8

Ambrosia

I pull a seat up at the edge of the red velvet-lined booth at Selma’s and picture my brothers having their nose hairs plucked out one by one. Ares is playing with the candle flame and taking up the entire right half of the booth, Zeus occupies the whole left half. I get a slice of the end.

“We already ordered two of everything,” Zeus tells me. His leg is bouncing, which explains the vibrations I felt on the sidewalk outside.

“But what am I going to eat?” I ask.

That earns me two matching grins. “A knuckle sandwich,” Zeus says.

A server approaches. He eyeballs my seat. These fancy places with Turkish rugs and real art and privacy curtains don’t like it when you sit at the end of their booths. But then he takes stock of my brothers and bows his head in concession. “A drink, madam?”

“I’m not staying,” I assure him. “Third wheel and all. But did these two lovebirds order a bottle of your best champagne yet?”

He dips his head once more. “Not yet, madam. I’ll see to it.”

My brothers don’t blink at the implication. Ares because he probably didn’t understand it, Zeus because—never mind. I hate thinking about my brothers and their security in their masculinity, because ew.

“Ah, she’s mad,” Zeus says to Ares. “You should’ve waited for me. I had a plan to get rid of him without anyone knowing.”

“The two of you together are as wide as a street. You can’t sneeze in Brooklyn without the tremors reaching all the way out to Long Island, and you think you were going to somehow sneak stealthy revenge on a billionaire?”

“He impugned your honor,” Zeus says.

“We can be small,” Ares adds.

My brothers, ladies and gentlemen. I haven’t seen them since they battled it out in the play-offs, and I miss the goobers. “How long are you in town? I have band practice tonight, but we could hit a Yankees game tomorrow.”

And then I can pretend, for three glorious hours, that I didn’t spend my day having my every move watched and whispered over by the people I’d claimed as family just yesterday. Everyone from the custodian to the store managers who were in the building for a social media crash course knew who I was and what I did in the elevator last night.

You know your life priorities are a little out of whack when what you’re most grateful for is the fact that video hasn’t leaked onto the internet. Without actual proof, I could twist this anyway I wanted to, and the only people who could correct me would be the security guards—whom I’m pretty sure only had a visual without the sound, please, god—or the Dick.

“Game sounds fun. Just us?” Zeus asked. “Or is the elevator fucker joining us?”

There go my panties getting damp at that part of the memory. Thanks, Zeus. And thanks to whoever’s leaking the gossip outside the company. I don’t want to know how they know. “Just us. Does Mom know you say fucker?”

“Who do you think taught me?” His eyes glint, and we all crack up. Mom saying fucker is about as likely as all of us sitting down over pineapple tater tot casserole for a round of Cards Against Humanity.

“She put sparkles on his ass,” Ares tells Zeus.

Zeus has a wicked vengeance smile. “You got him with that glitter bomb shit?”

“This is a five-star restaurant, not a locker room,” I say. Somebody has to pretend to be outraged other than the elderly couple behind us. “And no. I didn’t plant glitter bombs in his office. But it might’ve been my idea. And I might’ve played lookout.”

Both my brothers fist bump me.

I’m considering having a hundred cases of hot dog buns delivered to the Dick’s office with a suggestion of where he can stick his sausage next time he feels an urge, but everyone had been watching me too closely at work for me to covertly manipulate the inventory and shipping systems.

He was eerily un-dick-like today. It’s making me nervous. I think he’s trying to screw with me.

“You need us, we’re here,” Ares says.

“Don’t suppose you two can afford to buy an organic grocery store chain.”

Ares digs a few thousand dollars out of his wallet and shoves it at me.

Zeus grins again. “Dude. It’s way more than that.”

A different server delivers the champagne, along with a tray of appetizers.

Both of my brothers remove their elbows from the table and stare as fine china plate after fine china plate elegantly decorated with small-portioned food art is placed on the black tablecloth.

