The Dark of You (GxG)

1. Don't get yourself into trouble

"Hadley, are you ever going to grow up!" My father shouted down at me as I sat on the couch in his office. I crossed my legs and arms as I stared out the window over New York. The rain pours down over every little street as the eye can see. The only time I would be in his office is when he is mad with me, which has happened a lot during the years. 

"Ronald was your twelfth this year, and we are only in September," He gritted his teeth as he paced back and forth. The skinny old man sure knows how to keep himself active these days.

"Well, I have told you since I was eight that I don't need a babysitter," I sighed and shook my head. He turned to me, his whole face red as he pointed his finger at me. 

"They are not babysitters. They are there to protect you, and you know that," He said firmly, and I rolled my eyes.

"They are all the same, boring, old men who either eat or drink to drown their pathetic lives," I complained, and it's true. They all feel sorry for themselves because they can't go back to the military, police force, or any other work they used to do. Simply because they are either injured or too old. I don't understand how they can all be the same.

"You don't make it easy for them either," Dad added, and it almost made me laugh.

"It's not my fault they are either too big or too drunk to pay attention to me," I shrugged, making stupid excuses, but it's true. They are too easy to fool, and I think it's because they don't really care either.

"You run away and hide as if it's all a game to you. Not just that you treat them terribly," He said, and I smiled, knowing clearly that it would annoy him more than anything. He shook his head and sat down behind his huge desk and poured himself a glass of scotch. Dad pushed his short gray hair back with a sigh as he held the crystal glass in his hand.

"And here I thought the older you got, the more reasonable you would become," His words hit me deeply, but I didn't let it show. In my twenty-two years of life, I have learned that you do not show emotion to my father. He simply doesn't know how to deal with it.

Especially after my mother passed when I was eight, he shut everything good in him away. He even shoved me aside, placing guards and babysitters to raise me. What kind of love is that. While he traveled the world on business meetings to forget about mom and me. I was left alone with people who didn't even love me.

Do I make sure to make my father's life a nightmare? Of course, I am. I'm angry. I have been angry for years.  When I found out that I was pretty good at annoying the security guards he surrendered me with, it became fun. The older I became the more I understood that I'm nothing but a part of his life he want's to forget. I'm the reminder of pain and loss. There is nothing worse than to see that in the eyes of the person who's supposed to love you. To understand that you add a greater wound to someone's grief, instead of healing it. I am the reason why my father can never truly alleviate. And he is the reason for mine. What an endless, venomous loop we have created. 

I've had around over a hundred guards since I was a child. Most of them would last for a few months before they couldn't take my pranks, or they were never able to find me. It's hard to protect someone who doesn't want it. But then again, they are all the same as the one before. So dull and pathetic. Most of them don't even care. They only want the big paycheck. My life doesn't matter to them. I'm just another job they have to do until they can't take it anymore and go to the next one.

"I'll send Mario with you for now until I find you a new one, and please be nice to him," Dad said, pulling on the tie around his neck in discomfort.

"Fine," I sighed. I'm always left with Mario when dad needs to search for a new guard for me. I don't mind him. Mario is alright—a close friend of the family. He has worked for dad since he started this company thirty years ago. Mario goes wherever my father goes.

"And please don't get yourself into trouble," He said as I got up from my seat.

"Sure," I answered before I left his office.

***

It's been a few days and I'm still stuck with Mario. It never takes dad this long to find someone new. Mario is not like the other guards. Most of them are quiet, but he doesn't shut up. He thinks he is so funny with his dry jokes. Once I had finally lost him, I snuck away from the street and into a nightclub. I have no idea where I am, and I don't care anymore. 

To have a person around you all day and every day, there is no privacy. I can't be myself, and people don't want to go out with me because there is constantly a third wheel with us. They are not comfortable having a man staring and listening to every conversation we have. I completely understand them, but they are not the one who is suffering from it all the time.

I want to be normal. That is all I wish for. To go out with a friend or go on a date with a woman without feeling disgusted by someone looking. Then there is the fact that they need to know who I am out with. I can't pick up someone randomly without them needing to run a background check first.

That's why I run and hide away, so I can go out and have fun with whoever I meet in bars or nightclubs like this one. Music is blasting all over the speakers that are played by a DJ. He clearly has been drinking too much as he can barely stand on his own feet. Red and purple lights flashed all around the dancing men and women on the floor.

Tapping my pointy finger on the bar as I'm waiting for my drink. I search the room, hoping I find someone of interest. A woman on the dance floor has been watching me a few times, but she is not really what I'm looking for. I know what I want once I see it.

"Here," I turned to the bartender, who placed my drink on the top of the bar. I gave him a small smile before I turned to face the dancefloor again, wondering who I would spend my night with.

Yet by now, I should learn that I can only find the woman I want sitting at the bar or leaning against the wall—the ones who are too shy or too scared to be out on the dance floor. Their low confidence and lack of need for control are what I desire the most.

I have been told that I like those women because it's the only time I feel like I'm in control of my life. The little power that is mine. I think Neil might have been right though. But I still don't regret that I left him with a broken nose. I didn't see him again. Yet, my father was threatened to be sued for the violence I had caused. Dad paid Neil under the table to avoid a charge. Neil was always so rude or maybe it was how he saw right through me that infuriated me. I believe he used to be a behavioral analyst in the past. Then somehow he ended up being on my father's paycheck. 

I hated every word that Neil said because his opinion of me hasn't left my mind. I have been under my father's power my entire life, which has left me with nothing but anger and resentment toward people who tries to command me. I might have a slight problem with authority, and no one has ever been able to put me in place except my father. So yeah, I might punish the guards to get back at my father. It's an endless cycle that will never end.

A woman sat down a couple of chairs away from me. Her dark brown hair rests on top of her shoulder as she gazed around unsurely before her brown eyes met mine. I smiled at her, and she returned it, but shyly. Finally.

***

I awoke, staring at the hotel room's white ceiling that I checked in the night before. Trying to remember every memory from last night, it ended up in a blur. I left with a woman after we had tones of drinks. I turned to the side, seeing no one beside me. I'm not sure what happened, but I am not wearing any clothes, that is for sure.

"She left a while ago," My eyes widened as I heard an unfamiliar voice in the room. I raised myself, holding onto the sheet. A woman seated in the chair has a cup of coffee in her hand as she stares at her phone. Her ash-blond hair is up in a tight ponytail as her blue eyes watch the screen intently.

"I don't remember inviting you," I said, hesitant.

"You didn't," She answered flatly, her eyes never leaving her phone. I licked my dry lips as I kept staring. Her black leather jacket with a thin black shirt underneath and dark jeans hugged her long legs nicely. I tried to fit the pieces back together, but I don't even know where they came from.

"Then why the fuck are you here?" I asked, trying not to sound intimidated as a stranger is sitting in my hotel room. Her blue eyes shifted to me, and she didn't say a word as she looked back down at her phone.

"Because you, Hadley. You are my new job, "