Naomi & Bradley, It All Comes Down… (Vodka & Vice, the Series Book 1) (5 page)

NAOMI

Thursday, February 4th

Darren Broderick is surprisingly funny.  His sense of humor is very like mine, a mixture of whit, sarcasm, and snarky.  I can tell he’s trying to make me laugh, and I appreciate the effort.  He orders lunch for both of us and I don’t complain, he picked the restaurant, he’s paying, I hope, this damn place looks expensive, and anyway, my mind is somewhere else.

The picture of Bradley with his hot new girlfriend is burning a cigarette burn inside my brain, as if he took out his old, nasty habit again, and pushed a lit butt up my ear.

One day.

One damn day and Bradley just moves on as if I am nothing but a keycard he’s misplaced and so he just picks up a replacement at the concierge’s desk.  That woman hanging on his shoulder, feeling his strong arm, that red-haired witch, she must own a high-rise loft as well.  Maybe a nicer one than mine.

I sigh.

“You okay Naomi?”

“Yes, sorry Darren, just a lot to handle this morning.  I must be terrible company.”

“You’re never terrible anything.”

Wow, is Darren Broderick hitting on me?  I glance quickly up at him, but only see him grin, like a friend, a client.  I take a deep breath.  Yeah, right Naomi, as if this rich, successful businessman wants in your pants.  Fighting off Carl Swartz every day has warped my brain.

“Thanks.”

The server appears carrying large trays of seafood.  God, I hate seafood, all claws, pinchers, tentacles, and that smell, like sewer water.  I’d sooner see a plate of knives, guns, ammo, and a silver-plated Smith & Wesson automatic.

Trying not to gag, I nod at her, but she’s only looking at Darren, asking if he’s pleased in a suggestive voice.  I watch them.  They know each other.  Had sex together before.  I can read people’s body language pretty damn well.  It was the only way I survived my mother’s fast slaps.

I pick at my coleslaw and drink too much wine.  It’s good, better than I ever order and my head is starting to spin.

Darren is talking and I’m nodding, smiling pleasantly, and trying not to breathe through my nose.  I push the heavy platter of offensive bait and shells to my right, and ask for more wine.

Darren smiles and pours.

The blood-red room blurs and I’m enjoying a pleasant buzz when Darren touches my hand and whispers, “Let’s get out of here.”

Wondering how I’m going to walk all those blocks back to work with this spinning head, I slowly stand and grab onto his extended arm.  Can I get in and out of a taxi without falling on my face in a black snowdrift?

Hell, I’m trashed.

Darren walks slowly and I catch myself leaning on his arm.  He waves to his driver, a long, black town car pulls to a stop, and I slide inside.  I notice my black pencil skirt is riding high on my thighs.  I try to pull it down, but it doesn’t budge.  I glance over at Darren; he’s noticed it too.  I’ve got killer legs.  Even my mother couldn’t criticize them, though she would say too bad the rest of me didn’t measure up.  All those stupid nights at the gym, stretching, running, exercising just to show Bradley I had a program too.

I snort.  What a waste of time that was.  I guess Bradley showed me.

The ride is nice and smooth; Broderick must have ordered the heavy-duty suspension.  The leather seats are soft and warm; the smell is sandalwood and sexy.  I doze off. 

A car door slamming.

I wake up to the sensation of being carried.

The ding of an elevator bell.

The heat of a warm chest pressing against me.

Walking.

Humming?

I’m slowly dropped onto a gigantic bed, covered in expensive black, silk sheets.  I don’t own black sheets.  I try to sit up but someone pushes me back down and whispers in my ear, “I’ve got you baby.  Just rest.”

“Work?”  I choke out, trying to open my eyes.

“I called them.  Everything’s okay.”

“I can’t, I’ll be fired.  Carl will be so angry.  I have to go.”

I realize I’m chanting like a child.  I look up and see dark forest green eyes staring right into mine.  Bradley has blue eyes.  I blink.  It’s not Bradley on top of me.  It’s Mr. Broderick.

He’s not being aggressive; he’s just looking at me very closely, as a small child sometimes looks at an adult.  I wiggle underneath him and he rises up on his arms and grins.

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Wiggle around, not under me, not yet.”

“Why did you bring me here, and where am I?”

“My penthouse and because you’re drunk.  Sweetly, attractively drunk.”

“I’m so sorry Darren.  How horribly unprofessional of me.  You must think I’m a…”  I stop talking.  I don’t know what to say next and I hear myself slurring my words.  I sound like some prostitute down by the docks.

