Chapter 7

Book 2: In which Nick gets by with a little help from his friends

Nick woke the next morning to an insistent knocking on his apartment door. When he found his way to the door, he opened it a fraction of the way, aware he was wearing only boxer-briefs. Casey, standing on the other side of the door, was similarly underdressed in a black thong and lacy push-up bra. “Hi, Nick. Do you have a first aid kit, by any chance?”

Nick groaned. Gorgeous girl dressed in only her underwear knocks on your door first thing in the morning, good. She asks for a first aid kit, less good. “Who’s hurt?”

“Emily tripped up on the roof. We think she sprained her ankle.”

“I think I saw a kit in the main pantry.” Nick opened his door all the way. “Come in for a minute while I go put some clothes on. Can I get you ... a robe or something?”

“No, I’m good,” said Casey as he turned to go. As Nick stepped into his bedroom, she called out, “So, I guess you live here?”

Nick left his door open enough to answer while he got changed. “I moved in yesterday. I haven’t even had time to unpack yet.” Fortunately, the box marked “clothes” at the foot of his bed was full of clothes when he pulled it open. As he dug through it, he called out, “If it’s not a rude question, can I ask why you’re dressed like that?”

Casey’s voice sounded like she was right outside the door. “Your cousin Jazz is here. She had this idea that the promos for a video with the words ‘Lingerie Models’ in the title should involve some actual lingerie.”

Nick glanced towards the half-closed door and considered the underwear and t-shirt he’d pulled out of the moving box. He didn’t think Casey would be spying on him as he changed even though he’d be hard-pressed to behave himself if the situation were reversed. Still, if she was going to see him naked and judge him based on it, first thing in the morning when he was unintentionally presenting himself in the best possible light was as good a time as any. He stripped out of his shorts, put on the clean pair and the t-shirt he’d found, and grabbed his jeans from the night before. “I have a cousin named Jazz?”

“Jasmine Abdul-Stone,” Casey answered. “She’s a designer. Have you ever seen a label called Intimates by Jazz? It’s a high-end lingerie line.”

As Nick pulled on his pants, he looked down at the t-shirt he was wearing, a faded green one with “Camp Ten Mile River” printed on it in white letters. Nick hadn’t been to that camp since he was fourteen and the shirt was a little snug.

“I haven’t really spent a lot of time reading the labels on women’s underwear.” He decided to leave the t-shirt on. Casey wasn’t rushing him like Emily’s injury was a real emergency, but he didn’t think he should take the time to unpack while everyone waited for him. He slid on a pair of sandals and stepped out into his living room. “And I don’t remember inviting any of my cousins to come visit today ... other than Pilar, obviously.”

“Emily and Pilar have modeled for her before. She’s friends with Connie.” Casey made a full-body gesture at her outfit as if she could draw even more attention to herself. “Apparently, Kiki and I do too - at least for today.”

Nick didn’t bother to hide his annoyance. He’d met a couple of his Stone cousins and found them surprisingly likeable, but he wasn’t about to start letting the family start walking all over him just because they now considered him one of them. He led Casey down the hall to the shared pantry and located the first aid kit. When Casey reached to take it, he shook his head. “I’ll bring it up myself. I should find out what’s going on up on my roof.”

What was going on appeared to be in two clusters. In one corner of the roof, Stephen and his crew had set up a backdrop. Kiki sat dressed in her street clothes being interviewed by a young woman Nick didn’t recognize. Nearly at the opposite corner, Emily sat directly on the macadam roof with her leg extended, dressed in a pair of bikini bottoms and a sports bra. Pilar in black, French-cut panties and a strategically-torn wifebeater crouched by her ankle while a second woman knelt behind her, supporting her back so she could sit up. In between the two groups, the roof was still littered with construction materials and large items waiting to be installed inside the building. It looked like exactly the sort of place parents had been warning their children not to play since time immemorial for fear that they would hurt themselves, but apparently no one here had gotten that particular memo.

As he picked his way across the roof, Nick’s eyes were primarily on the woman behind Emily. Dressed in jeans and a pink and black camisole, she could have been one of the models, but by process of elimination, she must be Jasmine Abdul-Stone. She had long, dark hair tied into a messy top-knot and tan skin. With each step closer, Nick’s libido came up with a fresh excuse for her behavior. The penitent look when she spotted him coming almost undid him. She had the most amazing, kissable-looking lips.

He decided to put the problem of Jasmine Abdul-Stone aside and focus on his friend’s injury. He placed the heavy, plastic box full of medical supplies by her feet and crouched by Emily’s uninjured ankle, across from Pilar. The other ankle had a ring of darker, contused skin around it. Nick winced sympathetically and looked up at Emily. “Are you all right?”

