Brian shoved his suitcase into the overhead bin and slammed the door shut with unnecessary force. Thank God there’d been a first class seat available. He hadn’t flown in the economy section since he graduated from college. The first time he took a trip that wasn’t business related (a White Party, of course), he’d put a first-class seat on his credit card. It’d taken him six months to pay it off, but it’d been worth it. He’d sworn to himself that when he got a job he was never ever going to fly economy again. And he hadn’t.

He’d also sworn that he would never be unemployed. If he was going to move up the ladder (which he’d been banking on to pay for the 30-year mortgage he took out when he paid more than he could afford for the loft) he wasn’t going to quit one job before he’d signed a contract with a new one. Overlap. There must always be overlap. As tempting as it’d been to quit Ryder’s and take a month off before he started that job in New York he’d wanted so much, he didn’t do it. Thank God. What a cluster-fuck that would’ve been. Classic case of don’t count your fucking chickens before they hatch. In fact, don’t count on anything unless you’ve gained complete control over it.

Christ, his dad had always counted his chickens. Jack never saw a paycheck that he hadn’t already spent. Betting on horses, putting drinks on a tab, borrowing money off anyone too stupid to know better – that was what Brain remembered about his father. Well, that and his belt, whiskey-soaked breath and clothes that stank of stale cigarette smoke. Until finally landing a union job, Jack had been fired every couple of years while Brian was growing up. They’d moved from one down-at-the-heels city to the next. Gary, Indiana; Trenton, New Jersey; Scranton, Pennsylvania, and finally Pittsburgh. He and his sister never stayed in a school district for longer than a year before Pittsburgh. After a while, they’d stopped bothering to make friends. What was the point? It wasn’t until he discovered that his dad wouldn’t notice if now and then a bottle of Paddy’s disappeared that people realized he existed. But he wasn’t stupid – he was well aware that if he was invited to the occasional party, it was because people wanted to get drunk more than they didn’t want to hangout with him.

He hadn’t been crying in his room, though. He’d been out walking around and watching, always watching. Because who knew where an opportunity might pop up? Who knew if a rich old lady needed her lawn mowed, or a fancy restaurant was short a dishwasher because their regular guy was too drunk to show up one morning? Who knew if a bar where the local businessmen gathered after work needed its windows cleaned, or some big-shot lawyer needed someone to do their filing while their secretary was on maternity leave? Sitting in your room all day jerking off got you nowhere. If you don’t sell yourself, nobody’s going to buy you. He wasn’t stupid; he knew he was as much a commodity as corn and soybeans, but he was a commodity that could walk, talk, kiss ass, and curry favors.

In the corporate world, that was called “networking.” Brian was good at it – very good at it. And he was smart as hell and ready and willing to push someone under a bus if they got in his way. Fuck a country club upbringing; fuck Sigma Alpha Epsilon; fuck getting a BMW from daddy on your sixteenth birthday. None of it mattered if you’re cagey, ruthless and in control.

Which was why the present situation was driving his stress level through the fucking roof. He’d lost control – and over his career, of all things! If he’d been certain of one thing, it was that he’d never be fired. He’d made himself essential to the solvency of the agency. Fire him, and the whole place would financially collapse.

Then along came Gardner Vance, who didn’t give a shit whether he kept Brian or not. He had enough capital to find someone to replace him – someone whose salary would equal less than half of Brian's. Hell, Vance could hire two new people, and he’d still have to pay them less than he’d be paying Brian if he continued paying him the amount Ryder had. If Brian was in Vance’s place, he’d fire himself too!

What would he be without his job? What would he do? Where would he be able to show his face? And who the hell would hire him? Sure he was the fucking best at what he did, but he was also an asshole. He had a reputation that encompassed more than just his expertise as an ad man, and he was sure it preceded him. He’d have to leave town to escape it. People respected him, but they didn’t like him. He’d known that and hadn’t cared. If people were really good at their jobs, he was civil to them – even collegial at times – but everyone else was just hacks. Brian hadn’t had time for them. Until now.

Karma was a fucking train and it was barreling down the tracks straight at him.

He jerked off in the bathroom and then returned to his seat where he opened his laptop and went over his pitch for the zillionth time. He could do this. All he needed to do was focus – push Ryder out of his mind, push Vance out of his mind, push Jack out of his mind, push his terror of unemployment out of his mind, push Justin out of his mind . . .

Christ. Now, that was easier said than done.

He’d fucked up with Justin. He knew he’d fucked-up. He even knew he was fucking-up while he was in the process of fucking-up.

But that knowledge hadn’t stopped him.

