Want It, page 6
Osei
Weird.
* * *
Dad
I’d ask Kofi, but he left his job.
* * *
Osei
What?
* * *
Dad
They didn’t treat him with respect. He’ll make money other ways.
That was what Danny was afraid of.
Kofi loved cooking. Danny had been trying to get him to go to culinary school. The tuition wasn’t a problem because he had tons of money, and the kid was young and energetic. Their dad wasn’t supportive of the idea though—cooking was women’s work and made you okotobonku—and so Kofi hadn’t moved on that yet.
Leaving the restaurant wasn’t a good sign.
Dad
You need to come home. Kofi needs you.
He gritted his teeth. His dad knew which buttons to push.
Dad
And we must discuss your game.
And there was another button.
Danny gripped his phone, his chest tight. His dad always had advice on his game. At first, Danny had gobbled it up—to have his dad that interested in him felt better than anything. He’d never had that kind of caring. Sure, he’d always known his mom cared about him, but she was at the hospital all the time. He knew logically that there was only so much attention she could give him—her patients commanded most of her mental capacity.
But the past number of years, his dad’s advice had become a point of contention. He knew his game and he was excellent at it—usually, at least. To have his dad pick it apart had started to annoy him, and it seemed like lately his dad took every opportunity to criticize it.
He’d have said something dismissive, but there was a fine line to walk here—until he figured out how to get them all to vacate his house.
Osei
I needed to get away. I’ll be back in London soon.
* * *
Dad
Are you with a girl?
He thought about the woman yesterday. He wished.
But it was the perfect out—the only thing his dad would understand. So he took the out.
Osei
There may be someone.
* * *
Dad
Good! You need sons, Daniel.
* * *
Osei
I should go. Talk to you later.
* * *
Dad
The money?
He stared at the text, trying to figure out how to answer it. He decided vague was the way to go. He’d text Kofi later to make sure he had everything he needed.
Osei
I’ll see if I can wire some.
Talk to you later.
He deleted the texts and leaned his head back against the couch. How many days had that bought him?
Forget waiting for MacNiven to decide his fate—he was going to contact Winners Inc. as soon as they opened.
Sleep was out, so he got up and opened the curtains to a dark wintery morning. Getting a couple bottles of water from the mini bar, he returned to the couch and opened his brokerage app.
He’d started trading in high school. He’d stumbled across a website that had made it seem easy, so he’d had his mom help him open a brokerage account with two hundred dollars that he’d saved up from mowing lawns the previous summer. He’d wanted to buy a ticket to Africa, to meet his dad, and Ortiz needed help with his college tuition. Trading seemed like a good way to make a little to help them both out.
It turned out he was really good at it.
More, he loved it. It just made sense to him. Ortiz gave him money to invest for him too, and by the time they started college, he’d made himself and Ortiz a comfortable savings.
It’d been nice, being able to take of things at home more. His mom worked hard and made great money, but she was in debt for med school so most of their extra money went there.
Not that she let him pay it off, though he’d offered lots of times.
She wouldn’t let him buy her a house either. She used to tell him that he was her son, not her sugar daddy, that she was responsible for her own debts.
He’d started playing football at eighteen, and since he’d been so successful trading, the exorbitant salary didn’t fuck him up the way it had a lot of the other guys who’d gone from poor backgrounds to suddenly having everything. By the time he was eighteen, he was well on his way to making his first million, and he was managing Ortiz’s finances as well.
His dad didn’t know about his trading or the money he made from it.
Danny had told himself that he kept it to himself because his dad would have made fun of him for wasting his time doing something so unmanly. Now he wondered if he’d had some sense what might happen if his dad knew about the money.
Hindsight and all that.
Every so often, his dad offered to manage things for him, but Danny brushed the suggestion aside, saying his sports agency handled that. They did—his dad just didn’t need to know that they didn’t do that for him.
Usually trading was his favorite part of the day, but between the woman and his jet lag he couldn’t focus like usual. He gave up and put on some Tim McGraw to listen to while he did his morning exercises. Tim always put him in the right frame of mind.
Singing along to “Highway Don’t Care”—he fucking loved that song—he showered quickly, getting dressed just as fast. He needed to buy some clothes because he hadn’t brought much with him. He figured it’d go a long way with MacNiven—and Pascal, the asshole—if he cleaned himself up a little.
He also wanted to look good when he took his woman out on a date.
It was still too early to call Winners Inc. but he figured Ortiz was awake. He had two little girls now, and he liked spending time with them in the mornings before going to the foundation.
Ortiz knew everything—from his desire to have a relationship with his father to the current situation in London. They’d known each other since before their balls had dropped, so they understood each other’s shit. He trusted Ortiz with everything.
