Shooting a Shot
“Minimum effort?”
“I fought tooth and nail for everything I have, Icaro. When have you ever suffered like common folk? What have you ever worked for? Even the so-called love of your life was given to you by divine intervention. Forgive me for taking the slightest amount of pleasure in watching you struggle if only for once.”
“How is your shitty childhood my fault?”
“It wasn’t. My father dying when I was a small boy was an act of God and if it weren’t for your mother helping mine put her life back together, things would have been much harder. I owe your parents a debt of gratitude I can never repay. You and Vod would come around bragging how you’d been to America, England, France and all the girls you were with while you were gone. You came to parties with the fancy watches and flashy sports cars and wearing the latest fashions and rubbing the wealth you didn’t even earn in the faces of those of us who were fighting for every euro. It incentivized me to work hard to get the same things you possessed.
“I earned my money.”
“Your trust fund set you quite nicely. I fought my ass off to get into college. I studied hard to get my degree. Your father bought your place in the school. I built my own empire. You are getting yours handed to you wrapped with a pretty red ribbon, like the Ferrari I drooled over every week when we passed the dealership and then you suddenly showed up with it at a party.”
“You act like I was a spoiled brat racing around the streets. Most of the time I was working for my father, doing jobs you would never have dreamed up as a child. I might have been in a fancy sports car when I was eighteen, but it was bought with money I earned doing the challenging work for my family. While you were working in your mother’s shop stocking shelves, Walrus, I was doing far harder things and I promise you, as an incredibly young man I earned my bank account.”
“You love your work,” the man accused Icaro. “Do not stand here and try to say it was hard when killing and maiming gives you a hard on better than the most beautiful of women. You had it easy, Icaro. Just for once, I’m happy to see you struggle.”
“You’re jealous because I was born into a family which forced me to protect them? I was pulling triggers while you were still popping zits and I promise you, it was not easy, regardless of how much you think it was. I was a boy.”
“Still are a boy, half the time,” Walrus threw back.
“You’re an asshole,” Icaro growled at the smug man.
“Likewise.”
“Are you two done?” Zorah finally reached her limit. No amount of alcohol was going to help her with their pissing match. “You really resent him, don’t you? How is this a friendship when you hate him so much?”
“I don’t.” he shook his head. “I was always envious of him this is certain, but he is right it is not his fault we grew up differently. Today however, for the first time,” he extended his hand towards Zorah, “someone caught my eye, and I immediately was captivated. You have a quality to you which is beyond explanation, and you captured my attention. I was ready in an instant to offer you the world and then he stepped out onto the balcony. The injustice of it all blows my mind. Why does a lineage of men who do nothing to deserve it end up with all the best women? I’m tired of your castoffs.”
Icaro was quiet, “Caiu,” he rarely called his friend by name but tonight he reached out and squeezed his shoulder, “there is someone out there for you.”
“Is there? I am not a Lucchesi, and I don’t have God on my side. I am not angry at you, Icaro for having your blessings but for once can you leave some of them for the rest of us? She was waiting for you all this time and you treated it like you did the Ferrari. Do not do to her what you did to the car I wanted.”
“What did you do to the car?” Zorah questioned quietly.
Icaro rubbed his forehead, “I crashed it around a telephone pole.” He gave Zorah an apologetic look. “I promise to not cause you to be hurt.”
Zorah looked at the larger man again, “you really arranged for a bunch of Icaro’s ex-lovers to come here to get under his skin and upset me so you could shoot your shot?”
He gave a one-shouldered shrug, “it was worth a try.”
“I’m his one. Why even try?”
“Perhaps only for once, I want to have the wealth Icaro does. Our bank balances might have grown similar over the years but one of us lives a charmed life and I would like a taste of it. You looked sad on the balcony, Zorah and I wanted to be the one to make you smile.”
“You are a very sensitive man, aren’t you?”
“Only to a select few. There is a part of me which wants to protect you from being hurt. Whatever you do, make him pay for disrespecting you.”
“Icaro’s not allowed to have an orgasm for thirty days.”
“What?”
“He has to practice abstinence for thirty days and if at the end of the thirty days I’m not satisfied of the penance for his whorish ways, I’m allowed to extend it.”
“Zorah!” Icaro grunted with irritation. “It is bad enough Vodingo told my father this. You can’t tell strangers.”
“Yes, I can. It’s your punishment, not mine.” She looked up at Caiu with a smile, “while I appreciate the flattery, you should know I intend to give my marriage a very real go. I’m not happy with you for trying to drive a wedge between us but perhaps someday, we can be friends.”
“I don’t think so,” Icaro made his opinion on the subject known.
“I would like this very much, Zorah.”
“Icaro,” she looked at her husband, “dancing has been fun, and this conversation has been titillating but I think I’m ready to leave the club behind tonight. Can we go back to the hotel?”
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