Chapter 15: Blue

OLLIE

~Gay?~

I choked heavily on the hot coffee.

A flash of him closing the bathroom door and pushing me against the bathroom sink ran through my head.

~Oh dear lord, you have no idea, do you?~

“I think it’s a matter of time before he comes out of the closet,” she mused, “He has never brought a girl home and has never had an official girlfriend. Just one teenage love.”

She cut herself off, as if realizing she had revealed more than she intended.

“Or maybe, he is too in love with himself,” I suggested, watching her blank expression.

I was walking on eggshells now.

She seemed to debate whether to defend him, but my comments were too irresistibly funny to her.

After a few seconds, she broke into a laugh.

“He likes controlling things, owning them,” she explained, “He sucks the life out of me and Alexander. Nothing is off the table if it means he will have the upper hand.”

She sounded bitter.

I believed her.

In the awkward silence, I knew I had hit a nerve in Vivian and didn’t want to poke any further.

It was clear that she resented his control and power over her.

“You look unprepared,” Vivian signaled.

My natural toes slipped through puffy slippers with no nail polish.

“The event is happening in a few hours.”

Yeah, well, I have other plans.

Being sunken into Sarah’s infinite beauty routine sounded like hell.

The makeup appointment I agreed on later made me hit my limit, and these few hours spent by myself sounded more like a much-needed peace.

“I am a natural beauty,” I brushed her off.

Vivian found that amusing.

She tilted her head.

“I like you. You are—so you,” she said.

“Yeah, well,” My phone buzzed.

The number had no Caller ID, but I’d been actively applying for jobs, so I decided to answer.

“Take it,” Vivian encouraged as she served me more coffee.

“Olivia Summer, here,” I greeted cheerfully.

A familiar voice hit me.

“Ollie.”

“Why are you calling?” I kept my tone flat, not trying to spark Vivian’s attention as she was now giving me her back, putting the coffee pot in its place.

“Please, don’t hang up! I just want to talk,” Roger pleaded.

~Fucking Roger.~

“Hang on.” I brought the speaker to my chest, bringing my attention to Vivian.

“Any idea where I could take this?”

~Any idea where I can talk and no one will listen to my problems?~

Vivian smirked.

“There is a library on the third floor.”

Oh, so she was a little wicked too.

Wasn’t that where Sarah told me Darius’s room was?

I chose not to ask, fearing she would be suspicious about me knowing that.

I didn’t want to sound like a stalker, a Darius groupie.

“A library?” I asked quickly, already standing from the stool.

“A big one, on the third floor. You love books, don’t you?”

“Oh, really?”

“You can also find a well equipped gym… My cousin’s bedroom…” she suggested, sniffing her coffee.

“So many things on the third floor for entertainment.”

“That one. Definitely his bedroom is the winner, Vivian, thank you,” I said just to make her laugh as I pulled the phone up to my ear again.

Vivian smirked.

“No biggie! I always have the best ideas. See you tonight at the party,” she called as I walked up the stairs into Darius’s bedroom.

No! The library—of course, that is where I was headed.

I sighed before speaking, holding the phone so tight that I could almost feel the material bending in my hands.

“What do you want, Roger?”

“I… I…” His voice trembled.

You would think that you would get to know someone after four years of living together.

Nope, I was dead wrong; our relationship was based on a lie; it was all a lie.

The idea I had built of him was nothing but a mask of smoke.

He fucked me over, and he had nothing to say but ~I…~? Did his brain stop functioning?

“I what? Time’s up, Roger. Cut to the point.”

“Wait! Please, hear me out.”

I reached the third floor and peered down the hallway, counting the doors to Darius’s bedroom and deciding to get as far from that door as possible.

I took the right wing of the corridor in search of that big library.

I found it.

It was more of an office than a library, and no, it was not big, though this had to do with the amount of books on the walls.

It was perfect, cozy, and elegant.

I entered swiftly, closing the door behind me.

“Fuck off.” My signature passive-aggressive smile appeared now that I was alone and could speak freely at a normal volume.

“I need you, Ollie. I know I made a big mistake.”

A mistake?

My eyes scanned the library of this studio.

A mistake is someone mixing poetry and business in one single section above my nose.

Well, of course this house was built for giants and this is what they considered eye level.

What was this unique selection of old and modern authors?

Maybe someone’s favorites?

My hands started to wander, touching the books in appreciation as I walked among them.

Then I found one tiny book.

One tiny book that looked so familiar.

