Chapter 8

WAYLON

There is a painful bind in my lower back, and I put my fingers to massage the pinched nerve straining heavily on my spine. I exhale as I try to relax in my bed. Twisting to my sides, I stretch against the mattress. My fingers reach for the TV remote as I turn on the television to watch some mindless show playing at a low volume in the background.

My phone rings on the nightstand, sending vibrations across its wooden surface. Exhaling a long breath, I reach for it. I have a faint idea who's calling me at this hour.

"Hi, honey." The woman on the other side of the static whispers seductively. "I haven't seen you around my bar lately. Where have you been?" She chuckles. "Are you ignoring me?" She takes a beat. "Do you think it's a good idea to ignore me?"

"Andie, why are you calling me at this hour?" I take a beat. "Have you seen what time it is?"

She laughs, not even fazed by my hostility.

"Sweetie, have you checked what time it is?" She mimics my question. "I have called you, like three times, and you have picked the phone on the fourth ring." Andie quietens down. "Don't you miss me?"

"Do I look like someone who misses people?" I scoff. "If you won't get to the point immediately, I'm cutting the call."

"Honey, don't be so coldhearted," she whispers. "I haven't seen you in more than a week. Aren't you coming back to my bar? Or have you sworn off it like you have sworn off my sex?"

I exhale a harsh breath. 

Andie is the woman who doesn't know what kind of man would love her back. 

It's my fault. 

I shouldn't have slept with her.

Maybe I'm the man who hits himself in the head with his own free will?

"Why aren't you saying anything, sweetie?" She chalks my silence down to my approval of her feelings. "So, do you miss me as I miss you?"

"No." I know the words sound cruel, but sometimes you have to do things you don't like. "There's nothing to say. I have been so busy with work that I haven't had a moment to myself to think things through." A beat. "I don't think I'm coming back to your bar. Were my bills taken care of the last time I visited?"

"Yeah, sure. You paid for everything while you were drunk." She makes a soft noise. "But I guess you left your credit card in here. Don't you want it back?"

I reach for my wallet in my work pants since I'm still wearing my work clothes. Fishing for my cards inside my wallet, I part the leather cover to figure out if what she's expressing to me is true. Then, I realise one of my Amex cards is missing. Maybe it slipped out of my wallet, or I left it with her after paying for my drinks. I can't remember for the life of me.

Shaking my head at my dumbness, I exhale loudly.

I can get it replaced, but. . .

"Oh, you're right, Andie." I rub my fingers clockwise on the skin of my forehead. "I'll send an employee to collect it tomorrow."

"Fine, so you're not coming back to see me?"

"I guess not."

"All right." She huffs. "Goodbye."

Before I can say anything, she drops the call.

Exhaling out a deep breath, I feel frustrated about how the call went with her. I find myself almost throwing my phone toward the pillow.

Why do I have to deal with this?

This mess of an ordeal is not the first time I'm dealing with a crazy woman who has fallen in love with me over a one-night stand. Somewhere deep within me, I know that it's not me they like or want. They are after my money. This accepted reality is one of the sole reasons sleeping with any of these women again turns me off. 

Why does my agency have to be my money?

Isn't there anything loveable about me?

Am I that hard to love?

I wonder about it as my eyes zero in on the television screen as I let my body relax, and soon my eyes slowly drift to sleep.

***

The morning comes quicker than I would like as I shift in my bed, trying to hide my face under the covers. When the harsh and direct rays of the sun hit my face through the unmade blinds, I gently rub the sleep from my eyes. As I shift my weight on my elbows to sit upright in bed, I wonder why Rosa hasn't come into my room yet to bring me my morning asamuschi-cha tea. My eyes inevitably fall on the coffee table in my room, and I notice neither there is tea nor the morning newspaper. I slowly slide off my bed to slip into the bathroom. Once inside the washroom, I splash cold water on my face in the sink. Then I make my way to the kitchen.

When I walk to the kitchen dining table, I see Rosa bending down to pipe some icing on the cupcakes she has freshly baked. I put a hand on my hip while watching her intently as she gets lost in the art of creation and takes her time to finish what she's doing. After her fingers finish decorating the baked goods, she looks up.

"Where is my tea, Rosa?" I lick my lips. "I can't find my morning paper either."

