08||

Happiness is extravagant

Wet. Excessively wet.

Scintillating, glistening, and no doubt expensive black purse gloriously settled on a mahogany desk and two men cordially stared at it as if it would blow up.

"Why in the world would you steal someone's purse?" Wes blankly looked at his boss, who sucked the pale straw, drinking his steaming milky coffee.

Tayson scowled at him. "I told you I didn't. She left it behind by herself."

"And as a nice man that you are not but you can try to be, you should have given it back to this mystery lady of yours."

Tayson rubbed his lips, feeling his body warming up when the hot coffee coquetted with his tongue. He set the mug on the table with a soft thud. "Sometimes, we gotta be bad."

Wes rolled his eyes and asked, "Tell me who she is and about the picture you sent me?"

Tayson excluded the meddlesome man and simply unwrapped the handbag. He knew it was fucking wrong, but he was desperate. Like a psychopath, he probed to unleash the face behind Ebony and ultimately reached her. He couldn't just let her go.

Tayson didn't go through her purse but picked one and the only thing he wanted.

Her passport. 

"Tayson! It's a passport."

"Oh no, shit sherlock. Thanks, man. I didn't know." The greyish eyes man evilly gaped at her passport, lower lip between his teeth.

"Now, how's the Rapunzel gonna escape from me?" he hummed to himself and chuckled. 

He was so submerged in counting the number of countries she had been through, that he didn't notice his assistant sniffing him and touching his hand. When he felt him too close, Tayson jerked in dread, shoving Wes away.

"The heck you are doing? I am fucking straight!" he exclaimed, eyeing his flushed assistant.

"So I am!" Wes defended himself. "But you smell strange and why do you have nail marks on your wrist? Tomorrow you have to shoot for the monthly magazine, Tayson. Those marks are gonna cause unnecessary controversies."

Tayson peeped at the nails marks on his skin; the cruel, fierce scratches that Leona gifted him for prying. Though he owned the Don Juan character, he wasn't in the least favored women to get their nails on his skin. He cautioned them before they get down to their business and of course, women being submissive to him, they heeded.

He did screw around but didn't play with hearts. He made it clear what he wanted, he made sure women know that everything is just fun and nothing more. Playing with feelings had never been his charm, cause he once drank the juice of heartbreak and it was still whirling fresh in his blood.

"Can't you just keep your dick in your pants?" Wes rolled his eyes. "I wonder how the condom never broke." 

"You are just jealous of those women because you don't get any dick," Tayson stated, as he slightly grazed his fingers over the reddish marks and his mind floods with her resemblance.

Wes banged his hands on the table. "For the millionth time! I like pussies!"

Tayson smirked, trying not to laugh at the aggravated man. "Have you ever tasted any?"

Wes gritted his teeth, throwing his hands up in the air. "I am leaving!" Already walking to the door.

"Where to? To taste some? Let me take you to the club, then!"

"Fuck you, Tayson! I will throw my resignation letter, tomorrow!"

Tayson laughed as the boisterous sound of slamming the door echoed. He loved annoying Wes cause the man would get so defensive. 

He looked at the passport and a strange smile glowed on his face. "Leona, what an eerie woman you are."

He could still feel her bitter scent as if it was imprinted to his senses, but he couldn't figure her out. Being a businessman since eighteen had acquainted him to read people, especially women. He was excellent at handling women. 

Leona's eyes were beautiful blank pages, and Tayson was fascinated to engrave the colorful inks in them.

After taking a cold shower, Tayson skipped dinner and laid down on his frosty bed.

The silk fabric tickled his bareback, absorbing his warmth as he blankly stared at the silvery ceiling. The only sounds that accompanied his lonely spirit were the rhythm of the soul and even breaths.

Gradually the paper of his past crumbled in his fist slowly unfold. 

He rested his palm over his heart and mumbled, "Why are you so complicated to deal with? Just co-operate with my mind sometimes, is it too hard?"

When the alienation slithering nearly shredded him, and the knots of unwanted memories bind around his throat to suffocate him, Tayson instantly called his mother. 

"Hello, Tayson. Are you in your office, honey?"