When he’d first had the chance to go to Ghana to meet his dad, Ortiz had been all gung ho for him. Ortiz had grown up without knowing his dad too, with his mom working three to four jobs to feed and clothe him and his siblings, so he understood how important it was. It’d been just the past few years that Ortiz had been voicing his reservations about Danny’s dad.
He’d wondered if Ortiz had been jealous of his relationship with his dad—his friend had been going through some things with his family, so it’d have been logical.
Turned out, Ortiz had just been smart.
He hated that his situation affected Ortiz too—not just his livelihood but also his reputation and life’s work. Ortiz cared about the kids they helped. He’d be devastated if something happened to everything they’d built.
He sat on the couch and picked up his phone.
Osei
I’m in Chicago.
Ortiz replied right away despite being two hours behind.
Ortiz
You see MacNiven?
* * *
Osei
Yep.
* * *
Ortiz
Did you hire him?
* * *
Osei
Waiting to hear that they’ll take me as a client.
* * *
Ortiz
Waiting??
Since when do you wait?
* * *
Osei
I don’t.
I’m calling him as soon as they open.
* * *
Ortiz
👊
Let me know how it goes.
He decided to call Winners Inc. for good measure, but no one answered. Because he couldn’t imagine sitting in his room and twiddling his thumbs, he called down to the concierge and asked about a men’s clothing store. They called him back ten minutes later, saying that they’d arranged an early fitting for him and had a car waiting to take him.
He always thought it was funny how people catered to him. Inside, he didn’t feel that different from the kid in Encino playing soccer alongside the road in secondhand tennis shoes.
Two hours later, he was dressed in a reasonably well-fitting suit and on his way to 110 N. Wacker, with promises that the rest of his clothing would be delivered to the hotel by the afternoon.
He strolled down the Chicago streets. It was cold out, but he’d been living in England for the past few years, so the weather didn’t bother him. The cold helped snap him out of the last of his jet lag, making him more alert than any amount of caffeine ever could.
He didn’t have clearance up to the Winners Inc. office, so he got in the way he had the day before—he snuck in behind a businessman. He glanced at the time on the ride up, wondering what time MacNiven started working.
The elevator dinged his arrival, and the doors slid open.
Here went everything. He exited the elevator and went down the hallway. With each step he gave himself a similar pep talk to the one he gave himself before stepping on the field. You got this. You know what to do. They’ll take you because you’re a winner.
He stopped in front of the gold Winners Inc. plaque. MacNiven had to take him.
Shaking his head, he went into the office. Like the day before, it was an oasis of calm and style.
There was a young woman peering out from the desk where Lottie had been sitting yesterday. She smiled at him in welcome. “Hello. Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see MacNiven.” He headed off the questions before she could ask. “I don’t have an appointment, but he was supposed to call me today, so I thought I’d help him out.”
“Of course.” She gestured to the sitting room. “Have a seat and I’ll see if he’s available.”
He smiled his thanks and wandered around the lounge, taking it in more closely. Was it all to invite, or to intimidate?
Like the glass coffee table in front of him. With anyone else he’d have thought it was just a style choice. MacNiven probably wanted you to see yourself and reflect on the choices you’d made to get to this point.
Cunning bastard.
Danny leaned forward, looking at his reflection in the tabletop. Braids, no jewelry, no caps, plain white shirt open at the collar beneath the dark-gray suit. Baller, but discreet. He wanted to say he looked like he meant business. As long as he didn’t look like the sort of guy who was going to get arraigned after doing something stupid.
“You’re back.”
He turned around to find MacNiven standing with his hands in his pockets, watching him quizzically. The man didn’t have a suit coat on, instead wearing a tailored vest in a blue that would have looked prissy on anyone else.
He noticed that MacNiven gave him a once-over, and he was glad he’d listened to himself and gotten a suit.
“You were on my schedule to call today,” MacNiven said.
Danny couldn’t tell what that meant. “I thought I’d save you a dime.”
“Come back.” The man gestured with his head as he headed toward his office.
That had to be a good sign, right? Otherwise, MacNiven would have just kicked him out. Relaxing a little, Danny followed him back to his office again.
MacNiven closed the door behind them and pointed to the couch. “Have a seat. Can I get you anything?”
“Just our contract,” he said with a grin as he sat down.
Then MacNiven shook his head. “I was going to call you in a bit to tell you. We won’t be taking you on. I don’t think we can help you.”
Danny blinked, stunned by the crushing disappointment he felt. “What do you mean, you can’t help me?”
