Bossy Brothers: Joey Page 2

  One month. That’s how long I’ve been here in the city.

  I have a new apartment, new clothes, new car, new furniture. Everything I need. Except for a purpose.

  I have no purpose.

  It’s not a new thing, this lack of purpose. I’ve never had much of a purpose. But I had people.

  Well, mostly just one person. But sometimes one is all it takes.

  I was grounded. I knew who I was, even if it was a lie, and I thought I knew where I was going.

  Now this. Here. Alone.

  I turn twenty-nine tomorrow and there’s this new urge that might possibly be a panic building inside me.

  Fear might be a better word. Fear that I am nothing. That I am worthless. That I am too small to matter. That everything I’ve ever done has now been cancelled out by all the things I’ll never do again.

  But wasn’t that the point, Brooke?

  My tablet is talking. The book is called Second Life: How to Remake Yourself in Ten Easy Steps.

  The audiobook is over so it spits out something about credits and copyright. I turned it on last night when I climbed into my new bed and fell asleep to it. I do this every night and I almost always fall asleep immediately, so the next night I have to go back seventeen chapters or so and do it all again.

  But I’m convinced that this stuff sticks in my brain. That it’s helping me. And somewhere inside me those ten easy steps in that book are working some kind of magic.

  I listen to these books during the day sometimes too. Just let that thing play all day as I sit around trying to figure out what to do next.

  This is the fourth audiobook I’ve done this with since I arrived in the city. The first one was called Calling Your Destiny: How to Make Your Own Luck.

  I’m into self-help now, I guess.

  It’s a new thing. But everything in my life these days is a new thing.

  I have money and that’s nice. It’s probably more than I should have so I do appreciate the fact that I landed here with a cushion.

  But while it was enough to start over, it’s not enough to keep me going. If I don’t work for the next year, I’ll be OK.

  But after that… what? What do I do?

  I could probably make the money stretch for two years if I have a tight budget. Eat ramen, and sell the car, and start taking public transportation. Parking the car in the underground garage costs almost enough as this modest, but zipcode-trendy apartment each month.

  But I need the car. It’s a way out. A way to pack up and leave. So I’m not getting rid of the car.

  That means I have one year to forget about my past and figure out my future.

  I don’t know if a year is enough.

  It’s the forgetting I worry about. The future too, but mostly the forgetting.

  Will I ever forget?

  It’s hot and humid out this morning. Sticky and uncomfortable. A beam of sun has found its way through the maze of tall buildings surrounding me and is blazing down on my face. This makes me want to close my eyes. It makes me tired.

  Not the kind of tired that calls for sleep. The kind of tired that begs for an ending.

  I’m sitting on my balcony. It’s really just one of those fire escape things you see on the side of buildings. And I’m drinking espresso from a brand-new machine I bought the other day.

  I don’t even like espresso. I don’t know why I bought it. I think I’m just trying to be someone else. Someone who drinks espresso, I guess. Because I feel like someone else these days. Some stranger who now lives in the city and doesn’t need to work for a year.

  I’m not me anymore.

  Not that the other me was anyone special. I wasn’t. I’m still not.

  But maybe, if I listen to enough self-help audiobooks while I sleep, I can call my own destiny?

  All these books have the same message mostly. You have to put yourself out there. Be vulnerable. Be your own person. Be true.

  So this is a problem.

  I don’t know who I am, so how can I be my true self?

  Also, I have no connections now. I literally have no one left on this planet who gives a single fuck about what I do.

  Those books also say you have to find your strengths and build them up. But at the same time you have to minimize your weaknesses.

  The only thing I know for sure is that I have a lot more weaknesses than I do strengths.

  I have no real education. I limped my way through high school. Barely graduated because there was so much uncertainty back then. College was never in my future.

  And if I didn’t have my father, if he didn’t change my life the way he did, then I’d have ended up working an endless string of low-paying jobs at places like Matt’s Auto Parts or the local 7-Eleven.

  I would’ve dated mean men, and lived in some crappy apartment or maybe even a trailer park. I would’ve woken up every Monday morning and wished I could just go back to sleep. I’d have come home on Friday evenings and thought about drinking, and drugs, and sex.

  I would’ve had nothing but a long string of pointless days that turned into weeks, that turned into months, that turned into years.

  That was my lot in life.

  Until it wasn’t.

  Until I moved away and spent more than a decade doing things that made me feel special. Illegal things, for sure. Scams and lies. But that felt like the real me. I think it was the real me. And I was OK with that. I guess. Hell, it’s better than being the other real me.

  But last month I was given a bank account with money and told to never come back. That life was over. And this was something of a rescue.

  Lucky me.

  I had money, and a private jet back to America, and new possibilities.

  But am I lucky?

  Was it really a rescue?

  Because one month later it doesn’t feel like a rescue. It feels like a dismissal.

  It’s not a fair assessment of the situation. The situation is far sadder than just a dismissal.

  I take the tablet and the cold cup of unfinished espresso back inside and set them on the kitchen counter, then rinse out the cup and put it in the dishwasher.

