“I’m talking about not working. You used to come down and hang.” Ah. He’s right; I used to hang down here with the high spenders. If I was in the bar hanging out with people, though, I knew my picture would end up in the gossip magazines. I am a King, after all. They always want to know what my brother and I are up to.
“Publicity. As you can see, we don’t need that anymore. The clubs speak for themselves now.” I reach into my pocket, pulling out my keys. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I head out the front door, rubbing my tired eyes. If I am lucky sleep will come to me tonight. I stop when the cold spring air hits my face. The weird twinge in my chest hits me hard with a throb. I stand there for a moment trying to get it under control. I lift my eyes, feeling as though someone is staring at me. The streets are empty this early in the morning. I shake the feeling off as I slip into my Bugatti, taking off for home.
2
Alyssa
The sleek sports car pulls away from the curb. I watch it go until the red taillights fade into the distance. Out of all of the times that I’ve seen him leave the club over the past few months, I’ve only ever seen him take one woman home with him. That may not be accurate since I don’t catch him every day so it’s probably more than that. I’m not sure why that thought bothers me, but it does.
It’s possible that some days he left earlier or he might not have been there at all. I know nothing about my mystery man that has become an odd stalking obsession for me ever since I first spotted him. He’s too handsome for his own good. Is that even a thing? For someone to be too handsome?
It has to be because he occupies a majority of my thoughts. Those devilish hazel eyes and chocolate brown hair might have something to do with it. Not to mention that sexy as hell smirk he wears.
“Watcha doing?”
I scream, turning to see my best friend Neily standing there with a cup of coffee in hand. “Did I miss him?” She looks up and down the street. “No fancy car, so I missed him.” She shakes her head like she’s actually disappointed. She doesn’t care if she sees him; she just wants to give me crap about it.
“He left.” I turn, heading back into our shop and locking the door behind us. We don’t open for a few more hours, but I need to get to work. Owning your own business is hard work that requires a lot of dedication. I’m lucky to have Neily to share the responsibility with.
“Was he alone?”
I nod my head in answer.
“Aly, you act like the man cheated on you. He has no idea you secretly stalk him, so it’s not cheating.”
“I’m not stalking!” I defend myself even though I kind of am.
“We can totally name it something else if that makes you feel better about it.” She taps her finger against her plump lips as though she’s trying to think of something. “A huntress? A scouter?” she offers.
“It’s not funny.” I feel a little defeated about the whole thing. Why do I even bother going to see him every morning that I work? I come in extra early so that I don’t miss him. Neily is right. I am a stalker.
“You’ve got a crush. It’s no big deal. It’s not like you’re following him home and reading his mail.” She takes a step toward me and her voice drops to a whisper. There’s not anyone else in the shop to overhear us so I'm not sure why she’s whispering. “You’re not, right? Doing any of those things? I mean, no judgment or anything, but that might be taking it a little far and as your friend I gotta tell you that.”
“I don’t even know his name,” I mumble, heading back toward the kitchen with Neily hot on my tail.
“You know I’m only teasing you, right, Aly?”
“Yes, I’m being sensitive.” I grab my apron, putting it on. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
He makes me feel all of this weird stuff inside of me that can’t be real. I don’t know the man but Neily was right about the day I saw him leave with that other woman. He’d opened the door for her and off they went. She was everything I wasn’t. Tall, thin, and she had giant boobs. Some girls get everything. It’s a bunch of crap, if you ask me.
I mean, I have boobs but it’s because I’m curvy all over. Her curves seemed to settle all in her chest. It is impossible for me to lose weight. Not when I spend most of my days making sweet treats. Let’s not forget my cheese obsession. I mean, is there anything better than those two things?
“What’s wrong with you is that you have a crush.” Neily takes a seat at one of the high top chairs I have in the kitchen as I start my morning prep. “You have also made up some false narrative in your head about this man, too, I bet.”
“Likely,” I agree. How many storylines have I thought up about his life? None that could actually be true if he stays out at clubs as late as he does. One thing I do know is that he’s uber rich. His car alone says that. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
I roll out the dough I prepared yesterday. I have to stop watching this guy. I should let someone else take over my morning shift. I’ve trained the other two girls to do almost everything I could, but still I come in at the crack of dawn to get a peek at Mr. Sexy.
“Let’s actually do some stalking.” Oh God. Neily can come up with the craziest ideas. Most times they blow up in our faces, like our 7th grade science project. There are the random times that one of them actually amounts to something. Us owning our own shop is one of them. We had been talking about it for years and finally Neily gave me the push I needed to do it. That was about the only time it’s worked out for us.
“What do you mean?” I’m not totally opposed to what she might have in mind.
“It’s Saturday. Let’s go to the club tonight and check it out. See what he’s doing in there.”
“We could get caught.”
She bursts into laughter. “How can we get caught? He doesn't even know who we are or what we are up to.” She makes a very good point. This idea is sounding better to me by the second.
“Can we get in?” I’m never here late at night but I’m guessing the line for the place will be down the street and wrapped around the corner. What if we get to the front and they turn us away? Is that still a thing?
“We’ll go shopping.”
“I don’t think we have much of a choice unless we wear our prom dresses.”
“Those weren’t even cute back then.”
“I was joking!” Neily and I went to prom together. Our moms, who are also best friends, had helped us pick the dresses, which were horrible but we let them anyway. It may have made them happy but as for Neily and me, we looked like we were going to prom in their generation. They’d been so excited about prom we couldn't let them down. We sucked it up and let our moms have their fun. I narrow my eyes on her.
“Kind of joking?” For someone who makes the coolest designs, Neily has the worst sense of fashion. That’s terrible coming from me because mine isn’t much better. “We can find something to wear, I’m sure. We’ve never actually gone to a club. Let’s do this!”
I chew on my bottom lip. We haven’t. Neily and I have always been on the straight and narrow. Maybe it’s time for us to do a little something crazy. Time for us to spread our wings and have a little fun.