“Why are you laughing?” Ashley demanded.
“The last couple of days I have been driving a Chevy Malibu,” I finally got out. “And no, no way would I buy one of those.”
“Hmph,” Ashley grunted, in a sort of mix of ‘I told you so’ and ‘I still don’t believe your shit’.
“Boss, are you doing O.K.?” Jeremiah asked, eyeballing our drinks.
“How was your drink?” I asked Ashley.
“It was good,” she answered. “I’d like another one, please.”
“An Old Fashioned for me, Jeremiah, and both virgin,” I said to the waiter.
Ashley stuck her tongue out at me. “Spoilsport!”
“You heard the law when I explained it to your folks,” I said, holding my hands up in a ‘what can you do?’ gesture. “Despite the way this place looks, it isn’t actually criminal.”
“Hmph,” Ashley repeated, making an unimpressed face.
When our drinks came, I said to Ashley, “You know I’m going to take you back to your own place tonight, right? I’m not taking you back to my place.”
“But my roommates will be there,” she protested. “They’ll hear us.”
“No, because there won’t be any ‘us’,” I countered. “Look, Ash, I like you, and I think you’re fun to be around, when you’re not, you know, grabbing my tit when your parents can’t see, but all we’re ever going to be is friends. I was really glad to hear you tell your mom and dad that you’re taking self-defense classes, because I care about your safety-”
“Not enough to want to make sure nobody comes into my room at night,” Ashley grumbled, interrupting me.
“No, not enough for that,” I agreed. “But look- I can see us being friends, hanging out every now and then, going out for dinner once in a while, stuff like that. But this just isn’t gonna turn into anything more.”
“Friend zone, then,” Ashley said, flatly.
“One hundred per cent,” I agreed.
Ashley let out a big sigh, then said, “Your loss. I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d do anything you and Emmy wanted. Anything.”
“I’ll just have to live with the knowledge that I let a good thing go, then,” I said, trying not to smile.
“Alright. If that’s how it’s gonna be, I can live with that,” Ashley said, her shoulders slumping. “But I absolutely am going driving with you and that guy tomorrow, after my parents leave.”
“That works for me,” I said.
Her small victory assured, Ashley leaned back. “This place is pretty cool,” she admitted, looking around.
“Your dad seemed to think so,” I confirmed.
“Dad’s a complete nerd for old gangster stuff,” Ashley scoffed.
“I liked your parents,” I said, trying to push her buttons a little bit.
“They’re O.K., I guess,” Ashley conceded. “A little bit bougie, but they can’t help it, you know?”
Just then a couple came up to the table to say hello. When they left, Ashley asked, “Why do all these people come over like that?”
“Two things,” I said, holding up two fingers. “Well, O.K., three things,” I said and added one more finger. “First, it’s sort of role play, right? It goes along with the theme, and the mob boss image I present, right? They come up to kiss the ring, sort of, if you get what I mean.”
Making the same dubious face as before, Ashley said, “Oooookay…”
“Second, and this is probably a bigger deal for most of them, is they want to show off to their pals, or their dates, that they know the owner, and are therefore part of the ‘in crowd’, right?”
“Is it that big a deal?” she asked, frowning.
“Look around this room,” I said. “Almost every single person in this room is a millionaire, some are billionaires. See those guys at that table over there?” I asked, pointing to a booth on the far side of the room. “That’s one of the founders of Facebook, a VP at Apple, and two other guys I don’t know, but they’re probably heavy hitters. Their conversation looks like business- I mean, it’s obvious they aren’t friends out on the town, right? Whatever deal they’re doing may be worth literally billions of dollars.”
“Whoa…” Ashley said, looking at the table I mentioned.
“See that table over there? The guy with curly hair- he just sold his startup to Google for two hundred and forty million dollars.”
“How do you know this stuff?” Ashley asked, amazed.
“Well, in his case, I was an early investor and made good money.” Just then, the guy I was talking about looked up and saw us looking at him. I raised my glass in a cross-room toast, and he did the same with a smile.
“So anyway, like I said, being a member here is the current Silicon Valley hotness and a whole lot of people want on the list, but don’t have the connections. So when a guy drags his friend over here to my table, he’s saying, ‘look, I’m connected, I know the right people’. If his friend knows what it means, it’s a really big deal.”