He could still hear his own words echoing in his head. It’s business! My business, which, by the way, pays for your leeching ass. Okay. Maybe he hadn’t gone that far, but he might as well have. Justin wasn’t a moron; he knew how to read between the lines – even though his interpretations were probably wrong – so so very wrong.

After what Brian had said and how he’d said it, there was no way Justin could believe that he wanted to go to Vermont – that he wanted to go more than anything he’d ever wanted before. Goddamn it! Why couldn’t he have at least tried to explain that he didn’t want to go to Chicago, but he had to. Why couldn’t he just have said, “Look, Justin, this situation sucks. I don’t like it any more than you do. I really wanted to go to Vermont, but I’m going to lose my job if I do, and it’s not that my job is more important than our trip, it’s that I don’t think I can handle being unemployed. That’s what’s going on here. This has nothing to do with you.”

How fucking hard would that have been? Why hadn’t he been able to do it? It would’ve taken less than half-a-dozen sentences and about thirty seconds. What the fuck was wrong with him?

Justin hadn’t said anything when he’d realized that what Brian had said was all he was going to say. He’d just gotten up, gathered his school shit, put on his jacket and walked out the door. He’d even had the class not to slam it like a petulant child. Brian had sat down on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands. He’d felt like shit – no worse than shit. He’d been tempted to drink a couple shots of Beam, but thankfully he was able to talk himself out of it. He needed to keep his head clear. Everything depended on the next forty-eight hours. And who knew? After that, assuming he got the account and Vance agreed to make him partner, he and Justin could go on their trip. There was still time. He hadn’t said anything to Justin though. He couldn’t make another commitment that he might not be able to follow through on. One broken promise was one too many.

He closed his laptop and put it back in his briefcase. Going over his pitch yet again was not the best use of his time. Ideally, he’d get some sleep. God knows, he needed it. But that wasn’t going to happen. The best he could do was close his eyes and rest his brain. He couldn’t afford to let his thoughts unravel into loose threads of what-if’s. The past was the past. All he could do now was focus like a laser beam on doing his job the absolute best that he could, which meant he had to appear calm, collected and supremely self-confident. Thoughts of fucking things up with Justin were going to undermine all of those things. He wouldn’t think about Justin for the next forty-eight hours.

And he didn’t.

* * * * * * * * * * *

It was just before dawn when her phone rang. Daphne stumbled (literally) out of bed to answer it, tripping over the pile of laundry she planned to do in the morning. She pulled her phone out of her bag and looked at the caller id. Justin. That could not be a good thing. It was never a good thing when he called after midnight.

“Jus, hey,” she said, her voice scratchy with sleep. “What’s up?”

There was no response. She was just about to ask again when a despondent voice said, “I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

She went back to her bed where she sat cross-legged and pulled her quilt over her lap. It was freezing.

“That’s okay,” she said. “What’s going on? Aren’t you in Vermont with Brian?”

He emitted an ironic-sounding snort. “You’re half right,” he said. “I’m in Vermont, but I’m not with Brian.”

She frowned. “What happened? Did you two get in a fight or something and he left?”

“Nope. He didn’t leave. He was never here in the first place.”

“Seriously? But you went anyway?”

“Yup. And he doesn’t know. At least I don’t think he does. Who knows? It’s not like he’d call me or anything to find out where I am.”

Holy cow! He went to Vermont without Brian? Daphne did a fist-pump and would’ve shouted “YAY! GO JUSTIN!” except she didn’t want to wake her roommate and Justin might not be in the mood celebrate. But still . . .

“You are fucking awesome,” she said in as loud a whisper as she dared. “Oh my God, I can’t believe it! I love you, Justin!”

He gave a weak laugh that sounded more for her benefit than a sign of actual amusement.

God, Brian was such a bastard. Daphne would never say so to Justin, but she’d predicted this would happen. She simply could not picture Brian in Vermont, let alone on a snowboard. The question was why had Brian even made the offer if he’d never intended to go? It didn’t really seem like him, but then who knew? Justin had only recently started bitching about Brian, so Daphne didn’t know how accustomed he was to being treated badly.

“So he bailed? Did he say why?”

She heard Justin sigh. “He had to do some stupid thing for his job – go to Chicago to schmooze some big muckity-muck client. At least that’s what he said.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Honestly? I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

He sounded weary and defeated. She hadn’t heard him so down since he’d been in the hospital and Brian hadn’t visited him.

“You are fucking awesome,” she said again. “I hope you know that.”

He sighed again. “I don’t feel so awesome. In fact, I feel like shit. I feel like maybe I shouldn’t have done this.”

“What do you mean? Of course, you should’ve done it. Brian totally deserves it.”

“I don’t know, Daph. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he really was worried he’d lose his job.”

“What’d he say? Tell me what he said to you.”

