Page 57 of Puck
“But you’re not paying them to just hang out, though,” I pointed out.
He leveled a reproving glare at me. “There you go with the assumptions again, sweetheart.” He ejected the magazine from the weapon, thumbed out one of the bullets, and toyed with it rather than looking at me. “When I rent out that penthouse, the singular goal is not to remember those two weeks, from before Christmas to after the New Year. So if I book an escort for those two weeks, it’s usually for the purpose of having someone around to make sure I don’t choke on my own fuckin’ puke, or do something monumentally stupid. Sometimes we do the obvious, yeah, but usually, we’d just hang out, talk, drink, and watch movies. Someone to justbethere, more than anything. And, like I said, most of those girls are shy on meaningful family their own selves, so they’re grateful to not be sitting around alone. Instead, they have me, which I realize may not be a super amazing value add for them, but it’s a damn sight better than bein’ lonely on Christmas fuckin’ day.”
I blinked, feeling my throat close as I imagined the picture he’d painted: him, in a glitzy Vegas penthouse, drunk, his only company an equally lonely prostitute or escort. Drinking to forget the time, so he would be less aware of the loneliness.
Layla, sitting on my left side, whereas Puck was on my right, reached around me and slugged Puck on the shoulder. “You’re a dumbass, Puck Lawson.”
He frowned and rubbed his arm where she’d punched him. “Probably, but why?”
“You waste all that time and all that money on hookers and booze and a penthouse when you could just crash with us? And what about Thresh? He doesn’t have family either. Nor does Duke, for that matter. Why do you stupid, emotionally handicapped dumbass fucking men insist on being so goddamn macho about everything?”
“We get together during the holidays a few times,” Puck said. “They usually show up at my penthouse for a few days.”
“That’s not what I mean. You guys are family. To each other, and to me and Nick.” She sounded like she was choked up. “I don’t have family, Nick doesn’t have family, and who the hell knows about Lear and Anselm. None of us have family. So why the hell don’t we act like fucking family when it counts?”
“Because we’re all stupid, stubborn, macho men,” Puck answered. “Emotionally handicapped and socially stunted.”
Lola piped up, then. “Yeah, well, you can bet your assthatshit is gonna change for Thresh, now that I’m in the picture.”
“Same for Duke,” Temple put in.
I twisted to glance back at Kyrie, but she didn’t say anything, although she looked like she was deep in thought.
Layla raised her voice. “Hey, Ivar.”
“Ja?” he answered.
“You got a secure line to the boys?”
“Jawohl,” he clipped out, and dug a phone out of his hip pocket, touched a speed dial entry, and handed it back to her.
Layla listened to it ring. “Hey, baby, it’s me.” She snorted. “Yes, me, Layla. Who else you got answering the phone saying ‘hey baby?’ Yeah, you bet your ass nobody, or I’ll cut your fuckin’ balls off. No, listen, you’re gonna yell at me for wasting secure phone time on this, but it’s important. We are, as of this moment, hosting a company-wide two-week holiday retreat for all the guys and their girlfriends, from Christmas to New Year’s. I don’t care where, or what it looks like, or how much you spend on it, but that shit is nonnegotiable. Did you know about Puck’s Vegas penthouse bullshit? . . . Yes, I’m serious, Nick. No, this can’t wait. You say those guys are like your family, well I’m calling your bluff. We start acting like family. Not just protecting each other when shit goes down but investing in them outside of work.”
She listened a few moments, seeming mollified. “Exactly, that’s what I’m talking about . . . right . . . Okay. Yeah, I love you, too—Yeah, we’re on our way to the airport for the trip stateside.”
Kyrie reached forward. “Can I see that?” Layla handed it back to Kyrie. “Hey Harris, it’s Kyrie. Yeah, can I talk to him? . . . Hi, babe. So you heard what Harris was talking about. Yeah, so you’re going to coordinate with Harris on that, okay? Buy an island near us or something, or build a set of guest quarters for them, whatever you want, as long as there’s private accommodations for all of them down with us for the holidays. You can figure out the details, that’s what you’re best at. Yep, so far so good. I’ve seen some things I’d rather have not seen, but no worse than Greece. Okay, love you. Bye.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You people are crazy.”
Kyrie handed the phone forward. “Why? What’s funny?”
I gestured at her and then Layla. “You two. You tell your husband to ‘buy an islandor something.’ For real?”
She shrugged, grinning. “He’s Valentine Roth—he could buy an island from the profits of a single quarter fromonecompany, and we own a dozen that I know of. So telling him to buy an island is like saying ‘baby, I want a Ferrari, go buy me one.’”
I laughed even harder. “You do realize that the vast majority of humans on this planet can’t just go buy a fucking bicycle whenever they want, much less a Ferrari, don’t you?”
She made anoh wellface. “True, and yes I’m aware. My point is more that for my husband, buying an island versus buying a Ferrari is pretty much the same thing. Affects him the same amount, which is to say not at all.” She hesitated, and then continued. “He also donates more to charity as an individual than anyone else I’ve heard of, Zuckerberg and Gates included. He’s just quiet about it, doesn’t publicize it—doesn’tallowit to be publicized, if you want to be accurate.”
I held up my hands palms out. “Hey, I didn’t mean it to sound like an accusation or something. I just thought it was funny.”
She waved me off. “People get weird about it, when they find out I’m married to Valentine. I don’t even think about the money for the most part. I mean, yeah, I live in a ridiculous house in the Caribbean, and we have a few people around as staff, and there are armed guards and patrol boats and things, but . . . you get used to it. I’m a stay-at-home mommy, and I do it all myself. We have a nanny for when we want to get out by ourselves, but . . . I’m the mommy.Iraise my daughter myself. The money is more Roth’s than mine, although he’d get pissy if he heard me say that. I don’t really care about the money, is the point. It’s really nice to have, and I’m grateful and thankful, but being rich doesn’t solve all the problems people tend to think it does.”
“People are weird about things they don’t understand,” I said, “and most people don’t understand what it’s like to have access to unlimited amounts of money any more than they can understand what it’s like to be flat broke, or homeless.”
“You were homeless?” she asked.
I nodded. “From when I was sixteen till I was twenty.”