“So what’s the third thing?”
“Well, some of them actually are my friends and just want to say hello,” I said with a shrug.
“And you own this place, and run this whole thing.”
“I don’t actually run it. I have professionals do that. I’m just the figurehead, the recognizable face,” I explained. “I really don’t know a damned thing about running a restaurant or bar.”
“That may be the first thing I’ve seen you not be perfect at,” Ashley said with a sigh. “Why are you so fuckin’ awesome?”
“I mean, I’m good at some things, but I’m not perfect, not by a long shot,” I protested.
Ashley held up her hands, all ten fingers pointing skyward. “You weren’t on the track team, but you run as fast as people who are,” she said and dropped one finger into her palm. “You’re gorgeous, and huge, and move like a freakin’ panther or something,” she said, dropping a second finger. “You look awesome in shorts and a singlet, or jeans and a shirt, or a suit from a hundred years ago.” Down came finger number three. “You drive the sexiest, fastest car I’ve ever sat in in my life,” Ashley added, dropping her fourth finger into her palm. “You’re richer’n shit, buying mansions in New York that you aren’t even gonna live in.”
Just as she was lowering the thumb on her first hand, I put my hands on hers and said, “O.K., that’s enough,” laughing.
“Oh, and you’re some kinda Amazon in the boxing ring, of course…”
“I get it, I get it,” I said, pulling her hands down. “You’ve got some sort of hero worship thing going on.”
“You know, I did a whole lot of Googling about you, after you took me out to lunch and then driving,” Ashley confessed. "I watched some of your volleyball games. You know they’re all online?”
“No, I didn’t,” I admitted.
“Well, they are. Anyway, I watched a few of them, and you know what? If all you ever did was just be that good on the court, and look that good in those little shorts, I’d still want you to wrap me up and use me for your body pillow. I mean, you were hot as fuck out there. But on top of that, you’re, like, everything.”
“If you’ve got a thing for hot volleyball players, I gotta tell you, you’ve got a pretty good shot at it. At least half are gay, as much as I hate to confirm stereotypes,” I said.
“Hmph,” Ashley replied.
When the valet brought the car up, Ashley looked at it with dismay. “It is a family sedan,” she groaned. “My mom has a BMW!”
“Probably not like this,” I said with a laugh as I tipped the valet.
“When that one guy said you destroyed that other guy on the track, he said you were in a family sedan. Was it this car?” Ashley asked when we pulled out of the parking lot.
“No, that was a different BMW,” I said.
“You like BMWs?”
“Yeah, but that’s only part of it. I guess the main reason I have a lot of ‘em is that we own a couple of BMW dealerships down in Southern California.”
“So you get ‘em for free?” Ashley asked.
“No, and unfortunately, not as much of a discount as you might expect,” I said. “So the main reason I drive BMWs is to sort of represent the brand, kinda like advertising, you know?”
“Makes sense,” Ashley admitted. Changing the subject, she said, “You sure I can’t spend the night?”
“I’m sure,” I said. “Just friends, remember?”
“Yeah, I got it,” she said, slouching down in her seat.
I dropped her off at her apartment near campus, waiting to make sure she got in alright. Heading back to the condo, I questioned what I was doing. Sure, it would be nice to have somebody to hang out with when I came up to San Jose, but Ashley might not be the best choice in that category. She was still such a teenager, in so many ways, and the giant crush she had for me might well continue to be a problem.
It occurred to me that if she found some outlet for her urges (other than me) maybe she’d be easier to deal with. Now, who did I know from the team that was still there, preferably a sophomore, who was hot, into girls, and didn’t have a girlfriend?
Pondering the possibilities of setting Ashley up, I pulled into the condo building garage and into my designated spot.
Walking towards the elevator, my spider senses suddenly went off, and hearing somebody behind me, I spun around to see a shabby-looking guy step out from between two cars, where he’d been hiding.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” I groaned.
“You think this is some kind of joke?” demanded the guy. “Gimme your money, and that watch!”
“Fuck off before I kick your ass,” I said, drawing myself to my full height, which was easily five inches taller than would-be mugger guy.
“Big talk! I might just have to cut you for that,” he sneered, pulling a locking knife from his pocket. While he was fumbling, trying to get it open, I seized the moment and laid a solid roundhouse kick to the side of his head.
