Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 101254 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101254 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
“Are you excited?”
“About what?” she asks.
“This weekend. The trip to Jamaica. The bachelor and bachelorette parties.”
“Oh yeah. Sure,” she replies. Her tone sounds more bothered than excited.
“All right, Tessa. I’m going to get you excited about this.” I pull up all the details on my phone. “Did you know we’re flying out on the company private jet?”
“Yeah.”
“You ever been on a private jet before?”
She scoffs. “Are you kidding? Only about a hundred times.” Her lips curve upward once more.
Yeah! I’m getting there. Sarcasm is a good thing. “You have such an amazing smile,” I say.
The redness hits her cheeks again, this time spreading to the top of her chest.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Tessa, but I think you probably already know that.”
Her smile fades. “Don’t tell me I’m beautiful,” she says.
“Why not?”
She looks down. “Because I don’t feel beautiful. Sometimes I look in the mirror, and I see…”
“You see what?”
“I see…a shadow. No features. Just a blank face.”
My heart cracks a little. “I know you don’t want to talk to me about this. And you don’t have to. I’m not going to insult you and say I understand, because I know I don’t. But I do know what it’s like to be fighting something, Tessa. It’s not pretty. But there is help.”
“I’m getting help.”
“I’m glad to hear that. And if there’s anything I can—”
She holds up a hand. “Stop. I don’t want to go there. I was actually having a semi-good time, and this will just ruin it.”
I nod. “I hear that.”
Olivia returns with our lunches and sets the Reuben in front of Tessa by mistake.
“That’s mine,” I say. “The lady doesn’t like sauerkraut.”
“Oh my goodness. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Tessa frowns at me. “You don’t need to make a big deal out of it, Ben.”
I wasn’t trying to do that. To the contrary, I wanted to make Tessa smile. She shouldn’t have to be in such close proximity to sauerkraut.
Olivia reddens, flustered. She probably thinks I’m angry with her.
“Olivia, it’s okay,” I assure her with a smile. “Honest mistake.”
She attempts a smile in return, but it’s wary. I really don’t want her thinking I was upset. I’ll give her a huge-ass tip.
She sets the hamburger in front of Tessa. “I hope you like this. We’re famous for our burgers.”
“I’m sure it will be delicious,” Tessa says.
“You all let me know if you need anything else.” Olivia whisks away, pulling out a pad to take an order for another table.
I’m a gentleman, so I wait for Tessa to take the first bite of her burger.
I wait and I wait, and finally my stomach lets out a growl.
“Sorry,” I say. “The enticing scent of sauerkraut and all.”
“Oh, please. Go ahead. I’m just”—she looks at her burger, her eyes widening slightly—“gearing up for it.”
“After the pork fat and dairy diet you’ve been on, this will probably taste pretty good.”
“It does smell good,” she says. “My appetite has just been…”
“Hey. I get it. I do.”
“Please don’t insult me like that.”
I shake my head quickly. “You’re misunderstanding me. I’m not saying I get what you’ve personally been through. It’s like what I said before. I understand how it feels to fight demons.”
“Please.” She scoffs. “I honestly don’t mean to be disrespectful, but you’re a billionaire, and you can’t deny that money does make a lot of things easier. What the hell kind of demons have you ever had to fight?”
Her comment is one I’ve heard many times before. People seem to think money can take care of everything.
It can take care of a lot. That’s true. But it can’t erase demons. It can’t bring light into darkness.
The funny thing about darkness is that it’s actually not dark. You can still see. You can still hear. You can still smell.
You can smell rotted flesh, that sweet—sickeningly sweet—aroma that gets inside your nostrils and never really leaves.
It’s the smell of death.
My mother’s death.
Something I always blamed my father for—my father and his drinking. But recently I found out there was another culprit.
My brother.
He confessed it all to me.
I told him not to worry about it. It was in the past.
But doing the whole best-man thing with his confession still in my mind has been more difficult than I imagined.
I tell myself nothing has changed. This all happened decades ago, and we have the world at our fingertips now. We’re billionaires. A couple of construction guys from South Boston are fucking billionaires.
But that’s not the only demon I’ve had to fight.
Not by a long shot.
…
Fifteen years earlier…
The day comes when I finally decide not to go to work after school. I had a shit day. I had to break up a fight in the boys’ room. Three football jocks were shoving a freshman’s head into the toilet.
Poor kid. He was a nerdy-looking thing—skinny with freckles and bucked teeth. Voice hadn’t dropped yet. So I helped him up, got him dried off, and then chased the motherfuckers down the hallway. And who got sent to see the principal?