Ares starts to open his mouth. I love my brother—and not only because he just offered me a stack of Benjamins for a down payment on a grocery store—but I know he’s about to insult the food. I kick him under the table, and he closes his jaw. He might not be bright, but Mom drilled manners into all of us.

“Dated a girl once who ate shit like this,” Zeus says after the server pours their champagne and departs.

“One?” Ares asks.

“One was enough.”

Probably good that my brothers can’t afford to buy Crunchy. They wouldn’t get the customer base. Or the product.

Especially the vegetables.

Mom could only do so much with these two.

I take a plate with three edamame in the center of a small arrangement of watercress on a single slice of parboiled sweet potato and swallow it in one bite.

My brothers recoil in horror.

“Thanks for dinner,” I say. “I’ll get tickets to the game. You guys try to not harass anyone else I work with, mmm-kay?”

Ares levels a look that justifies his name. “He broke you.”

See? How can I not love these guys? “It was ten years ago, and I made prison my bitch.”

Okay, fine, by prison, I mean three nights in a county jail cell, and by made it my bitch, I mean I was reduced to a blubbering, scaredy-cat mess for those three nights, but I wouldn’t be the woman I am today without the experience. “My employment options are limited at the moment, so we’re all going to play nice until he goes away, okay?”

“I’ll get you a job,” Zeus says.

“I’ll get you a job,” Ares says.

Zeus is in Nashville and Ares plays in Chicago. My police record and recent sexual exploits wouldn’t make a hockey team blink, but as much as I love my brothers, I prefer food to their kind of mother puckers.

The food doesn’t talk back or try to screw me.

Usually.

“I like New York and I like my job,” I tell them. “This will blow over. I’m staying.”

My brothers drop it. They convince me to stay through dinner, then we get takeout hamburgers for the two of them for dessert. Because they’re goobers, they order a Zeus Berger and an Ares Berger, which confuses the heck out of the poor Five Guys cashier, but the guy manning the grill turns around and almost faints.

When he gets control of himself, he asks for selfies and autographs on his forehead, then triples their beef for free.

Zeus and Ares are the two biggest guys to ever play in the NHL. They’re called the Twin Tanks, the Brute and the Force separately, and fans go stark raving nuts when they play each other. They once made ESPN for a private bet over who could bench the bigger cow. Literal cows. I’m pretty sure Ares could pull a tractor on a rope with just his teeth, and Zeus would undoubtedly try a 747 if Ares tried a tractor.

Tonight, after the Berger show at Five Guys, the two of them come with me to band practice and belt the hell out of N*SYNC’s greatest hits. Parker goes a little star struck. Eloise bangs the drums while eyeing Ares like she’d like to bang him. Willow stops groaning over a wedding magazine to squeal, clapping her hands and asking if they can dance too.

The one thing we don’t talk about?

Chase Jett.

It’s two solid hours of heaven.

My brothers leave me at my apartment building. I assume they’re heading off to a club that mere mortals like me don’t know exists, and frankly, I’m exhausted to the point that I wouldn’t care if the bass was thumping right in the center of my apartment.

I’m going to sleep like a baby tonight. Mating Hogzilla above me and all.

Except when I turn into my hallway, the Dick is leaning on the wall outside my door.

Waiting.

And probably not for Mrs. Byrony in 3C, or Buck and Jason next door.

Chase is in low-slung jeans and a fitted white button-down that tucks in at his slim hips and perfectly brings out the bronze in his skin. His deep-set blue eyes track my path, and the intensity radiating off him reminds me of a leopard on the prowl. He still has glitter in his eyebrows. My nipples tighten, my belly curls, and I catch myself about to lick my lips.

“Oh, honey,” I say. “I should’ve warned you about my magic vagina. It makes men fall madly and irresistibly in love with me. The only way to break the spell is to dunk yourself in the Hudson four times at midnight under a full moon.”

I’d like to dunk myself in the Hudson for wondering if he’s at all turned on by the sight of me. Is that bulge natural, or do billionaires shop at special bulge-enhancing jeans shops?

