“It’th…intereth-ting. Very hierarchical.”

I grabbed my drink, knocked it back in one gulp, and placed the glass back on the tray in front of a thoroughly shocked Morgansen.

“Neat. Shall we get to business?”

Darren’s forehead crumpled once again.

He motioned with his hand for me to start pitching. I did.

I told him about the prospect. About the piece of beach that was going to make a fantastic SurfCity center. Then I told him about my plan and took out blueprints one of the finest architects in L.A. had made for me. I told Darren about my vision for it, then pulled out some statistics about the ever-growing population of teenagers in Todos Santos—rich people loved popping out kids, and kids in SoCal were either into skateboarding or surfing, plus, we were close enough to Huntington Beach, San Clemente, and San Diego to hijack their hardcore surfers. Not to mention the amount of pro competitions it was going to attract to Todos Santos. I explained how I needed a nice, bowtie name to put on my proposal to make sure someone took it seriously, and how he would be able to sit back and watch his money grow. I refrained from adding that sticking it to Baron Spencer, with his luxurious, half-dead mall downtown, would raise us to the position of deities. It was the truth, but Morgansen looked like the kind of person who’d crap his pants from the prospect of pissing someone off. Least of all Baron ‘Vicious’ Spencer.

I’d sniffed around before I’d called Darren. His grandfather had bought oil fields in Kuwait before all the cool kids did it. Morgansen was barely keeping the family business alive. He didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. He had a wife and a stepdaughter, and a shit-ton of people with mustaches telling him what to do.

“And how much do you need from me?” he asked.

“Six mill,” I said, unblinking. He rubbed the back of his neck. For a second, I thought he was going to tell me to get the fuck out of there and throw something sharp at me. But he didn’t. He glanced around. Scratched his face. Downed his bullshit-expensive scotch like a champ, wincing afterwards, then—and only then—met my gaze, defeat shining in his eyes. “Fine.”

“Fine?” I echoed, almost dumbly. That was it? Fine? Whatever this guy was high on, I wish I could sell it.

“Fine, I will shell out the money. You can have three mill upfront.”

“I don’t need three mill upfront. There is no guarantee I will get the land,” I spat out. My instincts told me there was a catch, but Darren looked as harmless as a fucking Teletubby. Dude couldn’t play Twister, let alone someone like me.

“You will, when they thee my name on it. Anyway, conthider it a gethture of goodwill. I don’t need your equity.”

“Are you on something right now? Because we can’t have business together if you’re a junkie. Pot is fine, but if you’re on meth, I need to know.” I scratched my cheek with the edge of my joint, one eyebrow raised in amusement.

He gave me his version of a sneer, and I’ve seen more character on faces of goddamn goats. “I don’t need your equity. It’th not money I’m after. I have enough of it. I want thomething elth from you. As I thaid before, I heard all about you, Bane. I know who you are, and what you do. What I need from you ith not to make me richer. I need you to help my thtepdaughter.”

What you are.

What you do.

Holy hairy shitballs, Stepdaddy Darren wants his kid to get laid.

The first question I had in mind was how ugly was this daughter of his, exactly? Was she Quasimodo-ugly? With the amount of money and resources this chick had, hopefully she could at least pass as cute. Maybe not hot as shit, but surely, fuckable to someone. Anyone. Luckily, I was twenty-five, and when you’re twenty-five, you find everything bone-able, pencil sharpeners included. If he wanted me to screw his stepdaughter for six million dollars, I would get my lawyer to draft this shit tonight and by morning, she’d be so thoroughly fucked she’d have a few extra holes and orgasm-induced foggy brain for days. I’d even throw in oral and after-sex spooning for good measure, because it wouldn’t feel right not to give her a little extra for all this cash.

“That’s fine.” I waved him off. “I usually do a six month contract, no exclusivity clause. Twice a week. Condom is non-negotiable, and I want her tested before I touch her.” I’d been told I was a good-looking son of a bitch, and I never knew when I’d need to stick my dick in someone as a favor or to gain something. As it was, I stopped taking on new clients for money. Cash simply stopped being an incentive once all my bills were paid and my mom was taken care of. But no one told me my dick was worth so much. The Morgansen kid’s stepdaddy sure knew how to spoil her.

Darren shook his head, panic smeared all over his face.

“Wait, what? Oh, Lord. No. No. No, no, no.” He flapped his hands around frantically, coughing. I straightened in my seat, not really sure how this guy was not dead from a heart attack already. “I didn’t mean it like that. I don’t want you to thleep with her. In fact, if there ith one clauth I want in, it’th one where you promith not to make a move on her. I want you becauth you’re for hire, and you do ath you’re paid to do, nothing leth, nothing more. Jethy doethn’t have many friendth. She’th been through a lot, and she jutht needth thomeone. A companion. I want you to help her gain her confidenth back and make thome friends. To hire her for your café, tho that she will have to leave the house every day. It will be thtrictly platonic. Jethy ith untouchable. She doethn’t let people touch her.”

