Sweet Little Thing: A Novella (Sweet Thing) (5 page)

“You’re kidding?” She sat up in bed and turned toward me. “A dark-haired woman, kind of a mess? With two little boys?”

“Yes, that’s her.”

“Crazy coincidence.”

“Totally. She was probably on our flight but we didn’t notice because we were busy.” I smirked.

She laughed. “You make that sound naughty.”

“Well?”

“Well, anyway, after L.A., after you said I ruined you… I ran into her at Tompkins Square Park.”

The mere mention of Mia breaking my heart in L.A. sent a jolt of terror through my body. “And?”

“And she told me about falling in love with her husband. She said something like you can’t know the future for sure; love is having faith in the other person and yourself. It’s trusting yourself to know who is right for you. Something did click after that. I tried to get a hold of you.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just needed to be sure that you weren’t…” I swallowed.

“What, Wilbur? That I wasn’t what?” she said with a playful smirk.

I began tickling her, pinching at her sides and behind her knees until she was flat on her back, writhing around. I hovered over her and held her arms braced above her head.

“I needed to make sure you weren’t fucking with my heart again, you little tease.” I ducked my head and ran my tongue up her neck and continued the torture up her cheek and to her forehead.

She squirmed, screaming, “Yuck! Let me go!”

We were laughing hysterically until finally we were cuddled up again, dozing off with the morning light blasting us through the window.

M
ia was gone when I woke up again. She’d left me a note saying she was going to a dress fitting with Jenny. I looked at the clock. It was nine forty-five. I got dressed and bolted down to the studio where Frank was already waiting outside.

“I think you should have hired a lawyer, Will.”

“Look, I’m not talking today. We’ll let them say their piece. I’ve seen nothing yet to make me think I need to hire a lawyer. No charges, no court papers. This is a scare tactic.”

“I hope you’re right.” As I unlocked the door, I noticed someone walking toward us in the reflection.

“Charlene Fretas,” Frank said loudly. “I’m Frank Abedo.” He was reaching out to shake her hand as I turned to introduce myself. I immediately froze, as did she.

I had met Charlene months before Mia and I had gotten together. She’d come into the bar I used to work in and basically propositioned me. I’d initially turned her down, but then after a long, depressing night of putting up with obnoxious bimbos at a club and feeling utter rejection from Mia, I’d given in and met Charlene—Charlie—in her hotel room.

She was quite a bit older and she had told me that she was a lawyer in town for business. When I’d gone to her room that night, I’d fully expected to find a sex- crazed cougar. In fact, I was kind of hoping for it after learning about Mia and her then-boyfriend. Instead, Charlie and I had done nothing but basically spill our guts about recent heartbreaks. Past the rock-hard exterior, she was kind and compassionate. We’d cuddled. It sounds stupid, but we just slept in the same bed and held each other. It was exactly what I’d needed at the time.

She was not the person I expected to see that day outside my studio. I could tell right away that she was wearing her lawyer hat because she barely broke a smile when she saw my face. “Mr. Ryan,” she said to me as she shook my hand.

“Charlie,” I replied.

“It’s Charlene. Let’s keep this professional.”

The memory of our night together vanished. Showing up at my studio and threatening to sue on behalf of Chad annihilated any respect I’d had for her.

“Okay, fine. Charlene it is. So, Charlene, you’re Chad’s lawyer?”

“Yes, and I’m also his aunt. I wanted to get that on the record.”

“Duly noted. Although, I heard you’re his
great
aunt?” I said, smirking.

“Yes, great aunt. My sister had his mother when she was fifteen, so that made me a very young aunt.”

“That’s neither here nor there,” Frank said, gesturing toward the door. “Shall we?”

We took seats in the meeting room, which had nothing but a coffee maker and a large oval conference table and chairs. Charlene immediately pulled out a digital recorder.

“No,” I said.

She shrugged and then took the battery out and set it next to the recorder on the table. It was a gesture to earn trust.

“I don’t even know what this is about, Charlene. Why don’t we start with a conversation? Why are you here?”

She leaned back in the chair, scanning me, looking for something, a tell or an angle, I wasn’t sure. I raised my eyebrows very slightly, just enough to look playful. She quickly sat upright and focused on the documents in front of her. “We’re here because Chad has a promising career in front of him.”

“That remains to be seen,” I countered quickly.

She pulled a paper from her binder. “He has an inner-ear infection and this is the doctor’s note.”

I took the note from across the table. There was a list of about twenty possible causes, including the most common at the top: bacteria or virus. Somewhere down the list, I found the word trauma. Someone had highlighted it as if to imply that was the cause.

Trying to remain as cool and collected as possible, I set the paper down and looked up, right into Charlene’s eyes. “I had nothing to do with Chad’s ear infection, and you know it. Why don’t we stop right here, because I know you don’t want to blackmail me. That’s not your style. Put your cards on the table, and tell me why you’re here.”

At first it seemed like my words had angered her. She began tapping a paper clip on the table fervently. After a few deep breaths through her nose and out her mouth, she asked calmly, “Will you help my nephew?”

In the same calm voice, I replied, “Not. In. This. Fucking. Lifetime. Or the next.”

“Will,” Frank said in a no-nonsense tone.

Charlene shook her head for emphasis as she tried to persuade me. “Listen to me, Will, he promised—no more shenanigans. He needs you guys. He’s a good kid, he really is, and he looks up to you so much.”