It’s natural, and you know it, Ambrosia May Berger. The man has a personal endowment for the arts in his pants.

“Are you on birth control?” he asks.

Mrs. Byrony pokes her head out. She’s approximately a century and a half old, her apartment smells like cinnamon and mouthwash, and her dog is the cutest thing on two legs. “If you two are talking about sex, take it inside. I just got dumped by a retired trash collector and I’m in no mood for love.”

The door slams. Even from outside, I can tell Hogzilla and Wonder Boy are at it upstairs again. The squeaking is softer out here, but once you hear it, you can never unhear it. I push my key into the lock and open the door.

“Yes,” I say. I don’t add Get lost, dickhead, but only because I’m trying to be the better person. And partly because I’m wondering if he’s asking because he wants round two.

I’m highly ashamed. Mortified. My vagina has lost its mind.

I step in my apartment and force the door closed, because I’m trying to think with my brain tonight.

I almost make it.

His foot is pretty solid. Sort of like his long, twisted, hard—

Argh.

“What do you want?” I say. Nicely. Or at least nicely enough to appease my mother during forced apologies after fighting with my brothers. I’ve mastered riding that line.

A fact that Chase apparently doesn’t appreciate, because he looks like he’d rather dip his dick in cow dung and go wading through mosquito territory than be here with me. “How much do you know about management?”

Now I see why he’s the billionaire and I’m stuck in low-level management. While I’m contemplating his dick, he’s doing the hard businessman stuff.

Heh. Hard.

Not tonight, buddy.

I fling the door open and let him catch it himself. “Piss me off and I’ll throw you out the window.”

“Debating throwing myself out the window,” he mutters.

“At least we’re on the same page.”

My apartment is your typical single-girl New York apartment. One room with kitchenette, living area, and bed—hidden behind a screen, because you can take the girl out of Minnesota, but you can’t take Minnesota out of the girl—with a postage stamp bathroom fed by pipes that serve the dual purpose of water delivery and ghost housing. The way those things groan sometimes would honestly make Ares cry. He’s terrified of ghosts.

Not that I’m allowed to say that out loud. Zeus would kick my ass.

Anyway, back to the apartment. I have exactly zero chairs and one couch, so I flop down and stretch out on it.

What? I’m tired, and it’s his fault.

He gives me the eyeball of Grow up, Bro and takes a seat on my secondhand coffee table. It wobbles, but it doesn’t give.

“What about management?” I ask. The sooner we’re done, the sooner I’m going to bed.

Alone.

Squeaky-squeaky-squeaky-squeeeeeeeak.

Seriously, I’m writing her a note. First thing tomorrow. Try the elevator.

Sheesh, it’s hot in here.

Chase clears his throat. “It’s all male.”

I blink, and it takes me a minute to realize he’s talking about management and not his penis.

Which I’m well aware is all-male.

“Welcome to the twenty-first century,” I say. About management. “No, wait… Yeah. Yeah, we’re still here.”

“Why?”

“Do I really need to explain this to you?”

“You have the most productive department in the building.”

Did he just compliment me? I squint at him. “Are you really Chase Jett, or do you have a secret evil twin?”

“Cut the shit, Bro. You wouldn’t have stayed at Crunchy if it were a terrible place to work. Your department is top-notch, but upper management is all cocksucking dickheads.”

“I have a criminal record. I work where I can work.”

He rolls his eyes so hard I’m surprised they don’t get stuck in the back of his head. “Quit hiding behind that old bullshit.”

“You told me to drive.”

“I told you to get out of there.”

“Ketchup, catsup.”

Hogzilla lets loose with her mating call, and apparently she has a new Wonder Boy tonight, because an elephant trumpet answers her.

Chase blinks at the ceiling. “The mating hogs,” he mutters to himself.

“Welcome to the broke New York life.”

“You live under a fucking zoo.”

He says it not like I live under a stupid zoo or a crazy zoo, but like I live under a zoo specially designed for fucking. He might be right. I should ask the building super how closely they check references. And species.