Jesse. But, of course, his stepdaughter has a name he can’t properly pronounce. Poor bastard.

What was this Jesse girl’s deal? She didn’t even bother answering her stepdad, even though she was obviously there. It was tough luck that she sounded like a spoiled princess, because I was going to take the job, even if I needed to hear about her shopping sprees with mommy dearest until my ears fell off. For a few hundred thousand dollars, I wouldn’t have bothered. But there was so much money on the line, and such a lucrative investment, Jesse had just bought my attention. And, to an extent, my affection, too.

“What does this job entail?” I asked, fingering my beard.

“Her therapitht thays she needth a job. Any job. Hire her. Humor her. Court her. But don’t touch her.” His quivering fingers danced across the edges of his planner again. “Breathe life into her.”

“Is she…” I didn’t know how to articulate it without sounding like a politically incorrect dick. Slow? Impaired in any way? Not that it mattered, but I needed to know what I was dealing with here. Darren shifted in his seat.

“She’th a very bright kid. She jutht needth a little push back into thothiety.”

“Why?”

“Why?” he echoed, blinking rapidly, like the question had never occurred to him. His jaw ticked then he pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked on the verge of tears. Dude was about as put-together as a coked-up teenager at Coachella. He obviously needed a backbone transplant, and for the right price, I was a willing donor. If he needed help with his kid, I was going to give it to him. I wouldn’t even have to feel like a dick, because it’s just taking her to the movies or whatever. It wasn’t like I was going to stick my dick in her and whisper love declarations in her ear.

“I’ll tell you why, but you’ll have to thign a nondithclothure agreement.”

Rich people had the craziest stories. She was probably into bestiality or some shit. Money makes you bored, and being bored makes you an asshole.

“I’ve signed so many NDAs in my life, at this point I don’t talk to anyone about anything other than the weather.” I eased back into my chair, suddenly feeling very smug about getting into business with this dude.

His eyes darted to me, glistening with hope. He loved her. I’d always been embarrassed by love. It was such an uncomfortable feeling. People did a lot of stupid stuff in the name of it.

“Right. Right. Tho…do we have a deal?” he piped, taking a greedy hit of air. I looked around, scanning his office for the first time. Traditional. Dark oak and floor-to-ceiling shelves with hundreds of thick, pristine books. A Persian carpet and camel-hued silk armchairs. The bar was the only thing that looked used, the bottles half-empty, sad, and riddled with his fingerprints. Everything else was for show. This man was lost, and I was the lucky bastard who’d found him.

Like taking candy from a fucking baby.

“I’ll give her six months, and I want to know her story.”

Morgansen poured himself another glass of whiskey, stared into it as one would into an abyss, gulped the whole thing as one would when they jumped to their death, and let the glass dangle between his fingertips before it fell to the carpeted floor.

“You want her thtory?”

I hitched one shoulder up. I never repeated myself and wasn’t going to make a habit of it because of this fucker.

When the first words left his mouth, my fingers clutched my seat.

When the first sentences dug through my skull, my throat went dry.

And after ninety minutes of listening, I had only one response to spare. It was one word, actually. And it summarized what I was feeling pretty accurately.

Fuck.

“IT’S A GOOD DAY FOR a hang eleven.” Beck laughed wildly, his long, wet, brown hair flipping in the wind as he lay stomach-down on his surfboard while riding a bomb wave. It was called dick-drag, and I hated when people did that. It was the equivalent of wasting a gorgeous supermodel on a drunken hand job. Truth was, every day when the beach was mostly empty was a good day to surf naked. That’s why every sea creature in SoCal knew the shape of my dick by heart. I laughed and watched as he pulled his shorts down, wrapping them around his wrist like a bracelet. My high school friend, Hale, was a few feet away, busting through the break zone, and my high school girlfriend, Edie, was right beside me, sitting on her surfboard, staring at the beach in a lull.

I followed her gaze and spotted her husband, Trent, and his daughter, Luna, building elaborated sandcastles with their shapers. Edie was my favorite, and consequently only, ex. She was also one of my best friends. That sounded complicated, but it really wasn’t. I liked people for who they were, regardless of my likelihood to fuck them. Edie—or Gidget, as I’d called her since high school—was unfuckable for me, but she was still Edie. Her forehead was crinkled in concern. I squatted down, straddling my Firewire Evo, and flicked her ear.