Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
I lean back and check my phone. I still have the text sitting there from my guy at legal. It came in yesterday. He says Vaughn screwed up something in the way he registered the app under someone else’s business LLC. Basically, the error on his part voids out any contractual legalese within the app. Charli’s in the clear, and if I was a better person, I could make some calls and get the process started right now. I could’ve told her yesterday when she asked if there were any updates from legal. But I lied to her. I lied, and it’s already tearing me up inside.
“No doubts. Gray Wolfe comes first,” I say, convincing myself more than Nolan. “Our friendship comes first.”
He nods, and some of the hardness that always seems to be in his features these days relaxes a touch.
Vaughn and his father join us at the table a few minutes later. Vaughn looks a little irritable and harassed. His dark hair is slicked back, but a few strands have come loose. The lapels on his suit jacket are askew, and he keeps fidgeting and adjusting himself in the seat.
His father, Griffon, looks as icy as always. He has the same cold blue eyes and similar features to Vaughn, but there’s a no-nonsense cast to his face that makes it hard to forget he knows his business. Hate him or not, Griffon is a pain in our ass because he’s good at what he does. “What he does” is be a fucking weasel with full pockets because of his dead father, but he’s still good at it.
“You’re both late,” I say.
Nolan side eyes me. I’m not exactly avoiding provocation, but I never promised to behave.
Griffon gives his son a look of annoyance. Apparently, it was Vaughn’s fault.
Vaughn shakes his head and rubs the back of his neck. “Some asshole put posters up all around the office and the city with my face on them and a bunch of childish lies. It’s getting hard to make it from one place to another without getting stopped and asked idiotic questions.” His nostrils flare and he lifts his jacket to show a patch of something brown staining his white button-down. “And this random woman threw her coffee on me. There have been all the prank calls, too. If I find out this was you, I’m going to crush you and your shitty company. I’m going to–”
“Vaughn, that’s enough,” Griffon snaps. “Just ask them and we can get this miserable affair behind us.”
It’s very hard not to smile. Just ask them? I lick my lips in anticipation. Does Vaughn want to ask us if we’re the ones behind the things I’ve seen all over the streets near Landmark and Gray Wolfe?
Because I’ve seen the posters. It would be impossible not to.
I haven’t asked Charli directly, but I don’t really need to. It’s pretty obviously her handiwork. The posters show Vaughn’s head photoshopped in with some dirty underwear and accuse him of stealing from homeless shelters. I’ve even seen a few other variations pop up, including multiple advertisements from supposedly “hot, single college girls looking for male roommates who don’t mind a woman that loves cooking, cleaning, and spontaneous blowjobs”. There are others, too, like one from a man who has fantasies about being aggressively propositioned for phone sex. It includes assurances that he would claim he isn’t interested, but his kink is for the caller to press on anyway and get as dirty as possible. Every weird poster I’ve seen lists the same phone number, and I’ve had a suspicion they lead to Vaughn’s cell, or maybe even his work phone, where he’ll be forced to answer.
“Ask us what?” Nolan prods.
Vaughn looks livid. I can almost read it in his expression. His whole life, things have gone his way. The trust fund. The father who will die some day and pass his wealth and success to his son, whether or not he deserves it. It’s the kind of cushy existence that leads to stale, soft people. Nothing in his easy existence has prepared him for even a little pranking, and if he can’t find and squash whoever is doing it, he might just lose his shit. “Admit it. You two are doing this. This childish bullshit has Gray Wolfe all over it.”
“What posters?” I manage to say the two words without smiling or laughing. It’s so hard, though, because I desperately want to hear him explain it.
I can feel even Nolan is trying not to laugh. We both passed some on our way here and commented on them.
Vaughn glances to the side and adjusts himself in his chair. “The posters and the want ads. They are stapled up wherever they can fit all around our offices. It’s suspicious. Don’t you think? At a time when Landmark is wiping the floor with your company, suddenly somebody is motivated to prank us?”