Sent flying, the guy scrambled and got up on all fours, but before he could stand, I slammed another foot down on the back of his neck, knocking him back down to the pavement. Weakly, he tried to rise again, but I stepped between his shoulder blades and pushed him back down.
“Quit fucking moving,” I said. “The more you struggle, the worse this is gonna go for you. Got it?”
“I got it,” he said, his face pressed against the concrete. “I got it.”
I took my phone from my pocket to call the police, idly noticing that I’d missed some texts from Angela and Emmy.
Reception was poor down in the second level basement of the parking garage, but I managed to get through to the 9-1-1 dispatcher on my second try. I explained that there had been an attempted mugging, and I’d subdued the perpetrator. The dispatcher said the police would be there in ten minutes, so I found the number for the condo building’s front desk.
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“Hey, do we have an on-site security guy?” I asked after I’d identified myself. Assured that there was twenty-four seven security, I said, “Well, send the guy down to P Two. There’s a problem down here.”
The security guy showed up in a couple of minutes, during which I’d only had to threaten the mugger three or four times to get him to stop squirming.
“What’s going on here?” the security guy asked the moment he’d stepped from the elevator and seen me standing on the bad guy. His hand was straying awfully close to the sidearm on his hip, which I thought was a real cause for concern.
“This guy tried to mug me. I think his knife is over there somewhere,” I said, pointing off to the side.
“He tried to mug you?”
“Yes. He demanded my money and my wallet, threatened to cut me.”
“Are you O.K.?” the security guy asked, now close enough to get a good look at the guy face-down on the ground.
“I’m fine,” I replied. “Mostly just annoyed, you know?”
“You took this guy down all by yourself?” the security guy asked, putting zip tie cuffs on the mugger.
“Yeah,” I said, not really wanting to recount the whole incident for this guy, and then the police.
The sound of a car coming down the ramp had us both look up to see a police cruiser making its way towards us. The officers stopped well short, flicking on the Explorer’s high beams to illuminate the scene more fully.
By this time I was standing back, letting the security guy hold the mugger in place.
The two policemen got out of the car, assessing the situation. One turned to me and asked if I was the one who called 9-1-1, and when I said that I was, he came over to take my statement while the other went to help the security officer.
I explained in broad details what had happened, and when he asked how I managed to subdue an armed man, I said, “I’m a mixed martial arts fighter.”
Chuckling, the officer said, “I guess he picked the wrong one to try to jump.”
“Well, the right one, as far as everybody else is concerned. What if he’d attacked the little old lady on the sixth floor, Mrs Rosen? He might have killed her,” I said.
The officer took the time to write everything down while his partner hunted around until he found the knife under one of the parked cars. He explained that it seemed pretty cut and dried, but if there were any questions they’d contact me. He then told the security guy that somebody would be around in the morning to collect the security camera footage.
As the police drove off, mugger cuffed in the back of the cruiser, the security guy said, “I’m gonna have to figure out how that guy got in here. Seriously, that’s a major breach.”
“My bet is that he hid in the bushes near the gate, and slipped in following somebody’s car,” I said as we got in the elevator.
“Makes sense…” the guy replied, thinking about it.
Back in the empty condo, I stripped out of my gangster outfit and climbed into the tub for a relaxing soak, musing about the crazy day I’d just had. Leaning back in the tub, I looked through the text messages I’d missed.
It was more photos from Angela of scenes around the townhouse, shots of Emmy and the boys in the studio, stuff like that.
Emmy sent me a message asking about my day and how was San Jose, to which I replied, “It has been a long, wild day. I'ill tell you about it when we get a chance to talk.”
Almost immediately my phone rang, Emmy replying to my message.
“Hey, babe,” I said.
“What happened today?” Emmy asked, concern in her voice.
“I bought a car,” I said.
“I saw that. It is a very beautiful color,” Emmy said.
“It looks even better in person. In the sunlight it really sparkles.”
“I am glad you did that,” Emmy replied. "Now you will have something nice to drive when you are up in the Bay Area.”
“Yeah, it’ll be nice to have,” I agreed. “I’m actually going out driving with James Atherton tomorrow.”