  I look around—the new stuff, the new room, the new everything—and decide… what’s the point?

  What is the point?

  There isn’t one.

  There is no point to this at all.

  I sigh and walk over to the coffee table with my tablet. It’s silent now because the book is over. So I take a deep breath and open up chapter one again.

  Start over from the beginning.

  I’m starting over, I tell myself.

  I really am this time. I’m going to put this book on and listen to every word and by the time I’m done with it in thirteen hours and forty-two minutes I will have a solution.

  I need a solution.

  Because I can’t live like this. I’m in limbo. I have no one who needs me, or counts on me, or cares about me.

  So what is the point?

  I stop myself. I sit up straight. Lift up my chin. Square my shoulders and I press play on this damn audiobook.

  The answers have to be in there. They must. Ten easy steps. How hard can it be? Just ten easy steps divided up into four simple parts.

  Recognizing yourself.

  Revealing yourself.

  Reenergizing yourself.

  And remaking yourself.

  I think this author went a little crazy with the repeating R words. There’s a name for that. I know there is. I’m just not smart enough to know what it is without looking it up.

  I’m not really smart enough to understand anything this book is telling me. I know how to get things done, and read people, and make shit up. I’m pretty good at lying. In fact, that might be my only true talent. So I’m pretty sure this book is a waste of time and nothing good is gonna come of it.

  But I listen anyway.

  And when night comes—when the darkness flows through my living room window thirteen hours and forty-two minutes later—I get up
, walk into the bathroom, and stare at myself in the mirror.

  “I don’t recognize you,” I tell the girl starting back at me. “I don’t know who you are.”

  She has dirty blond hair. Messy and long. And light brown eyes that almost, but not quite, qualify as hazel. She has high cheekbones, but only because she’s too skinny. And a cute nose.

  I do have a cute nose.

  So OK. I recognize that part of me.

  But everything else… I dunno.

  “Who are you?”

  She doesn’t answer. Because she doesn’t know either.

  But maybe the better question is, “Who do you want to be?”

  I think about that for days. Maybe even a whole week.

  I think about people I see on TV, or on the street when I leave to go grocery shopping. I think about that as I’m reaching for another bag of expensive espresso beans and then pull back my hand.

  I decide that Brooke Alder does not drink espresso. Not the old one, not the new one.

  Instead I turn around and stare at the tea section, choose a cinnamon-flavored one with no caffeine, and put it in my empty basket.

  I buy it at the self-checkout lane and then wander down a few blocks to the home store and buy a tea pot.

  Maybe I’m a cinnamon tea kind of girl?

  I look around at the other women in the store with me. Wonder who they are. Wonder if they ever lost themselves before.

  There are four types of women. I came up with this theory the other day.

  One. She is a wife. And she looks like a wife. She dresses average and probably has a kid in that little front seat of her shopping cart. She looks tired and at first you think, Thank God I’m not her. Because she also looks stressed.

  But then you notice that she smiles every once in a while. It’s a secret smile too. And she aims that smile at her husband who holds her hand or her kids when they do something unexpected.

  And you see that you’re missing some hidden critical component to this woman. And you get jealous.

  Two. She is single and put-together. The modern woman. She also looks tired, but in another way from the wife. She works too much to pay for those perfect nails and that highlighted blonde hair. She applies makeup every morning, not out of habit, but because she likes to look pretty. But her phone is always ringing, and her voice is always dramatic, and her problems are always unique and seemingly unsolvable.

  And at first you think, Thank God I’m not like her. One crisis after another. Climbing that corporate ladder. Her weariness is self-inflicted and possibly a little pathological.

  But then you see her girlfriends. Her inner circle swarming around her like a cloak of indestructibility. And she is suddenly strong and you are suddenly jealous.

  Three. She is wild. Not single, not hitched, but both at the same time. She has tattoos and earbuds that blare loud music. Any kind of music. Doesn’t matter. She wears jeans and cool boots and there’s a guy with her at all times. A guy who looks at her with lust as he gets all handsy in the checkout line.

  She is the one you envy the most. Because she seems to have it all. But then you catch a glimpse of her in the parking lot and they drive a shitty car that smells like pot and you think, Been there. Done that.

  Four. She is all those women. She is perfect.

  She is a myth.

  I want to be her. I want to be all of them. I want to be anything but me.

  I want to give up. I want to give in, and sleep. I want to go home.

  But I can’t go home.

  I can’t ever go home.

  So I go home. Not the real home, the new home. Not the one I want, just the one I have.

  And I buy another self-help audiobook called Getting Past It. No long subtitle. Written by a woman called Mila Sanchez who runs a cosmetics company.

  And I realize, as I listen to her story, that Mila is that woman.

  The perfect one.

  The myth.

  She has a career, and a husband, and two kids. She has a past, and secrets, and a mean streak. She has a fetish or two as well. And she freely admits to them without fear. And dreams. She has dreams that come with a plan.

  And I decide in this moment that if I have to start over I’m gonna go all the way. I’m gonna be the myth.

  If I’m going to start over, I’m going to win.

