WE SPENT the next few days at Vick’s place working like dogs on a deadline. Bastian called her Monday night, and I heard her continually agreeing with him.
Then, she said something like, “Yeah, I’m still healthy. What do you mean?”
The turn of conversation made me drop what I was doing and listen harder. She glanced over at me and got up from where she was parked on the couch to walk down the hall.
“No, Bastian. I’m not concerned because the product was and has always been good.”
I wanted to follow her, but I waited for her to come back into the room and jumped right in. “Why is he asking you how you are? That a personal call?”
“Jealousy doesn’t suit you, Phantom.”
“I beg to differ. If I put my hands down your pants right now, I’d find you wet.”
She glared at me. “Overconfidence doesn’t suit you either.”
I chuckled. “Answer the question. He call you for more than business?”
She sighed. “It’s all business. He’s just—”
She got cut off by her phone ringing. She silenced the unique ringtone. It was the ringtone she always silenced.
I eyed her with a question on my face.
“I haven’t told my mother that I’m not coming to Thanksgiving yet.”
“That’s not going to be a fun conversation, I’m guessing.”
“No. It won’t be. We don’t really see eye to eye on a lot, so …”
Her phone rang again. This time, I snatched it from her and pressed the green button. She lunged for me, but I swung out of her way and walked to her bedroom. “Hi, Ms. Blakely. How can I help you today?”
Her mother sniffed. “Well, I called to talk with my daughter who owns this phone. Who is this?”
I smiled. She sounded older but just like Vick. “Jett Stonewood. Her boss.”
Her voice was high when she replied. “It’s past seven. She’s still at work? You keep her that late?”
Interesting. The woman didn’t even pause for a second to consider that she was talking with a Stonewood. She rolled on like the name meant nothing to her at all.
“We’re not working.” I got straight to the point. “Also, I invited her to my family’s Thanksgiving.”
Silence stretched over the line. I waited her out as I’m sure she was waiting me out. Finally, she replied, “I’d like to speak with Victory now.” Her tone was clipped.
“Mrs. Blakely …”
“Give my daughter her phone.” The woman’s voice had taken on the same tone as my mother’s when she’d reached the end of her rope.
“If it’s any consolation, I hope to meet you at some point. You’ve raised a hell of a woman and you managed a great company.”
The woman didn’t have the same need to ease someone’s discomfort as Vick did. She harrumphed, and I handed the phone over to Vick who had been hiding her face in her hands for the past minute.
“Hi, Mom,” she said, shooting daggers at me. “No, Mom. I’m not …Yes. No, Steve and I weren’t … right. I understand he’s part of the family … I agree that dating my boss isn’t the smartest.”
She sighed and went to sit on the couch where she rubbed her head, and with every passing minute, I realized the mistake I had made.
Victory Blakely was being managed by a brilliant and ruthless businesswoman. Her mother obviously tried to run her daughter’s life the way she had run her company.
“Mom, I just can’t talk about that right now … Because … no, it isn’t anyone’s business but mine. And I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing just fine here.”
She paused and then shot up from the couch. “No. I don’t want you to come visit. I’ll come home in a few weeks. I promise … Of course Dad needs to see me.”
Her body relaxed and her eyes started to glisten a bit. “Mom, he has to deal with you daily, I know he needs me there now more than ever. You’ll run him into the ground otherwise. I won’t make plans for Christmas.”
She glanced at me. “I don’t know Mom. We aren’t … it isn’t really like that. He just wants me there for Thanksgiving.”
I walked up close to her and the phone. “I’ll come for Christmas. Happy to.”
Vick shoved me away and put her finger up to shush me. “Yeah, okay. Well, we can talk about it later, Mom. I’m not committing to bringing him. I love you,” she singsonged. “Goodbye.”
She hung up so fast I was sure her mother was trying to say more.
“What in the actual fuck, Jett?”
“You silence that phone every single time she calls.”
“And for good reason.”
“She micromanages your life?”
“Among other things.” She curled in on herself, her eyes shuttered closed.
“Care to elaborate?”
“Not really.”
“You know, if you were a business deal, I’d say the whole thing was off. You can’t hide your hand like that.”
“I’m not a business deal, Jett. And I’m sure you’re hiding things too.”
“Ask me anything you want to know.”
She stared at me like I’d just suggested wearing our clothes inside out. “Really?”
“Ask.”
She picked at an imaginary fuzz on her shirt and combed the strands of her hair with her fingers in her mirror. “Why are you so against relationships or marriage or happiness in general?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because normal people want a happy ending.”
“I get that all the time when I sleep with a woman.”
She rolled her brown eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“Why do I need a reason to believe in reality? It’s a fact that all relationships end at some time or other. You break up or you die.”
“That’s morbid.”
“I had a great childhood, if that’s what you’re asking. Everyone knows that. They’ve printed it in magazine after magazine.”
“You could have told them to print that. Is it the truth?”
I didn’t even have to think about it. “My parents fought when they separated, sure, but there was always love there. I wasn’t deprived as a child. I didn’t have a traumatic relationship, maybe one or two women scorned but nothing life altering. I don’t have a reason for the way I am. I don’t need one, Vick. I honestly believe it makes the most sense.”
“I just think it’s a sad way to live. With no hope for something better.”
“I hope to make other lives better. I try to run a successful business. I try to push this city forward.”
“Ah. You don’t want the complication. You do realize being happy doesn’t mean you have to quit putting one hundred and ten percent into your company, right?”
“We’ll agree to disagree.” I shrugged. “My turn. You want to answer the question about your mother or your whimsical lifestyle?”
“Can’t a girl dream?”
“You take it to an extreme and you know it.”
“At one point in my life, I was wrapped in a lot of darkness, so much so it felt like tar clinging to every piece of my mind and dragging me into the pits of hell. I don’t want to be there again. I won’t be there again.”
“If you don’t confront the dark, you can’t ever get to the light.”
“Now that, Phantom, is the most profound thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Yeah, well, I have to come at you from different angles.”
“Come at me straight on and you’ll probably get me naked in that bed over there.”
She was avoiding the tough questions. She was still hiding her hand. But I’d worked a one-in-a-million deal before. I knew how to play the long game, and as I looked at her, I knew I wanted to play.
I wanted to win.
And I would.