“Where are you?” Emmy asked. "It sounds…”
“Taking a bath,” I said. “Just relaxing in the tub.”
“I will call you right back,” Emmy said, then hung up.
Puzzled, I looked at the phone, which immediately rang with an odd tone. Emmy was calling me right back, but this time it was a FaceTime call- for video. Smirking, I answered.
“That was quick,” I said, intentionally holding the phone at an angle so she couldn’t see anything from my neck down. Emmy was craning her head to get a better look, as if it were a window she could get a better angle on.
“So, why did you hang up and then call me back again?” I asked, feigning innocence.
“I did that so we could feel as if we were together,” Emmy replied, looking bashful. “I wish I could be in that bath with you.”
“I wish you were here in this bath with me, too,” I replied.
“Are you lonely?” Emmy asked, concerned.
“I told you I’d be happy to go with you,” Angela said from somewhere off-screen.
“Hi, Ange,” I said, knowing she could hear me. “What are you guys doing up so late? It’s what, two in the morning there?” I asked.
“I had to make Emmy stop doing the music thing and come to bed,” Angela said as Emmy angled the phone to get her in view. “They’d be up there all night, and that just isn’t healthy. I had to make her eat dinner, too.”
“Thanks for doing that,” I said. “They get lost in the music sometimes.”
“It is true, we do,” Emmy agreed.
“Well, you guys need to get some sleep. I’m headed to bed right after my bath.”
“I don’t think it’s fair that she’s in the tub but not showing us anything- Do you?” Angela asked Emmy.
“No, it is terribly inconsiderate,” Emmy agreed.
“Quid pro quo, babes,” I said. “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine,” grateful the new iPhone was waterproof.
Eventually, when I did finally get to sleep, I didn’t feel quite so lonely. Funny how one little video call could make such a difference.
Despite the late night, I was up early for my morning run, taking the same route as the two days before. I had intentionally done the same thing again to help reinforce the feeling of familiarity, trying to keep the South Bay in my mental ‘home’ category.
A cup of coffee and a chocolate croissant at my old favorite bakery helped, too. Maybe this back and forth from Los Angeles to the Bay Area wasn’t going to be such a pain in the ass after all.
A quick shower and a change into jeans and a long-sleeved T shirt had me almost ready to drive, but I realized that I didn’t have any good driving shoes. A quick search online and I was off to the nearest mall for a chain shoe store that carried Chuck Taylors, and I was all set, and still on time.
When I knocked on the door of Ashley’s apartment, one of her roommates answered. She took one look at me and yelled back into the apartment, “Hey, Ash! Your Amazon sex goddess is here!”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” demanded Ash, giving her roommate a death glare as she came to the door. “Just ignore her- everybody else does,” Ashley said to me, pulling the door shut behind her, cutting off her roommate’s protests.
Ashley was dressed like somebody not going out on a date, I was grateful to see. She had on artfully torn jeans and a scoop-neck sleeveless top, a Cardinal sweatshirt around her waist.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey,” Ashley responded back, oddly shy.
“Ready to go for a ride?”
“In your family sedan?” Ashley asked, teasing.
“That’s the one,” I confirmed as we walked down the steps to the ground level.
“Wow- I love the color,” Ashley said as we neared the car. “Last night it just looked, well, I dunno, plain ol’ blue.”
“The color is what caught my eye at first,” I admitted as we climbed in the car.
“It has that new car smell,” Ashley said, running her hands across the carbon fiber inlays on the dash.
“It should. I haven't even owned it for twenty-four hours yet!” I said. Just for laughs, I goosed it pulling out of the parking lot, stepping the back out in a lurid power slide.
“Holy shit!” Ashley squeaked, holding onto the passenger door’s big grab handle for dear life.
As the car straightened out, she relaxed a bit. “Oh, it’s gonna be like that, huh?” she demanded.
“Yes, yes it is,” I agreed, stomping on it to break the back tires loose again, getting another squeak from Ashley.
By the time we got to the Starbucks on the east side of San Jose I’d thoroughly disabused Ashley of the notion that my new car was just some suburban housewife’s 328.
James’ Porsche was already the parking lot, drawing quite a crowd. A group of young guys were taking selfies with the car, their girlfriends looking unamused with their antics as I pulled into the spot next to the Spyder.
