wanted to do this past year, I would have done it. While I make it seem like I’m all about living the life of leisure and enjoying myself, even to my best friend, the truth is I don’t want to do any job.

  Not because I don’t want to work. Work is work. If you hate what you’re doing, it feels like a jail sentence. If you love what you’re doing, time flies. I got through four years of school just fine, so it’s not that I can’t handle work.

  I just have no idea what I want to do.

  “No clue,” I say shaking my head. “How did you know you wanted to be a chef?” I ask, wondering if hearing this story again might help me figure out what I should do.

  Alex thinks about it for a few moments before taking a drink of his beer. “I just always did. I grew up hearing all about what was happening at the restaurant and I thought it sounded great. I found out when I started working at CK when I was a teenager that it wasn’t as fun as I’d made it out to be, but I knew I wanted to be a chef.”

  “I have no idea how you work with your father. I spent last summer working at the club with my father, and I don’t know how I’m going to do it again now. I told him I’d do some shifts, but I swear to God I hate the idea more than I can put into words.”