Rich Man

Everyone is born with the instinctive attribute known as fear. Phobias are born within us to hibernate and use at the very moment our darkest thoughts are involuntarily realized. I never pondered this concept until it became apparent that severe involuntary responses do exist within even the strongest of minds and fear is, in fact, the most powerful of all of them.

After my early morning scare with the kid, I couldn't help but wonder if I was losing my touch or something. After all, I usually never thought like that. Then again, I usually never bothered to get this into the group and its issues. This was the first time so many people had so many inner woven problems that were actually relevant to one another, so I guess the oddities of this assignment were to be expected.

However there was still unease in the fact that I possibly let my attractions known, for showing any real sign of my thoughts or emotion could create an imminent downfall of catastrophic proportions. By the time this occurred to me, however, the boy was studying me with the gaze of a hungry predator. Even worse, I kind of liked it.

Breakfast was a surprising breeze. After their aspirin had been ingested and their headaches were at least put at bay, the boys helped prepare breakfast. Sure, they weren't especially graced with basic toast-making abilities, but they meant well. I think.

Matt kept abnormally close for about half an hour. That was the period of time during which I was slaving away over a single hot stove, mother-status, attempting to feed like twenty hungry grown-ass men. The entire time I was there, he would run around and do little odd jobs to help me keep from getting overwhelmed like running finished plates to the living room or getting new gallons of milk out to the boys. He even refused to eat until I had a plate as well, which was greatly appreciated. Milan just got upstaged. Hello, new best friend.

Despite his sweet demeanor and clearly innocent intentions, there was something lacking in him that was too prominent to ignore. It's not that I'm calling him dumb, because he isn't, but he wasn't exactly the smartest tool in the shed. Well... Compared to Bergeron.

What the fuck "compared to Bergeron"?! Oh god, as soon as I get this shit done, I am going on vacation. Christ.

Matt patted my back as he brushed by me to claim his own cup. "You alright?" he asked curiously, "You just zoned way out."

"Hm? Oh, I'm fine," I smiled, "Just tired."

The boy shot me another gentle smile and put another eight pieces of bread in the oven for toasting. "This was really nice of you. Now none of us have a reason to play like turtles during practice."

"No problem," I chuckled and pushed a heaping plate of steaming, sizzling food into his arms. Before he could protest, I motioned toward the clock. "You've got less than an hour to eat, get ready, and get to practice. Hurry up, kid."

-

"Okay. Blake is secretly dating some chick that is basically out of the group. Find out why. Get more details on the girl who hurt Milan and tried to be a skank all over Patrice. Get more details on his relationship status with Milan from before the initial feud until now. This does include how close they were up until the event. Key: Does their conflict effect the status of Blake and Tera versus Blake and Lex? So many questions to answer," I mumbled, "Thankfully time is on my side."

My fingers ravaged the pages set out within the small journal placed conspicuously before me. An empty cup of coffee sat just to its right. A broken pen sat to its left. The light of day shining bright through my window illuminated the journal as if to recognize the precedence it took over just about everything else in the room. I sat in front of it, staring at the freshly written on page of notes, and contemplated all that my tired brain would allow.

This is so tedious. I have to gain each of their trusts, but in different ways. They each must feel separately about me, all positive nonetheless, and have the coinciding agreement that I’m worthy of their trust and friendship before I can impose upon them the mold I’m here to fit their relationships with.

Okay, maybe I should stop reading the dictionary.

My furious writing and mental dictation was silences by the sound of hushed footsteps making their way to my door. It came as a brief shock that I hadn’t heard a door open or close, but it made sense that I hadn’t heard a thing while so deep in thought. I calmly shut my book as to avoid making some kind of frantic scene and locked the cover with the small key hanging around my neck among other tiny trinkets. They jingled together in a musical symphony of gunmetal against my t-shirt-clad chest and settled as I held them silent in my palm.

“You’re home early,” I blankly observed as Patrice poked his head through my door.

His face remained blank upon seeing me sitting there, staring at me with eyes almost innocent. He slipped into the door, flopped onto my bed, and assumed the pose of some kind of cheesy model with his body entirely facing me and a hand propping up his head. “Did you get any more sleep?”

The concept of being “friends” with this boy was still all too new to me. I found it extremely difficult to look past the boy I already knew and onto the one he possibly wanted me to see. Who is he really inside? “No, not really.” Awkward calmness laced my voice.

His face fell slightly and all at once was back to beaming. “Take a nap with me. I’m bushed,” he moaned and rolled over, engulfing himself in my warm, padded covers.

At first I had to suppress an out loud guffaw but when my eyes met his, I was confronted by a gaze dead serious.

That’s how I answered. “No, thanks.”

His entire body fell motionless. A second later, he sprung up and gave me an unappreciative look of faux-hurt. “Ouch. And here I thought you and I were going to be friends.”

“Friends don’t necessarily nap with each other in the same bed,” I began, as he removed his shirt under the covers and through the thing on the floor. The covers were pulled up to his neck so I was left with nothing more than the daunting outline of his abs against the thin white sheet. Sweet mother of-Okay, stop, stop, just shut the hell up and for the love of all things green and spendable, don’t do anything too stupid. “And they definitely do not strip in their friend’s bed and expect said other to comply.”

“You really need to stop reading the dictionary.”

You really need to put your shirt back on before I decide to get under there and have my way with you.

“And suddenly I’m not an ounce tired. Imagine that.”

-

I half expected to see the entire team home for dinner, but instead I was faced with a text from Blake.

Hey. Ave, Lex, and I are going to Munch’s to help him paint his friend’s place. Won’t be back ‘til later. Just you and the dudes, tonight.

Dandy.

“So that does mean I get my nap, right?” Bergeron murmured from just over my shoulder as I read the text, seated, at my desk.