“It was the morning we were supposed to go, and he started looking around in his closet for a tie. I asked him why he thought he needed a tie in Vermont, and he said ‘I’m not going to Vermont.’ Just like that. So, I’m all like ‘what the hell?’ and he got all pissy and told me he was going to get fired if he didn’t go to Chicago to meet with this guy. I got upset and he yelled at me about it was his business and business is more important than me – and then when I was still upset, he got all snarky about how I should be cool with the whole situation because he pays for me to go to school and shit.”

Daphne bit her lip. If she spoke now, without taking a minute and a deep breath, the amount of obscenities she’d use would melt her phone like acid.

“But shouldn’t our trip be more important?” he continued. “Shouldn’t I be more important?”

She remained silent. She honestly didn’t know what to say. She knew what she wanted to say, but she’d only make things worse if she said it. What she wanted to say was that maybe it was time to think about breaking up with Brian . . .

“I’m thinking about breaking up with Brian,” he said, and she almost laughed at their telepathy. They’d always been like that, even since they were kids playing together in their backyards.

“I was thinking the same thing,” she said.

He sighed again and was quiet for a long time while she played with a loose thread on her pajamas. She wasn’t going to press him. If he was going to say anything more, he’d say it when he was ready.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like Brian, it was that she didn’t like the way he treated Justin sometimes. The whole birthday thing was a perfect example. What’s so hard about buying your boyfriend a present or taking him out to dinner or something? He doesn’t think birthdays are worth celebrating, only achievements, Justin had said. And you agree? she’d asked. He’d merely shrugged and said that of course he didn’t agree, but he didn’t feel comfortable telling Brian. He’d said that Brian would just make fun of him and make him feel like shit.

Honestly, sometimes she didn’t know who she wanted to slap the hardest: Brian for being a jerk or Justin for putting up with it.

“I can’t live like this,” he said, at last, his voice sounding very small and sad. “I want someone who actually cares about me.”

“I think Brian does care about you,” she said, unsure why she was coming to Brian's defense. “He just has weird ways of showing it.”

He laughed-snorted again. “Yeah, he does. Like that hustler, he got me for my birthday.”

Daphne almost dropped the phone. “What!? A hustler?! No, Justin! You’re not serious! You can’t be serious!”

This time her roommate pounded on the wall separating their rooms to get her to quiet down.

“I’m serious.”

Now it was Daphne’s turn to be silent. She got out of bed and started pacing. She was so upset that she didn’t trust her voice not to waver.

“Daph? You still there?”

“Yeah, I’m still here. I’m just in shock, that’s all.”

“You’re not the only one, although why I was surprised, I don’t know. It’s so totally Brian. Honestly? I would’ve preferred getting nothing at all.”

“What did you say when you told him how upset you were? Did he say something even remotely apologetic?”

He took a deep breath and released it. “I didn’t say anything.”

If he was there in the room with her, she would’ve punched him in the arm and then shaken him for good measure.

“You didn’t say anything? Why not?”

She could practically hear him shrug.

“I don’t know. Probably wouldn’t have made a difference. He would’ve probably just said something shitty, and then I’d feel like a loser.”

“Nice.”

There’s another long silence.

“Daph, I don’t know what to do. I’m so angry, and he’s hurt me so much.”

If he was with her, this was when she’d reach for him and give him a huge hug. Instead, she could only say that she thought maybe three-thirty in the morning was not the best time to think about it, let alone make decisions.

“He hasn’t even called,” he said.

“Maybe he doesn’t know where you are?”

“Of course, he knows where I am. If he hadn’t figured it out on his own, Michael will have told him. Besides, it doesn’t matter where I am. I’m not on the moon. I have a fucking cell phone.”

He was rapidly going from despondent to distraught. She needed to put the brakes on.

“What can I do?” she asked softly.

“I love you,” he said.

“I know you do,” she replied. “And I love you too. Are you going to be okay? Should I be worried?”

He sighed again but thankfully it turned into a yawn. “No, you don’t need to worry. I’m not going to fling myself off the mountainside.”

She laughed in appreciation of his lighter tone. He knew she wasn’t going to be able to sleep without knowing he was okay. “Alright, but promise you’ll call if you want someone to talk to. I’m always here for you, Jus, no matter what time day or night.”

“Thanks,” he replied. “Go back to sleep now. I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Apologize again and I’ll steal Brian’s Jeep and drive up there so I can smack you.”

He laughed. Finally!

“Good night,” he said.

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” she replied. It was their little ritual.

He hung up and she placed her phone on her bedside table, so it would be easy to find if he called again. It took her a long time to fall back asleep, but by the time she finally did, she’d decided she was not as charmed by Brian Kinney as she used to be.