“You want to know about management, call Heidi Rumple. She’s responsible for the cool marketing office, and she was on the fast track up the ladder when she quit to take a nanny job in Hoboken. Now go away. I can’t sell bok choy if I can’t sleep.”

Squeaky…squeaky…squeaky…

A wild grunt that’s more bearish than hoggish drifts through the ceiling. She’s apparently having an animal orgy tonight. Maybe Willow’s couch is open.

I could crash at my brothers’ hotel, but I grew up with them, and I know how badly they can smell.

“We don’t have to be like this,” Chase says quietly.

“You didn’t have to rig paintballs to rain down on me when I left the house for my first day of high school either, but you did.”

“That was fifteen fucking years ago. And if you hadn’t told my mother I jerked off in the cafeteria, I probably wouldn’t have. You were thirteen. You shouldn’t have even known the word jerk off.”

“Then you shouldn’t have taught it to me.” And now I’m picturing him stroking his thick, bent penis, and I’m getting seriously wound up down south. I grit my teeth in frustration. This man is not good for me. Not as my brothers’ best friend, not as my boss, and not as…whatever this is between us. “Seriously, why are you here? What do you want from me?”

His jaw is flexing and ticking, and I can’t decide if he’s also turned on, or if he’s just pissed off.

Such a fine line between us, it seems.

“Information,” he grits out.

“So you can destroy one more thing in my life?”

“Yes, Bro, I bought a whole fucking grocery store just so I could lay ruin to it and leave you without a job. You’ve found me out.”

When he puts it like that, I sound like a spoiled brat.

But I wasn’t the one who thought popping my Barbies’ heads off and hanging them upside down in the fridge with ketchup dripping off them was a good way to make friends. Forgive me if I have a few trust issues.

“Everyone at Crunchy is there because we believe in the cause,” I tell him. “What we don’t know is if you do. You have a problem with management, it’s just that. Your problem. You bought us. You want to fix what’s broken, great. But don’t you dare touch my team, because we’re good, and you wouldn’t have had a company to buy without us.”

He stands, his hands fisted, elbows drawn in like he’s trying not to punch something.

Probably because he knows I’m right.

And I know how much he hates that.

Which might possibly mean he’s just as turned on as I’m trying to pretend not to be.

“Heidi Rumple. Thank you. Enjoy your mood music.”

The door slams behind him.

I get ready for bed, but I’m hyped up on hormones and something else I don’t want to identify—something that might be a niggling worry that Chase Jett just tried to come into my apartment and act human—and I can’t sleep.

So I do the only thing guaranteed to put me out like a light. I climb under my covers, wriggle out of my panties, and slip my hand between my legs, rubbing myself and giving in to the ache that’s been growing all night. Images of Chase in the elevator dance behind my eyes, and I picture him back in my living room, telling me my pussy is as rotten as moldy canned baloney, and I’d reply that his dick could be a case study for the Centers for Disease Control. He’d attack my mouth with his tongue, cup my pussy in his hands, shove his fingers—no, his whole hand—deep inside me, and now I’m picturing us on his desk in his office, my legs splayed while he licks my pussy and the whole office watches, and oh yes, I’d buck and writhe and scream and I’m wet and horny and my fingers aren’t as big as his, I can’t get as deep as he was last night, so I flick at my clit and grit my teeth and try to give Chase a different face while that slow, deep spiral builds in my core.

My fingers go faster, and I picture Chase and his crooked dick ramming into me, driving me wild, pounding hard and deep and full with his magnificent wonder cock, then Chase getting me off with his fingers again, him sucking on my pussy with that wicked tongue, nipping at my clit with his teeth—

I arch back in my bed as the orgasm rolls through me, but it’s not enough.

It’s not enough, and I’m pissed that it’s not enough, because Chase Jett is somehow ruining masturbation. I reach into my nightstand for Bob and treat myself to a double header.

But it’s still well past midnight before I finally fall asleep, and my subconscious is just as much of a traitor as my vagina.