I just about hit him in my wild flailing. “Get that close to me again and I’ll go medieval on your muscle-y ass.”

“Always knew you’d like it on top,” entered Milan with that snarky grin of his.

Honestly, if I could impale either of them I’d do it in a heartbeat. “If this is how it’s going to be all night, I’ll go to a hotel,” I warned. Not like that would matter, anyway. I was pretty damn sure that I was stuck there for the night if I wanted to get anywhere with these two. I mean, I guess of the entire group, I had the most interesting relationships developing here, but somehow they were still nowhere near where I wanted them to be with these two.

“I hear the JW Marriot down town is pretty nice,” replied Milan with a humorous grin. He scratched the back of his hand and watched me with that crooked half smile. I hadn’t noticed it until then, but I spotted another contradiction about the man. He watched me with that arrogance and poise and yet his eyes still managed to ooze innocence. It was as though, staring into his eyes, I was staring into the soul of a boy virgin to any and all sin and therefore almost felt guilty in my reply.

“It would be nice if you could go and try it for the night. Come back tomorrow and give us your rating, All-Knowing-One.” This remark was made toward Patrice.

“Maybe you should come with me. I’ll get a suite.”

“I’d rather sleep with Lucic.”

“I’ll just pretend you didn’t insult me right now.”

Bergeron shook his head and snatched the remote off of my desk. “So what are we watching?” Now his behavior was getting to me only because he was so easily capable of acting like nothing ever happened; like no words of a negative nature were exchanged.

I blankly stared at him for a moment, which I immediately saw was something that he wasn’t expecting me to do. Our eyes locked in what was one of the most bizarre exchanged of my life. He seemed to freeze in place as I watched him stare back at me with a softer gaze of what appeared to be lust and longing. I have to do it. This is perfect.

A long yawn escaped my lips. I glanced up at the TV and disregarded our previous exchange. The moment I could feel Milan’s eyes on me, I gave him a sideways glance and shrugged. “I’m freakin’ tired. Wanna take a nap with me?”

Obviously this caught Patrice’s attention. He may have even frozen mid-blink to witness my manipulation of his dear friend to my advantage. Call it cruelty if you wish, that I would acknowledge Patrice’s darkest fear in that I would use Milan to get to him. However my underlying motives, which have yet to be made known to you, strongly defend this little plan, this little idea that would set up the rest of my idea.

And it was perfect, too, the look on Bergeron’s face as I nonchalantly snatched the pillow from behind his back and marched to –even worse- what was his and/or Milan’s room whenever they stayed the night. As soon as the two of us were in the room, Milan turned the fan on low and wasted in time in crawling into the queen-size bed. He watched me awkwardly, with this look of awe and wonderment that I found quite intriguing if anything. It was as if he was seeing me for the first time. His concentration on my face alone was enough to rock a shiver or two through me.

He’s freakin’ hypnotizing, this one…

I slid under the heavy sheets and flicked off the bedside light, which happened to be the only thing separating us from utter darkness. We were engulfed before I had a chance to think. There was some shuffling beside me, arrangement of covers and pillows, and even a misplaced hand on mine once or twice before he was settled in. I was a hundred percent sure he was facing me, even in the darkness.

“Why did you do that?” he asked softly into the darkness.

I turned to face him, not that it would really do anything, and breathed a heavy sigh. “I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m not blind either, Milan. I know that with your lifestyle, you get hurt a lot. It’s pretty much a given that you’d be used and abus“

“Well no shit,” he snapped, tensing dramatically.

I reached out hesitantly at first. When my fingers danced along the smooth skin of his forearm down to his hand, the texture of his calloused fingers became natural to me. The feeling of ants crawling around the interior of my stomach set me off my usual mental axis, but I was able to recover with sound of his lowering words. His fingers twitched against mind, folding into and over them as the words rolled off his tongue. “I’m sorry. I’m still not used to you being so knowing, if that makes any sense. It’s like you can read my mind or something and it’s really... Intimidating.” He paused a moment longer. “It makes talking to you, especially about stuff like this, really difficult.”

“I really don’t know what to say besides apologizing,” I replied simply.

He tightened his grip on my hand. “At first I thought it was kind of cool that girls liked me so much that they were willing to practically do anything just for a shot with me. And I mean gorgeous girls—like the kind you see all over the commercials of Victoria’s Secret stuff. It felt great until they started getting craftier and started trying to get to me mostly through Blake when he and I were closest. Then the real bad things started happening. I started seeing girls who weren’t exactly okay with the crew. Lex and Avery jumped on me a few times just because they knew I was just in it for the sex. Blake got pissed at me because the girls were pissed. Then this new girl comes along and we hit it off like nothing else. I even told her I loved her. Then she screwed me over for Patrice and I nearly beat the shit out of him.”

“Sounds like what you need is a vacation.”

“No,” he murmured. “What I need is a girl who isn’t going to hurt me.”

“So you are… Scared?”

It took Milan a surprisingly long time to answer me. I knew he would have to dig deep for an answer like this; an answer that was straight from the heart. “I’m not scared, I’m terrified I’m going to fell in love with someone and get hurt so badly again. I’m scared the next girl who I think might be it for me is just going to leave. I don’t wanna go through anything like that again. No more fighting my friends and rifts in the group. I just want love and none of the bullshit attached, but I’m scared out of my mind that that’s all I’m gonna get… Code of silence, right?”

I moved closer to him, wrapping my arms around him for an awkward horizontal hug. My head rested on his chest, just over his thudding heart. He laid on his back, turning with me against him so I was half on him and half off. And he held me there, against his heart, staring at the ceiling with what I was sure to be a plethora of questions clouding his mind.

Do I trust her?

Should I have said any of that?

“Yeah… Code of silence.”