I feel myself flushing red, and bury my nose in his shirtsleeve in embarrassment.

“Don’t worry.  Naomi, I’ve been madly attracted to you for almost two years.  You can’t know what having you in my bed is doing to me.”

What?  I never guessed Darren cared a fig for me.  Was he lying just to have sex with me?  I haven’t been with anyone since I met Bradley.  That was almost two wasted years of being a handsome man’s hall monitor, just like a college kid, Bradley roomed with me for the space, and the free and easy sex.  I feel tears flood my eyes, and then the sensation of a warm fingertip brushing them away.

“Naomi, your life is about to change for the better baby.  I’m going to make you happy.  Now sleep.  We’ll talk in the morning when you’re more yourself.”

Darren kisses me lightly on the cheek, runs his open palm over my breasts before plunging his fingers behind my knees.  I hear the hum of my skirt zipper traveling downward and feel strong arms lifting my hips as he slides my tight skirt off of me.

“Beautiful.”  I hear him mutter.

He unbuttons my blouse, slowly, in a provocative and tantalizing fashion, lowers his nose to the inside of my bra and breathes.  He flips me to my side and removes my white blouse.

“God.”

I can hear his heavy breathing, the light caress of his fingertips as they run from my lips to my toes.

“I’ve got you Miss Swanson…and I’m not letting go.”

BRADLEY

Friday, February 5th

Manny has dropped me off at the loft.  His brother-in-law is an Uber driver, so he gets free rides all the time.  His luck is truly wondrous.  The models are going home with him, it’s going to be more of a triangle situation than a square, I guess.  I bummed a smoke before getting out of the car and now I’m pacing the front of the building, drawing the smoke into my lungs and exhaling with reckless abandon.  It mixes with the steam of my breath in the frigid afternoon.  It feels good—too good—and I wonder if I’m going to have to go through the agony of quitting again.  It doesn’t matter.  I have bigger obstacles in front of me; mainly, how the hell do I get into the building so I can get my stuff?  I’ve been texting Naomi for hours and she’s not answering.  Since it’s not even five yet, I figure she’s still at work, but they said she left for a client’s around eleven, so…

“Bradley, darling!  How are you, my little stallion?”  It’s Lorraine, our neighbor, a former Broadway Baby.  She’s got on this enormous purple hat with peacock feathers sticking out the back, a full-length fur cape, and giant black sunglasses.  She pulls out one of those cigarettes that look like skinny cigars and lights up.  “I didn’t know you
smoked
, you little minx.  I had you pegged as one of those kale eaters.  Now I find you even more intriguing.”  She smiles her red lipstick grin, eyeing me up and down.  I feel like a pastry at a Weight Watchers meeting.

“Not supposed to be,” I answer, “Naomi hates it.” 

“Ah well, at least you have someone who cares about your health.  My Bernie, God rest his soul, always nagged me about everything.  Ya know?  Really kept me in check.  Now he’s gone, I’m all over the place.  He was my anchor, ya know?”  As Lorraine speaks, she looks up into the pale blue sky, already turning inky with winter night.

What if Naomi is supposed to be my anchor?

“I’m sorry, Lorraine.”  I touch her shoulder.  I don’t worry about her getting ‘the wrong idea.’  She’s almost ninety and I know her flirting is just for fun.  Then I get an idea.

“Speaking of Naomi, she locked me out by accident, and I can’t get her on the phone.  You still have the spare keys we gave you?”  I try to look innocent; I’m a terrible liar.

“Darling, of course I do.  How funny to be locked out of one’s own house, isn’t it, really?  That reminds me of a play I did back in fifty-seven or was it fifty-eight?  Anyway, there I was at the Delacorte with none other than Danny Kaye…”  Lorraine continues her story all the way through the lobby, up the elevator, into her apartment and to my front door, somehow ending it precisely at the moment I hand her the key back.  That level of timing is what made her the queen of Broadway for so many years, I guess.  I thank her and go inside, heart pounding.  What if Naomi’s here?

I didn’t have to worry.  I call out.  No answer.  I see all my things piled in the living room, a little too close to the fireplace for comfort. 
What had she been planning
, I wonder. 
A bonfire?
  I shudder.  I have a freakin’ amazing wardrobe, all high-end, all tailored to show off my strengths and minimize my weaknesses even though there aren’t many.  I pour myself a Scotch and plunk in a couple of ice cubes.  Screw it, I’m going to wait for her and we are going to talk this out before things go too far. 