"For the love of God, Waylon, learn to find your things by yourself. You are a grown man, for Jesus's sake. I can't keep caring for you like I did when you were five. I have other things to be on top of every day. With so many things to get done, I barely have any time on my hands to get you your things." She blows out a breath. "Your tea is on the living room table. I think I sent Pablo with it to your room. Maybe he didn't get it to you in time."

I shrug my shoulders as I walk out of the room, not wanting to hold her back from her work.

"Thank you for your service," I yell behind my back. "You can get back to your baking."

I sit on the couch and find my paper next to my tea, so I help myself to it as I catch myself up on the things going around in the world.

"So, the prodigal son is finally up." My dad comes into view, clearing his throat to get my attention. "I thought I won't see you for another hour or more." He takes a seat next to me. "Good that I found you here. I have some things that I need to discuss with you." He stares at me. "You know I want you to get married, right?" He puts a hand on my knee. "There's a woman I think you should meet. You'll hit it right off with her. She's the daughter of one of my oldest business partners, and she has just returned to New York after handling the marketing department of one of the biggest fashion brands in the world from Germany. She's only here in San Francisco for two days, so I think it'd be a great idea for you to take her out for lunch in the afternoon. Maybe you'll get along with her like your mother and I did after graduating from college."

"This isn't the 1930s, dad." I talk without looking up from the paper. "I have no intention of getting married, let alone meeting the woman you have in mind for me." I flip the current page by the dogearing the end to the next one. "I have better things to do with my time."

"But son, you have to believe in the institution of marriage." He rubs a hand over his red cheeks. "It will help you grow into a better man, and you, from the looks of it, really need that."

I look up from the paper and shake my head.

"Why are you so against marriage, son?" He puts a hand on my shoulder. "What, are you scared of it? You won't even meet a girl I have for you in mind who I know would be a great fit for you?" He blows out an irritable breath. "In the past five years, you haven't brought a single woman home, and whether you'd like it or not, I'm getting old and will probably die soon, and I don't want you to be alone like I have been since your mother's death." His voice lowers down a little. "Is it so bad that I want to see you with someone who takes good care of you? And what else do you have left to do in your life apart from getting married?" He sniffles, and his normal condescending tone is back. "I have seen you go through all these women, like drinks in a bar all these years. It gets old seeing you partying most of your life away." He scowls. "What is so important that you don't want to get married? Notably, given when it will get me off your back?"

"Don't you know how I respond to manipulation? I don't like provocation or character assassination on my plate the first thing in the morning." I blow over my tea cup before sipping some of it. "Your maudlin words will have little effect on me." I still don't raise my eyes from the paper. "If you wanted me to get married, you won't have changed your legal business deeds of ownership. By doing that, you've shown me you don't trust me. And now you're forcing me to make this statement by not getting married to anyone." I lean back on the camel backrest of the couch, creating space between us. Then I stare at my hands. "And I can't get married just to please you. I won't build my private life around your whims and fancies and what you would like or want me to do. I'll get married when it's right for me, or I might never get married. Me staying single for the rest of my life also has reasonable chances of occurring, given the weird women I meet when I date. The thing is, you need to stay out of my business."

My dad laughs when he hears that.

"I am not changing my deeds to their original form then. Give me a grandchild within six months, like the conditional clause states in the legal document I served you three weeks ago. Otherwise, I'm cutting you out of my personal will, overall wealth, and numerous companies. You'll only receive payments for the work you're actually doing with the media company. Either you do things as I tell you, or you're free to go on your track." He gets off the couch. "Just remember this little thing, when you forge your own path, there's no one to blame but yourself."

"You've gone crazy." I chuckle out of disbelief. "In your old age, dad, your brain has stopped responding to logic."

"At least I know what is right, Way. I know you want companionship as much as the next person on the street, but for some goddamn reason, you deprive yourself of it."

"There is no such thing as love, dad." My mouth turns dry as there's a tingling in my stomach. "And you're a simple-minded man if you believe in that. I, for one, am not such a man. There's only one truth in this world." I face him as heat rises behind my eyelids. "And no one knows better than you what it is."

"You won't speak to me like that again." He puts his hands in his pockets. "If you love money so much, you'll find a way to fulfill my condition before the six months are over."

"I guess I'd have to do that, won't I?"

"Don't you care that I'm dying?"

"I care about a lot of things. Maybe the manner I show my feelings to others is different than yours." I get off the couch to stroll toward my room since I need to ready myself for the day ahead. "It definitely doesn't mean that I don't care about you and your health."