Hmm? I could have sworn I brought a book like this to the manor.

I was almost sure I grabbed it before leaving my building.

“That train has left the station, buddy.” I hid how irritated I felt by his fake apologies while I grabbed the book.

“You know this is our dream, Ollie Polly. I regret it!” He sounded surprisingly bitter.

And he had the nerve to call me Ollie Polly?

~Ollie Polly, my ass!~

~You greedy motherfucker.~

My stomach twisted.

Roger made me feel sick, and now my throat was closing.

If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought his pain was genuine, but nothing would ever soften me up again.

Nothing.

He was a narcissistic psychopath.

I was a ninja, ready to slice anything in my way.

“A dream you fucked me over for.”

All I could feel was the pressure in my chest and the loud pounding of my heart, but not a single tear of relief.

Damnit, I jumped, shaking my body.

~Agr!~ How good would it feel to just cry and release some of this for good?

But, no, I was stuck in this state of anger.

I mean, you would expect an ex to break your heart, but Roger was different.

He broke my wallet.

Now I was Uncle Sam’s eternal whore because of him.

Shit, I was so crazy.

What was I even thinking by getting in debt to fund our venture?

“I can’t do this without you,” he continued, and this time his voice cracked. “What I did was wrong, I know, I know, I know. Please, forgive me.”

“Forgive you? Or is it that you need me?” My mind started working. Of course, he couldn’t do it without me. He needed my brain. ~Literally.~

We had been teaching artificial intelligence how to be a critic, writer, and reader, and to do this we’d chosen deep learning rather than traditional machine learning, giving algorithms a different hierarchy.

This method allowed AI to learn and think through structures modeled on a human brain. And it was modeled on ~my brain~! The model was created with my preferences and thought patterns.

The trials were so accurate to my answers that it creeped me out.

Tada! It was Ollie with steroids, it was me inside a computer.

~What a shame, Roger. I really thought you were a brilliant programmer.~ I laughed at how silent he was. ~Guess you ditched me prematurely. Aren’t you clever?~

And Roger Ward was clever, more than clever.

He was, in fact, brilliant. I remembered how intentional he was.

I had admired him. He was a man with a vision and purpose, traits that had made me fall for him.

It was a long infatuation that had lasted only as long as he needed something from me.

“We still can revolutionize the future of publishing together,” he said. “We are so close to making this—our machine differentiates between a masterpiece and a mediocre story. Soon, it will be ready to judge someone else’s work. I am certain. Your idea of including story logic for free flow is surprisingly working. It needed structure to be able to improvise.”

Soon and working? Was he baiting me?

Now I was in shock.

“Is it improvising? Last time it was running great on horror and romance. Not so much with writing comedy, though. How can you be sure it is soon to be ready?”

Wait, stop! Why was I adding more meat to the conversation? Roger was not my business partner anymore!

I had to stop helping him!

“Because I have added more data points so its algorithm can evolve.”

“You are forcing it to grow too fast.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“I can finally say: I am so close,” he said. “We—We are so close, Ollie,” he corrected quickly. “Could you imagine? What we built delivering novels, screenplays, short stories—”

The way he said ~We~ again, as if we were a team. That was in the past.

I’d supervised our project for years while Roger had programmed its neural networks, and I had never heard him say those words before: Close.

I couldn’t deny getting excited.

“When?” I wondered. Maybe that is why he changed so suddenly, our project was coming soon to the light.

He just wanted the spotlight for himself.

“When you get back,” he said, baiting me in the team narrative again.

Roger Ward needed me, that is why this fucker was calling me back.

I laughed this time, hysterically. I was not falling for it again.

He was stuck, I was broke.

I laughed some more, now holding the weight of my body with the library shelves. The spasms of giggles took over my body.

“I don’t want your apology, Roger. We are done.” I ended the call.

We. Were. Done.

We were done the moment he took off with everything, without an explanation.

I was already swinging this tiny book like a fan for air, debating my options.

I had more important things to focus on other than Roger.

The anxiety of what I would do with my life once these two weeks were over returned.

Time to return to the real world. This was not where I belonged.

“What is it about you, opening doors for no reason?”

That low voice startled me, making me turn around as if I were hiding a tail behind my legs.

Darius Rothschild stood at the door’s threshold. Big and serious.

My eyes popped at his chest and damp hair. It was Darius, but he looked different.

He looked wild and wet, and… My mouth watered.

Shirtless. Darius Rothschild was shirtless and in front of me.