  CHAPTER THREE - JOEY

  “So listen,” Wald says. “You’re gonna be cool. You’re gonna go in there and be normal. Gonna be rock solid. There’ll be no yelling, no screaming, no demands. Do you understand me?”

  I nod.

  He’s not convinced. “Joey. I’m serious. You need to play this right.”

  “I know,” I say. “I’m cool.”

  “You’re not cool. I am your best friend. I know when you’re cool and this is not you being cool, OK?”

  “Half,” Huck says. “Half of his best friend.” Wald shoots Huck a look that says, Shut the fuck up. Huck ignores and continues. “And we got your back, bro.”

  “I know,” I say, as Huck straightens my tie. I think this might be one of those moments when he decides to kiss me, so I push him away before that happens.

  Huck is distracting when he kisses. Not just me, either. Anyone. He’s just kinda… hot like that.

  “I’m wearing a fucking suit,” I tell Wald. “I know what’s up.”

  After that phone call from Maisy last month I hired a detective to find her. I had Charlotte’s last name and Maisy’s first name and turns out finding people in this day and age is rather simple.

  Especially people like Charlotte Kane.

  She and I met at a summer party about six years ago. I was in the States on business. Wald and Huck were there too.

  Let me explain the whole summer party concept for you. It’s a pretentious affair. Usually up in someone’s mountain-top mansion or East Coast island, often requiring a helicopter, or a boat, or both to get there. Very exclusive guest list, expensive champagne and whiskey, probably a few harmless large dogs lumbering around, and people wearing linen suits or flowing dresses.

  All the women wear hats.

  If it’s on an island there are also large green lawns and tents. In the mountains there’s a wraparound terrace with a view that makes you want to pray.

  This is where I met Charlotte Kane.

  Yes, Kane. They own a little bit of everything but these days all anyone cares about is their mission to Mars project.

  Every billionaire in the world has already purchased a seat on a rocket that won’t launch for at least fifteen years.

  Whatever.

  So the very first thing I said to her as we were both standing in front of a champagne fountain was, “I could buy a fucking ticket to Mars, if I wanted. But what kind of idiot wants to go to Mars? There’s no air.”

  Because I was drunk. And while I love a good party, the summer parties of billionaires don’t really qualify as parties in my eyes. So I was annoyed that I had to show up.

  Huck was closing a deal, Wald was talking computer code with other well-muscled, hispster nerds, and since I have no purpose in this company other than I own one third of it because I was the original investor, I was bored.

  I’m dangerous when I’m bored.

  So Charlotte said, “Bunch of teenage-boy bullshit, right?”

  And I liked her immediately.

  We fucked in the bathroom ten minutes later.

  Now, usually I’m a one-night stand kind of guy. I don’t like to lead the girls on. I like to play it straight. So for sure, I told Charlotte after we were done that we wouldn’t be seeing each other again.

  I’m pretty sure, anyway.

  It’s the standard line, blah, blah, blah. But again, I was drunk. So maybe I forgot.

  Because I saw her a lot after that. We fucked another three dozen times over the course of the next month.

  And then I went back to Tokyo and she went back to… wherever the fuck she lived. And we moved on to other things and people.


  But then, two months later, I got a phone call.

  She was pregnant. She was pretty sure it was mine, but then again, not a hundred percent sure. Did I have an opinion?

  Did I have an opinion? That was what she asked me.

  And like, that same fucking day Johnny called and told me our father was dead. So I had to go home. And I did. I went home.

  Then… I don’t know. I was emotional, maybe? It was a low point personally for me. I had no purpose in the company anymore. Like what was my job here?

  I didn’t get it. I didn’t need the money, that’s for sure. I just hung around because Wald and Huck were my best friends and who else was there?

  I barely knew Johnny anymore. We were tight when we were kids but that was a long time ago.

  And Jesse… shit, I didn’t know that little fucker at all. Besides, he was hooked on drugs. Always making a spectacle of himself. My cousin Zach was an afterthought. He and Jesse were buds, so I couldn’t hang out with him.

  So I stuck with Wald and Huck. I told them I didn’t even need a salary, just let me stick around.

  And they both looked at me like I was a complete sociopath. Because there was never any discussion about them being unhappy with my role—or lack thereof—or splitting. Or that they were harboring some grudge because I didn’t do anything to earn my paycheck.

  And that’s why, when I saw Charlotte the day after my father’s funeral, I told her I did have an opinion. I told her I wanted her to have the baby. I told her I didn’t even care if it wasn’t mine. I just… wanted it.

  I even went home to the Bossy Building and turned one of the old bedrooms down on the family floor into a nursery. I don’t know what I was thinking with that move. Like… what the fuck was I thinking? That I would bring Charlotte Kane home to my family home slash office building and what? Raise a family?

  I can’t explain why I did that other than… I was fuckin’ into it.

  And this was a goddamned grand gesture.

  Charlotte was almost convinced.

  Almost.

  I look pretty good on paper. Joey Boston. Billionaire. One-third owner of Cryptomation. We were still a private company then, but we were just about to go public. About to make untold billions in the next few weeks.