Page 24 of Bastard

The night moved much more smoothly after that. A big dinner was served family style at their large dinner table. There was lots of laughing and storytelling. We wound up on the back porch with Greg and Marie. Greg smoked a cigar while Jake and Eve’s daughters took an after dinner swim. Marie and Sam had their heads together while Marie detailed information on every wealthy family in New York City.

“So how’d you two meet?” Greg asked, waving his cigar through the air.

“We grew up together. We met in her sandbox.”

Normally people smiled or laughed at the story. It was cute, right? But Greg went still for a moment, his eyes unfocusing for just a second. Like my words pulled him out of the present and slammed him into the past. Then he blinked. “That’s nice. Bonds like that are special.” Then he glanced at Marie and the pain in his eyes dissolved. “Want kids one day?”

“Uh—”

“Sorry. You’re still young. Never mind. Shouldn’t have asked that.”

I had no idea if I wanted kids one day. I was just trying to stay alive long enough to watch Todd burn. Even attempting to conceive of the idea made my brain hurt. “Do you have kids?”

Greg grinned. “Natalie. She’s a spitfire. Smarter than all of us put together. Tell me, what’s your position on cookies?”

“Cookies?” The man changed topics faster than anyone I knew.

“Do you like them?”

“Who doesn’t like cookies?”

“Exactly! But what’s your favorite? This is really where the problem lies because there’s only one correct answer.”

“There is?” This was the strangest conversation I’d had all night. Was that really a cigar or was there something stronger mixed in?

“Chocolate chip,” he said with a nod. “I don’t trust people who don’t like chocolate chip cookies. You can have other favorites, but anyone who doesn’t like chocolate chip cookies is just wrong.”

“Is this how you do business with new clients? Put out a tray of cookies and see who takes what?” I laughed, but he nodded.

“Absolutely. Best way to get to know someone is to do a quick test they don’t even know they’re taking. For instance, what’s your favorite Star Trek?”

“Can I say Battlestar Galactica?”

Marie’s head snapped around. “Are you a Battlestar fan?”

This conversation just got stranger and stranger. “Uh…yes?”

She turned back to Sam. “Okay, so we’re totally going to be friends now.”

Greg chuckled. “You’re lucky. Battlestar is the most non-Star Trek acceptable answer. Especially to my wife. She’s obsessed with the show.”

I think—in a weird way—I was starting to understand this insane conversation. “Well, they’re all connected by Ronald D. Moore. Have you watched For All Mankind yet?”

Greg dropped his surprisingly heavy hand on my shoulder, the other over his heart. “This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

10

Rich people give each other things for free because no one can trace it. No paperwork to bury. No shell corporations to form. No putting up a secret warehouse in the middle of nowhere because literally no one cares.

That’s how Sam and I wound up on a sailboat. Not a yacht like last time, but the effect was the same. Sam and I were alone on the water and no one knew where we were.

Well, Jake and Eve knew. It was their boat.

“New plan,” Sam said. She was in a bikini sprawled out on a towel looking up at the blue sky. “I say fuck it all, take my money and run. We buy a boat and live like this forever.”

“We’re too ambitious. And for what? We’re stressed and scared. I say we do it. Buy some new untraceable names while we’re at it.” I was, in fact, probably drunk. We anchored two hours earlier and I’d been hitting the bottle ever since. It made my lips loose.

“That’s it though, isn’t it? Ambitious and stressed with two empires in our hands, or runaways living life to the fullest.”

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