“Now look at that car!” Ashley exclaimed as we climbed out of the M3. “You should get one of those!”
“She has dibs on it if I ever sell,” James said as he strolled up, cup in his hand.
The young guys suddenly realized that the Porsche’s owner was right there, and they suddenly got self-conscious and let their girlfriends drag them into the Starbucks.
“It’s only fair,” James added. “She did just sell me her baby, after all.”
“How’s Godzilla treating you?” I asked.
“Man, that car is awesome!” James said, a smile from ear to ear. “But I’m gonna have to have it rewrapped. Everybody asks why I’m driving your car.”
“Godzilla?” Ashley asked.
“My old race car,” I explained. “It’s mean, green, and spits fire.”
“Yes, it does,” James said, nodding his head.
“Ash, you want anything?” I asked, gesturing towards the coffee shop.
“No, I’m good,” she said.
“So, I was thinking,” James said. “There’s going to be about one point seven million cyclists on Mt Hamilton this time of day on a Sunday. We should skip it, or just assume we’ll have to take it pianissimo on the way up, until we cross the summit, anyhow. Or, we could head out somewhere else. How much time do you two have today?”
I looked at Ashley, and she shrugged. “I don’t have any other plans.”
“I can be out all day, too,” I said. “You?”
Laughing, James said, “I’m on Rodriguez.” Seeing the complete lack of comprehension on our faces, he explained. “Imogen is visiting her folks in Connecticut, so I have nothing better to do than go driving with my friends.”
I glanced at my watch and looked around the parking lot. “What time did you tell them to show up?”
Laughing, James said, “Let’s hit some roads we don’t usually get to. Hell, let’s rock, and do Sonora Pass.”
“The Sierras?” I asked, surprised. “That’s a long day in the saddle.”
James just shrugged and made a ‘So?’ face.
“You O.K. with that?” I asked Ashley. “We’ll get back late.”
“Sure!” she said. “Let’s do it!”
“You want to lead?” James asked.
“I can do that, but don’t complain when I drop you like a bad habit.”
Laughing, James slid into the driver’s seat of his supercar, while Ashley and I took our seats in my merely faster-than-most car.
“That Porsche looks ridiculously fast,” Ashley said. “I don’t think you’ll be able to drop him.”
“That car? Yeah, it is pretty fast. For a Prius.”
“A Prius?”
“It’s a hybrid,” I explained. “Like a Prius.”
“Yeah, I’ve never seen a Prius that looks like that,” Ashley said, making that dubious face from the night before.
Within a few minutes we were working our way up Mt Hamilton, and as James had predicted, every single cyclist in the South Bay was riding up that hill. A lot of other car people I know bitch about the bicyclists, but as for me, I don’t begrudge them their use of the road at all. I mean, we’re all out to enjoy ourselves, right? Who am I to deny them all the suffering and misery they put themselves through in the name of personal enjoyment?
I took the opportunity to warm up the tires a bit whenever we had clear sightlines, despite the road’s sheer drops and complete lack of shoulder, much less run-off areas.
Ashley kept pushing hard against the footwell and sliding down in the seat with every big exposure left hander, but she never once urged me to take it any easier on the gas.
We stopped by the observatory to take in the view to the west, and use the bathrooms at the visitor’s center.
“That was almost as good as the time we did it in your Aston Martin,” Ashley said, sipping the Coke I’d gotten her from inside, reminding me that she’d practically masturbated on that drive.
Seeing James wasn’t within earshot, I said in a low voice, “Thanks for keeping it in your pants this time.”
She gave me a look that was sort of sad, sort of, maybe, proud of herself. “Just friends, remember?”
Back on the road, heading east and down from the peak, Ashley asked, “Did that guy, Um, James? Did he say he’s gonna sell you his Porsche?”
“Yeah, he did. The first time I had a chance to drive it, I told him I liked it and put dibs on it if he ever wants to sell. It seems like he hasn’t forgotten,” I said absently, mostly thinking about how grateful I was at that moment that the M3 had ceramic brake rotors as part of the Competition Package. The downhill was long and steep, and we were going into the turns pretty hard.
“Those Asian guys, back at the Starbucks- they seemed to think that car is a pretty big deal,” Ashley said.