I wake up, empty glass on my lap, horrible taste in my mouth.  Check my phone, no messages and it’s four in the morning.  Where the hell is she?  Images of missing person’s posters and news vans flash in my mind.  Should I call the police?  I try her phone again and again.  Finally, I throw mine across the room.  I pace around, worried that maybe she’s in trouble and having one of her famous panic attacks.  And here I am, not even able to talk her down from the ledge.  Some boyfriend.  I go out onto the roof deck and scan the sidewalks around our building, as though I can summon her with my longing.  I watch the sunrise.  Lack of sleep, the fact that I haven’t eaten in fifteen hours, the depressing winter light—it all catches up to me and I can’t help it, the tears flow down my face like rain into a subway grate.  What am I going to do?

NAOMI

Saturday, February 6th

I wake up to sunshine streaming into my closed eyelids, as if a doctor is probing for life with one of those silly little flashlights.  It hurts, and I see red dancing dots, twirling and frolicking like nasty neon spiders.  Ouch, and my tongue, my mouth has been stuffed with cotton balls, so swollen I can barely swallow. 

I start to panic.

I don’t have these attacks often, but when I do, I need someone with me, to talk me off the ledge.

I feel a warm arm wrap around my waist and I sigh, thank God, Bradley is back.  I snuggle my ass into his chest.  He feels so good, so wide, and strong, and I inhale to catch his fresh scent.  Wait…it’s different.  Then everything crashes in on me and I remember, Bradley and Molly.  Bradley and his new restaurant woman, that new smell, is it her perfume, smeared on his shirt after shared sex?

I roll over, open my eyes, and gasp in shock.  It’s not Bradley in bed with me.  Bradley has thick, wavy black hair, a strong jaw, piercing blue eyes; he resembles a Russian hero from some foreign legend. 

My current bed partner is blonde, with dark forest green eyes, and wearing a silly grin.  I open my eyes wider and squeal, “Mr. Broderick?”

“Relax Naomi; you had a little too much to drink on our lunch date.  I brought you back to my place to sleep it off.”

“We had a date?”

“You don’t remember?  I’m hurt Naomi.”

Darren Broderick, one of Carl Swartz’s top clients at the hedge fund, looks anything but hurt; in fact, he appears highly pleased with himself.

I struggle to sit up, and gulp as I see I’m wearing a large man’s shirt, and nothing else.

“Did you undress me?  Did we…?”

“Yes and no.  Calm down.  We didn’t do anything wrong.  I just took off those tight clothes of yours so you could be comfortable.  Nothing happened.”

Nothing happened my ass.  You got a giant peek of every inch of me, you damn asshat.

He sees me frown and invades my private space by running his fingers gently inside the man-shirt I’m wearing, touching my collarbone.

I reach up and push his fingers off of my skin, though they do feel nice.  I’m embarrassed as hell.  The firm’s biggest client!  I’m almost naked in some giant monstrosity of a bed with Billionaire Broderick?

Panic rises in my chest and I struggle to breathe.  It’s the feeling I always have when something unpredictable happens to me.  My most recent blows were catching Bradley entertaining Molly in my loft.  Then, his snubbing me, not bothering to come back and explain.  Bradley, just giving up and tossing me out like week old sushi.  Then, the tawdry scene in the restaurant with the redhead.  Topped by my boss Carl pawing me.  Now this?

I’m finished.

No longer the female star in a loving couple.

Happy and successful Naomi vanishes in a flash, tossed through the looking glass, twirled in a tornado, and thrown hard into hazy-ass Oz.

I’ll be demoted.  

Hell, I’ll be fired.

Carl Swartz will never forgive this error in judgement.  Not only have I ignored all of his numerous hints and touches for sex, but also…I’ve slept with a client.

In just a few days I’ve lost the love of my life---and now my job---my future---I start to hyperventilate---I fear I’m going to faint.

“Naomi, are you okay?  You’re pale as death.”

Darren’s face transforms from smirking superiority to real concern as he pulls me into his arms and softly rubs my back.

“Shhh, it’s okay.  Take it easy.  Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’ll be fired,” I sob into his T-shirt.

“About time you left that lecherous buzzard anyway.”

“Easy for you to say,” I gulp, feeling my face is turning an unbecoming red.

“Listen, Naomi, look at me.”

Darren orders me as he shakes my shoulders a little too roughly.

“You’ll work for me.  It’s okay honey.  I have just the position for you.”

For one moment, a vision of me hanging from a tangle of ropes, naked, swinging beside Darren as he sits in his office talking on the phone, flashes through my brain.  I think I can guess what ‘position’ he has in mind.