“Just that. The team doesn’t think we’ll be able to help you. I’m sorry, Danny.”
He swallowed his pride and looked MacNiven in the eye. “I need your help. What do I need to do to convince you of that?”
MacNiven didn’t react to any of that. He just continued to study him with his piercingly knowing blue eyes. Then he said, “You didn’t tell me the whole story.”
“I told you the crux of it.”
The man shook his head. “Not good enough. Like I said before, for us to help you, there needs to be trust. You didn’t trust us yesterday, and I don’t see how that’ll change. This is a team effort.”
He sat up, eyes narrowed. “I know how to play on a team.”
“Have you ever helped your team win a World Cup?”
He stiffened. That was a point of contention between him and his dad. The last time he’d played, he’d opted to play with Ghana and they’d tanked in the first round. “You know I haven’t.”
“You might ask yourself why that is.”
“Why do you think it is?” he forced himself to ask.
MacNiven shrugged. “You aren’t looking at the whole field. You do it when you play. You focus on what’s in front of you instead of what’s coming three steps ahead. It puts you at a disadvantage.”
He leaned forward, hands on his knees. “Then help me see it.”
“I can’t help you see what you don’t want to see,” MacNiven replied calmly as he stood up. “You aren’t looking to correct the right problem. Those people aren’t the situation you need help with, and you don’t see that. You’re focused on a symptom instead of the underlying issue.”
He was being dismissed. Danny stared at the man, trying to find the right thing to say to change his mind, but he could tell by MacNiven’s expression that the subject was closed. “That’s it? There’s nothing I can say to change your mind?”
“It’s not what you say. It’s what you do. You have to want it.”
It was like a door slammed shut in his face. He thought about Ortiz and all the kids he was letting down. He thought about that woman in the hallway, and how if he didn’t clean up his house, he’d have no chance with her.
He hated that. “I do want it,” he protested.
“Not enough,” MacNiven said almost gently.
Resisting the urge to rip into the man, Danny nodded as he stood. Without a word, he strode out of the office. He saw Lottie peeking out from another office. Unable to smile at her, he settled for raising his hand briefly as he walked down the corridor.
His anger melted after ten steps, and his shoulders slumped as the reality of his situation hit him again.
If MacNiven wouldn’t help him, what the fuck was he going to do?
Five
Jules was having her first session with Winners Inc. today.
Jamie called her yesterday to tell her they were going to take her on as a client. “Alice will discuss the fee with you,” he’d said on the phone. “Be here tomorrow at ten and we’ll get you squared away.”
“In the morning?” She winced internally as she thought about her schedule. She hadn’t been anywhere but the office or the courtroom at that time of day since before she’d graduated from law school.
And she had the trial coming up in January. The months before a trial were a whirlwind of even longer hours, prepping everything and everyone to ensure a positive outcome. She worked a lot normally, but right before a trial she worked doubly hard.
“Is that a problem?” Jamie had asked.
She could tell he knew it was, but she also knew that this was a test as to how bad she wanted this.
She wanted it bad, so she’d just said, “I’ll be there.”
Shutting down her computer now in order to head to her session, she thought about what Jamie had said. It was obviously a test.
Well, she was going to pass. She’d show him. She’d had people doubting her abilities all her life—men, in truth—and she was going to show all of them.
Chip on her shoulder? It was no chip—it was a two-by-four.
She just had to rearrange things a bit. To that end, she’d gotten herself to work even earlier than normal—which was early—to get some work out of the way. She had that jittery, tired-but-jacked feeling she used to get after an all-nighter prepping for an exam. But she hadn’t slept well the night before, so it stood to reason that she’d feel that way.
She’d had sex dreams.
She shifted in her seat. She’d never had sex dreams before. They starred the bad boy in the hall outside Winners Inc.
He’d been very good in them. The dreams were… Vivid, she decided to label them. If he was half as good in real life, the woman he chose would be fortunate, indeed.
Stop. The last thing she needed was to get horny at work. She shook it off and finished the email she’d been writing on her phone before putting it into her bag. Standing to put on her wool coat, she glanced outside her office, looking at her assistant. Moira would wonder where she was going.
She’d hired Moira because the woman was brilliant—she’d graduated from Harvard with a degree in business, with honors—and she made the best coffee Jules had ever tasted. Moira kept everything perfectly organized and anticipated what she needed three steps before she actually needed it. Plus, she was loyal. One of the partners had offered Moira twice her salary to work for him and she’d turned him down in a way that made him back off but also made him respect Jules more.
Moira was very observant. Though Jules trusted her, she didn’t want Moira to know what she was doing. The best way to keep a secret was to tell no one.