“If you’re into fast cars, it is,” I agreed.
“I know Porsches cost a lot,” Ashley said, looking at the 918 in the side mirror. “That one must be expensive.”
“Um, yeah, and getting more so every day,” I replied, still not paying as much attention to the conversation as I was to the road.
“How much?”
“How much what?” I asked, now paying more attention, since we’d gotten to the bottom of the mountain and the turns had opened up some.
“How much does one of those cost?”
“A 918 like James’?” I asked. “Well, new, they were about a million bucks, but like I said, they keep going up in value. The number I’ve heard is about a hundred grand a year.”
“A million bucks?” Ashley exclaimed, her voice rising in disbelief. “And you’re gonna buy it from him? You have the money to spend that on a car?”
“Yeah, it’s a silly way to spend money like that, but it is a very nice car. And it’s eco-friendly, being a plug-in hybrid.”
“You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means,” Ashley replied, crossing her arms.
“Which word?”
“Hybrid.”
Laughing, I said, “Yes, that car is, in fact, a hybrid. Just like a Prius, it has a gas engine and an electric motor, too.”
“You’re telling me that Porsche made a million dollar car for better gas mileage?” Ashley said, skeptical.
“No, because that wouldn’t be the truth. They did it for improved performance.”
“A hybrid. For performance.”
“It’s true,” I said. “When we stop for lunch, you should get James to show it to you. Maybe even hit him up for a ride?”
“So, if you can afford a million dollar car, why did you just buy this ‘family sedan’?” she said, making finger quotes.
“I could have bought something fancier,” I agreed. “A Lamborghini, McLaren, whatever. But most of this car’s life is going to be spent in the parking garage of my condo here in San Jose anyway, and sometimes I might need a real back seat. Maybe I need to take a couple of people from the office out to lunch, or whatever. I couldn’t do that in a Lambo. And besides, a car like that just doesn’t look professional. This car, on the other hand, looks like a sensible executive’s toy.”
“I guess,” Ashley said, but I don’t think she was convinced.
“Besides," I said. “If a cop spots me and James playing on a back road like this and we split up, which car is he going to focus on?”
That got a laugh from Ashley and she stopped talking for a while, just looking out the windows. “It’s really pretty out here, in a way, but it’s just so brown,” she said.
“That’s the big difference between the West and the East here in the US. Our summers are dry. No rain falls during the season most plants grow. Back East, though, you get summer rain all the time, so the plants go crazy.”
“Makes sense,” Ashley admitted.
We chatted like that for a while, until the road finally exited the Diablos and crossed over Interstate 5.
James called, since we had cell signal for the first time in fifty miles or so. “Need to stop?” he asked, since we were about to pass a gas station.
“No, we’re good,” I replied after glancing over at Ashley to make sure it was the case. “I can keep going ’til we stop for lunch.”
“Any thoughts on that?” James asked.
“I say we stick to secondary farm roads across the valley, and maybe around noon, twelve thirty we just look for anything promising.”
“Sounds good,” James said and signed off. Once we got to the straight, flat, empty roads of the Central Valley, I waved James past and gave him a ‘hit it!’ sign as he drew even.
Needing no further encouragement, he put his foot to the floor and rocketed away. I slammed the pedal to the floor, too, but the M3’s four hundred and change horsepower simply couldn't compete with the nearly nine hundred of the Spyder.
“Holy shit!” Ashley exclaimed as she was shoved back in the seat. “He’s getting away!” and then, “Is that fire coming out of the top of his car?”
Even as the Spyder pulled away, I kept my foot flat, and we flew past the one hundred mile an hour mark, the car pulling strongly. Past one hundred fifty the acceleration was slower, but the BMW still managed almost one hundred-eighty on the speedometer before it became obvious that we were totally maxed out.
Ashley had stopped talking as our speed grew higher, sliding lower and lower into the passenger seat, barely being able to see above the dash at all, her body completely tensed up.
I spotted the Porsche up ahead, drawing nearer, so it was obvious James had let off the gas. I followed suit, gradually coasting back to to sixty as we caught up. Sixty miles an hour felt like walking speed in comparison to the velocity we’d just achieved.
“I swear, I almost wet myself,” Ashley said, still trembling a bit. “That was fuckin’ insane.”