Page 8 of Tap Left
He's quiet for a long time, and I’m certain he’s going to say no. This is a drain on his time, and it was senseless of me to even ask. If he agrees, it will only be out of guilt.
"That’s what you want?”
I don’t know why it sounds so ominous when he says it, but it does. Still, I nod. Like Mellie always tells me making changes is hard. Admitting my weaknesses to Daire is hard. I may as well be standing in front of the firing squad. But I’m done with being the girl I was yesterday. I’m done with the Toms of the world, and I’m done spending precious time on fruitless ventures.
Daire sighs, probably wishing he’d never called me today.
“Alright, LB,” he says. “If that’s what you want, then I’ll teach you how to play some games.”
2
Daire
Lola Bell.
What is there to say about Lola?
I've known her since she was more elbows and knees than anything else. She's grown into her body since then, and now she’s all tits and ass. She’s one of the few women I know who isn’t aware of the weapons at her disposal. One who could easily bring an army of men to their knees… as long as she never opened her mouth.
It's the difference between her and the rest of the female species. She isn’t self-aware. She isn’t hell on heels. She’s a full-grown cat with a kitten’s heart. Lola is soft in too many ways. A people pleaser who goes the extra mile. Some might call her an easy target. In short, she has every quality that I despise.
The two of us together are the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. If it weren’t for the perfect storm of circumstances, we’d have gone our separate ways long ago. Ryan was the only common link in our chain, but his death was the propellant for our relationship. It’s an odd thing, hating the only person you can really relate to.
Grief is a bond that is unbreakable. It doesn’t care about time, or differences in personalities, or what’s right and wrong. Grief is raw and messy, and it’s the most intimate thing you can share with another human being.
Lola and I swam in that grief for a long time. Twelve years later, it would appear that we’ve both moved on. We’ve dealt with it in our own ways. She developed a need to fix everyone and everything but herself. And I became so single-mindedly focused on my success that nothing else existed outside of it. For the last decade, I have been married to my job. Building up Daire Media seemed like the only way I could really honor Ryan's memory. I needed to prove that I was worthy of the life I still had.
Only it hasn't really turned out that way.
I am wealthy. I am successful. I am by all accounts, blessed. I have my pick of beautiful women to warm my bed and a penthouse with a view of the Chicago skyline that realtors would kill for. But the one thing I’ll never have is someone who knows and accepts the darkest parts of me.
Not even Lola can do that.
She’s tarred me as a sellout. A slave to the corporate world. A dispassionate jackass with a blackened heart. In her mind, she is the Eat, Pray, Love to my Wolf on Wall Street. But of the many virtues she possesses, consciousness doesn’t seem to be one of them.
She knew me back when I was nothing more than the shadow who used to follow Ryan around. He was the charming one. The partier and the class clown and the champion soccer player. He had every advantage in life, and I had none. I was quiet. Withdrawn. Socially unacceptable. I was Ryan Turner’s bastard of a half-brother and nothing more.
Labels die hard.
Lola says she wants to date a guy who has his shit together. Someone not like me. But Lola doesn’t know what the fuck she wants. She has a history of poor choices, and it doesn’t matter what she thinks I can teach her, she will always choose safety over logic. That’s why she takes up with guys like Tom. And I don’t know why it bothers me so fucking much sometimes. But I know Ryan would have hated her choices too.
Fucking Tom.
I will admit straight up that I'm a dick, but that guy is a real douchebag. Lola never lit up for him. He was batting way the fuck out of his league, but she was too dense to know it. I kept my mouth shut and let it run its course because if nothing else I’ve enjoyed watching her flounder.
And now she’s on the market again. If she thinks I'm going to let her marry a prick like that, she really is deluded.
She wants me to make her marketable to the sea of douchebags that exist on these dating apps because it's what I’m good at. But if there's one thing I've learned over the course of my career, it's that sometimes you must strip a product bare before you can really see what it's all about.
Lola wants to believe that happiness is attainable if she has the right formula. But I'm going to teach her a valuable lesson about what happens when you claim to be something you're not. And in the end, she will be exactly the thing she always was. Designed for what she deserves.
Target audience?
None.
3
Lola