I stare into his rich green eyes and absorb some of his strength.  He doesn’t appear threatening, but I get the distinct impression he doesn’t like being crossed, or rejected.  I wonder if he’s ever heard the word, ‘no’ and something about his tightly held mouth frightens me.

I know him on paper, client Darren Broderick, near billionaire, high roller, divorced, no children, owns a real estate development company, a NYC apartment flipper, travels abroad frequently.  In person, I’ve gotten him coffee, emailed him the changes in his stock account, sat beside him during meetings at my firm.  Ate lunch with him and Carl several times.  We’ve barely exchanged a conversation that’s lasted over a minute, until now.

“We’ll talk about all the details later.  I’ll explain your duties, and I’ll also handle Swartz.  He’ll no longer be a problem.  Naomi, your old job, and foreign boyfriend are gone; it’s time for you to make another kind of life.  Now, get up, take a shower.  I’ll order up breakfast.”

Darren is good at giving orders.  He’s used to being obeyed and I jump from the bed, wanting some distance and time to think.

His shower is wonderful, marble, and large as a walk-in closet, with too many jets to count, topped by a rain showerhead that soothes and refreshes me.  I step out and use a few of his products, all sporting imported labels.  I uncap his cologne and take a deep smell.  Divine.

He’s laid out yesterdays’ black skirt and white blouse for me.  And my red underwear.  I wore my skimpiest set on Friday in defiance of Bradley’s desertion.  Darren indeed got an eyeful.  My insecurities rush in and a stupid female part of me wonders what Darren thought of me naked.  How did I compare to the hoard of previous women who have graced his black satin sheets?

Why did I care?

I join a now richly dressed Darren for breakfast.  He explains how the first floor of this building houses a famous restaurant that caters to all the building’s tenants.  He impresses me with the fact that the chef had his own TV show for a time, and is famous for his quail.  When he starts listing the desserts, I only half listen as I examine his penthouse.  It must be half of the entire top floor.  Expansive glass walls on three sides allow sunshine to stream across the hardwood flooring like fairy beams.  It’s everything my loft is not, rich with character, loaded with original oil paintings in every color and size, built-in rows of old books, an endless display of cases filled with brass and copper puzzles and African statues, and area rugs from the Middle East.  I try not to gawk, or gasp, or drool, but this place is a beautiful palace in the sky.

My God, it makes my Tribeca loft look like a commercial business rental, because that’s how it’s furnished.  Mother’s stark white and chrome. Soulless like she was.  Cold and now empty of anyone but me.

The contrast is striking.  I would live here in a second.  I wonder if Darren and I share similar tastes, opinions, and preferences.  Everything Darren owns was chosen with a delicate hand, while my place has my mother’s heavy, social-climbing fingerprints smudged over everything.

“You look sad Naomi, but I’m going to change that.  I’ll give you this weekend to process the changes that are about to happen in your life.  Monumental changes.”

I smile and nod, not sure how to act, so out of my element I hardly know what to do or say.  It’s very unlike me.  What are we now exactly?

Is he my old client?

My new client?

My new boss?

A bed partner?

A love interest or an almost one-night stand?

What’s my new position to be?

With my heart broken by the loss of Bradley, I barely feel like living at all.  The idea of starting a bold new career, learning new job skills, changing all my old patterns, screwing another man, it’s too overwhelming.  The delicious catered breakfast sticks in my throat.  I remember yesterday’s seafood platter and cringe.  This morning’s offering is foreign too.  Belgium waffles, tea, jams and jellies, fruit cups, and creams.  I’ve never had any of it before for breakfast.  It underscores the vast culinary differences between Darren and myself.

He calls downstairs for a town car to take me home.  I argue a little, offer just to catch a cab, but it’s snowing and bitter outside, so I give in when he refuses to compromise.

Darren offers to go with me but I shake my head no and smile.

“You’ve been way too kind already.  I need some time and I’m sure you have more important things to do on a Saturday than babysit me.”

Darren helps me slip on my heavy wool coat, letting his hands linger for a moment on my shoulders.  He dips his chin and leans in, breathing deeply.

“Umm, you smell like me.”

Surprisingly, he pulls me back against him and kisses my neck.  He brushes my long, blond hair off my neck and kisses me again harder, leaving a mark on my skin, as if branding me his.

The ride back to my loft is quiet.  I hear and see nothing, my mind as confused and scrambled as an omelet.

As I enter my loft, I notice Bradley’s black coat draped over the sofa.  I look around in surprise and see him standing in my kitchen, drinking coffee out of his favorite orange cup, and frowning.

My heart leaps and I think, he’s back!

Bradley still loves me and he’s come home!