“He doesn’t need me, he has a record deal. Live Wire will find another producer and studio. It’s not a big deal.”

“He really wants you guys. He knows what a talent you and your girlfriend are.”

“Fiancée.”

“Fiancée, of course. Just sit with it for a while. You can decide in a few days.”

Frank nodded his head at me as if to say take her up on the offer.

I thought about Mia and how she seemed so concerned with stability. I wondered why I was fighting this kid. I wondered why it sometimes felt like a fight to give up our songs. The one thing I knew in that moment was that no matter what, we had control. I leaned back and crossed my arms. “I will not move forward until I have everything in writing. He has no creative input at all, and I want a higher percentage in royalties.”

There were several moments of silence.

Charlie stared at me, chewing on the side of her lip nervously. “You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Ryan, but I think Chad and the label will agree to your terms,” she said with a perfunctory smile.

As I walked her out through the lobby, she stopped when a black-and-white picture on the wall caught her eye. It was Mia sitting on my lap at the piano, both our faces frozen in laughter.

“She’s beautiful. What’s her name?”

“Mia.”

Charlene nodded. “Ah, well, good for you.” She stuck her hand out for me to shake. I knew she’d realized it was the girl I was pouring my guts out to her about that night back in the hotel room. “We’ll be in touch, Will.”

“Bye, Charlie.”

She smiled genuinely for the first time and then walked out the door.

My phone buzzed loudly in my pocket. I took a long breath and looked down at the screen. It was Mia and I was relieved the drama was over for the day.

“Hi, babe. How was the fitting?”

“Good. The dress should be perfect.”

“I can’t wait to see it.”

“I want it to be a total surprise.”

“Yeah,” I said, but I was still preoccupied, thinking about the cluster-fuck that had just transpired over Chad. I should have been happy; it had basically gone in my favor.

“What’s wrong, Will?”

“Nothing.”

“I thought about you all day today. I just couldn’t stop thinking that something was bugging you.”

Mia could always sense things. Call it female intuition, who knows, but I couldn’t get anything past her. “Why?”

“I don’t know, just had a weird feeling.”

“I’m okay. Everything’s fine and it’s all good now. Don’t worry.”

“You’re gonna have fun with the guys tonight, right? By the way, I’m meeting Martha for an early dinner, so I probably won’t see you.”

“Okay, tell her I said hi. I won’t be too late.”

“Just have fun, baby,” she said vehemently.

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

When Tyler got to my apartment, he looked disappointed. Scowling and shaking his head, he said, “What are you wearing?”

I had on a red T-shirt that said “Sup” on it and black jeans. “I like this shirt. What’s wrong with it?”

“Don’t you have any shirts that don’t have writing on them?”

I walked back to my room, tore my shirt off and threw it on the bed. I stared up into my closet.

Tyler came to my room and stood in the doorway. “How do you have fucking abs? You don’t even work out.”

“You admiring my physique?” I said to him without taking my eyes off the closet.

“It’s just not right.”

I pulled a plain black T-shirt off the hanger and slipped it over my head. “How’s this?”

“Better.”

As we headed down the stairs, Tyler yelled back, “We’re meeting Josh and Kyle.”

“Are you kidding me? I can’t stand Josh.”

He turned to me just before walking out into the street. “He’s fun.”

“He acts like a fool. He’ll either get into a fight, get kicked out of the bar, or get arrested.”

“He hasn’t been arrested in two years and anyway, so what if he does? It’s entertainment.”

He had a point. “Yeah, I guess. Where are we headed?”

“We’re meeting the guys at the Red Bar.”

“I love that place—they have the best jukebox.”

We entered the tiny red bar and found Josh and Kyle sitting at the end. As soon as they spotted us, Josh stood up, threw his pudgy arms into the air and yelled, “Dicks before chicks, man!”

I ducked behind Tyler, shaking my head. In the five seconds it took us to reach Josh and Kyle at the end of the bar, they had already ordered me an Irish Car Bomb. After high fives and fist bumps, Josh pushed the beer and shot toward me and started chanting, “Chug, chug, chug.”

Josh was a cross between Chris Farley and Jack Nicholson. He was overweight with plenty of stupid energy, but he had these really exaggerated eyebrows and an overbearing forehead, which gave a permanently sinister look to his face.

I dropped the shot in the beer and downed the whole thing in three huge gulps, then slammed it back down on the bar.

Kyle, who was always with Josh, was the perfectly innocent sidekick. He was skinny, blond, and a virgin at the age of thirty, which basically made him the butt of all jokes. He and Josh were Tyler’s old roommates. They’d met in college when all three of them worked part time at Subway. They still called themselves sandwich artists—ridiculous.

Kyle was a decent-enough-looking guy, so it was hard to understand how he hadn’t gotten with at least one girl. The only explanation I could come up with was that he was always with Josh, who was the female deflector. In bars, women wouldn’t come within ten feet of Josh, yet he always found a way to get a girlfriend. At the time, he was dating a belly dancer he’d met while she was performing at a Mediterranean restaurant.

“Speaking of chicks, how’s your girl, Josh?”

“She’s great. She’s working tonight. You guys want to go check her out?”

“Uh, no,” Tyler said.

Josh objectified his own girlfriend in the strangest way and then told everyone she liked it, another reason I couldn’t stand him.

“What’s her name again, bro?” I asked.

This time Kyle chimed in. “Saphir!” he blurted out.