Mena only needed to work with Grip for three months. Make an assessment of his assets and income, his financial obligations, needs and wants, and recommend an investment plan. She didn’t even need to be in the same room as him to do most of that and nothing they’d done together fifteen years ago would change the quality of the advice she’d give him now.
Also, Vera had a point, Mena wasn’t that girl with the rad body, black hair and cat’s-eye makeup anymore and apart from a tattoo he’d never see, Grip had no way of proving she was.
“Looks like I have a new client.” She clinked her still full glass against Vera’s empty one. “Partnership, here I come.”
FOUR
Grip adjusted his body armor and put distance between himself and Abel, Isaac and Oscar who were arguing about how much a point-blank hit hurt. No one was going to ask for his opinion. Since he’d decided to go to S&Y instead of staying with the advisors the Tice family used, no one had said much of anything to him.
He was included but on the outer. It was awkward but that was exactly the reason he’d made that decision. It was bad enough they all argued about band stuff, forcing him to either act like Switzerland or broker a peace. He didn’t want to have to continually argue about money as well, and as the only non-family member he’d always be voted off stage.
On stage, it was a whole different matter. They played for shit without him to control the beat, the speed and the power of their music and he could make that point clear anytime by simply folding his arms, stilling his feet and listening to it all fall apart.
Until they got back into the studio, they’d have to make do with taking out their frustration with each other through paintball. And the first person to try point-blanking him—he pointed two fingers at his eyes and then at Oscar—would find they had four flat tires on their new Maserati.
The death staring was interrupted by Evie. “How’s my favorite traitor?” she said, swinging her helmet so it bumped his thigh.
And that answered who was on his team today. His favorite Tice.
“Whose puppy did you kick to be stuck with me?” he said, surprised to see her. “When did you fly in?” Figures no one bothered to tell him Evie was home. “Is Jay with you?”
“All the questions and none of the answers. Poor Grip. Everyone hates you. I got in last night and Jay is signing someone’s shirt in the car park.”
He pulled Evie into a hug. He’d missed her while she was traveling with Jay and his band, World’s End. Lost Property didn’t get along as well without her influence. “How long are you staying?”
“Long enough to make sure you guys don’t implode. My brothers are dimwits. Now that you’re big-timing it, you absolutely need your own separate financial advice.”
He could be honest with Evie. “Why do I feel like dipshit about it?”
Evie patted his armor-plated chest. “Because for once you’re the disruptor, not the pacifier.”
Ah, that’d be it then. He raised his arms over his head and bellowed. “I am the disruptor.”
Evie laughed, and Oscar shouted. “You are dead meat, Grippen,” and hit him in the back with a green paintball before they’d even fucking started playing.
It was on. Two against three until Jay joined the team and they worked out a strategy, which was essentially about letting Abel, Isaac and Oscar exhaust themselves, get frustrated and take useless risks. Which was some kind of metaphor dressed up in paint splotches because that’s what Grip feared they all might do with too much money.
“Mum put you on to Caroline Swire, right?” Jay said, shifting from behind the bunker they were wedged tight in to lob a shot directly at Abel’s thigh, taking him out and making him chuck an epic tantrum.
“She’s just had a bub so I’m working with Mena Grady.”
“And?” Evie ducked an incoming.
“She’s a stone-cold bitch,” who blushed the prettiest shade of pink, “with a great laugh. Won’t let me get away with any nonsense. Just what I was looking for.”
They could no longer hear Isaac or Oscar. Jay took a risk by standing to look around and a paintball whizzed past, almost nailing him. “Stone-cold bitches generally don’t have great laughs.” he said, crashing down beside Evie.
“More ice princess. White blonde, a bit stiff, focused.” When she wasn’t being embarrassed by him. “Probably thinks I’m a,” he searched for a word and landed on, “wanker,” for ease. “She’s a professional and it doesn’t matter what she thinks about me personally.”
“Makes it easier not to want to sleep with her,” Evie said.
Grip peered out from behind the rough log arrangement that formed the side of their bunker. “I think she’d break my hand if I made a pass at her, which would be, you know.” He saw a flash of movement and fired, hitting a tree, “inconvenient. And I’ve stopped doing that. The one-night thing, the quick hook-up.”
“You what?” Evie said, leaning around him to see his eyes inside his goggles.
He pushed her back and down as a volley of shots came at her bringing that unique paintball smell, fish oil and stale banana. “It was great for a long time, no strings, nothing serious, but something changed. Success, the money. Now it just makes me feel lonely.”
“Oh baby,” she said. “How long have you been in this sad state?”
He turned to Jay. “She’s fucking nosy. How do you put up with her full-time?”
Evie answered. “He thinks he’s the luckiest man alive.”
“I always was into being