His restless self calmed down hearing the delicate voice, which sang too fragile. He fastened his eyes, trying to pull himself together but his mind swooned over everything little thing.

"Tayson, what happened? Is everything all right, son?"

"Yes. I just missed you," he admitted, heeding to the soft breath that seemed like they will shrivel. "Why are you awake so late? Is dad there or should I stop by?"

"I am fine, Tayson, and your dad is here too. Just rest okay, I heard you are having a very harsh schedule these days. Are you eating well? Are you staying late at the office again? Don't okay? You have a migraine, take care. Nothing is important more than your health."

Tayson felt the rush of emotion and he couldn't understand why he was being like this but he couldn't hold. Maybe it was loneliness. He breaths out boisterously, bolting straight and burying his face in his hand. 

The dry solemn tear fell on his freezing palm as the feeling of futile and helplessness crawled within him. Why can't I help my mother? Why can't I save her? What type of son I am?

The strong man whispered, "I am sorry, mom."

The daggers of poison stab straight through his chest as he swallowed the unshed tears. His mother lodged in silence but he could precisely listen to her devastating and he couldn't do anything. 

He could just watch her slipping away like the glittering sand of the magnificent seashore. 

"Me too, son. Me too," his mother choked out, and a sob broke through her.

Tayson bit on his knuckles hard, allowing the noiseless stream of gushes to torturously kiss his cheek. 

Can I be happy?

.

.

.

"You don't have to stay here. Just let me talk to Ronald and book a hotel room for your stay. You can even stay in his penthouse," Ryan let out behind her, strutting into the apartment with a small suitcase.

"No. I am staying here. It's my apartment after all." Leona trudged into the opaque apartment, and a quaver monopolized her body.

"But Leona y-"

Ambling straight to her bedroom, she blasted the door shut, puffing slightly at the fuzzy smell. She flicked the lights on and the memories punched her hard in the guts. She didn't spend most of the time here, this one-bedroom apartment wasn't her home. It was just a gift from her father given to her on her eighteenth birthday along with the permission to move out. 

"Hey, I am back," She mumbled. "Missed me?"

Once this place was her world. It was the same place where she made herself a beauty queen that she was to kill the world with her precious dimples and rule the galaxies with her sparkling eyes.

The cheerful room it was then, now is dead just like her soul. 

Leona quietly glid off her heels and sauntered over to her wardrobe. She never thought that she would stay at her old place, but here she is. And the credit was attributed to Tayson.

"I swear, I am going to chuck that man off the cliff if I see him again, which I eventually will."

Her wardrobe was compressed with cute and vibrant clothes that she used to nurture, but not anymore. Excavating a rusty raven hoodie she silently hoped that it would fit her.

"Fuck it's tight," she grumbled, smirking at her own words. "That's what he said."

The hoodie hugged her bust tight and she uncomfortably huffed, cursing at the ludicrous cloth and that idiot man.

"How did he even figure out it's me! The man got some brain, I guess."

Her gaze docked on the assorted books on her desk, where she used to study and prepare speeches then doze off due to tiredness. Rocking over to the mini desk library that she created with Lev, her younger brother, Leona grabbed a specific book.

"Everything is still the same," she whispered. Except you, her inner voice screamed.

She knocked off the grime over the blue book and unfolded it. The crips pages turn on their accord, guiding her right where she preferred to be. A brittle picture popped up, and before it could skid, Leona snagged it. The picture was like sharp silverware on her throat, the longer she stared, the closer she was to death. 

Plopping the book back at its place, Leona wandered to the mezzanine. The frigid whiff smacked against her skin and her damp dark locked sway behind her. She rested her elbows on the railing and leaned with the picture and the lighter in another hand.  

The moonlight squirted over her blazing frame as she lit a bluish flame and chared the nook of the picture. 

"Goodbye, dear brother," she declared with a smile and glistening eyes, lovingly staring at her and Ethan's picture getting demolished. A hysteric laugh cracked through her as she wiped the bead of pearls adorning her eyelashes and perked up at the murky blanket slashed above her. 

Do I deserve to be happy?