Emily nodded. “I’m fine. I twisted it a little and everybody freaked out. But, I think it’ll be all right as long as I don’t try to put too much weight on it today.” She held out a hand. “Somebody help me up. I’ve got a confessional to shoot.”

Pilar popped open the kit and drew out a wrapped bandage. “It’s not all right. It’s either sprained or broken. I’m going to wrap it as best as I can, then you need to get to an ER.”

“I don’t need an ER for a sprained ankle.” Emily looked at Nick, eyes pleading. “Do you know anybody who could come here and look at it? I don’t want to mess up the shoot.”

“You mean like a doctor?” Nick asked. When Emily nodded, he frowned. “My dad runs an animal hospital. We know a lot of vets.”

“Maybe not a vet,” said Casey from behind him. “If it’s broken, a vet will want to shoot her.”

“Not helping,” said Jazz, squinting up at Casey and shading her eyes. “Can we get her some cover at least - a tarp or something?”

“I don’t need a tarp!” Exasperated, Emily stuck out her hand to Nick. “Even if the ankle is broken, I can still hop if you’ll be my crutch.”

Everybody turned to look at Nick, apparently leaving the decision up to him. He sighed and rose, taking Emily’s hand. With Jazz at her back and Pilar taking her other hand, she levered herself up and leaned heavily against Nick’s side, one arm around his neck. When he put his arm around her waist, her chest pressed into his ribs. Emily compounded the situationally-inappropriate thoughts that arose by giving him an apologetic look like she felt bad for making him uncomfortable.

With Jazz leading the way and Pilar following, carrying the first aid kit, Emily hobbled to the roof access door with Nick supporting her the whole way. When she saw the stairs down, she looked at them uncertainly. Nick had been up and down them a dozen times, but they did look unusually vertiginous all of a sudden. He looked at Emily, “Do you want me to...”

Emily gave a quick, little nod. “I know I’m not the lightest girl. Maybe next time, you should play D&D with runway models.”

Nick rolled his eyes. Was Emily seriously fishing for compliments right now? If she’d had a single ounce of misplaced fat on her body, Nick would have seen or felt it by now. “Next time, I should lock the door to the roof until they’re done building it out.”

The staircase was six steps down to a small landing, then six more steps down to the residential level. Nick sent Jazz and Pilar downstairs to wait at the bottom of the steps, then leaned down and scooped Emily into his arms. His intellect thought this probably wasn’t a great idea, but his libido was jumping up and down, cheering at its brilliance.

He made it down the first six steps, only brushing the top of Emily’s head against the wall once before she tucked in closer. After standing with his arms around her and catching his breath for a couple of minutes on the landing, he carried Emily neatly down the last set of steps, through the door, and into the lounge. Having managed that part, carrying her across the room was the easy part. Over Jazz’s protest that Emily was going to bleed on his couch, he placed her neatly there. She whispered her thanks and kissed his cheek before releasing her grip on him.

Nick sat on the next couch over and tried to hide that he was catching his breath while Pilar wrapped the ankle and ministered to the scraped knee. When the assistant director came down looking for Pilar, she offered the peroxide and cotton to Nick. “Think you can clean up that elbow?”

Nick hadn’t noticed the scraped elbow before, but he cleaned and dressed it now. He finally turned to Jazz, who’d been watching and hovering ever since they came downstairs. “What were you doing up on my roof anyway?”

“Injuring one of my best models, apparently.” Jazz looked glum.

Nick resisted the urge to comfort her despite loud protests from certain quarters of his psyche. “No. I mean ... what were you doing here at all? You are Jazz, right?”

“That’s me,” admitted Jazz. “I heard my two best models ... the girls who are the faces of IBJ were working on a project together that I wasn’t involved in. I came by with some product to see if we could integrate it into the project or at least its promotions. I planned to ask you before we did anything, but they were only shooting one girl at a time, so I thought maybe I could get some shots for the new line if I stayed out of the way.”

Nick sighed, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath before speaking. “Jazz, I don’t know if this is how the Stones normally do business, but...”

“Nick, I called her.” Emily said softly. “I thought it would be fun to do something for Four Lingerie Models Play Dungeons and Dragons with a Billionaire that involved some actual lingerie. And it was my idea to try to balance on that...”

Nick raised his hands. He might be able to maintain his annoyance with Jazz, but Jazz and Emily together were irresistible. “Fine. Fine. I’ll spank both of you later. Right now, let me just ... I think I know how to get a doctor here. Just ... hold tight.”

He rose and left the lounge before he could stammer more. He’d joked about spanking them to try to break the tension, but the look they exchanged when he said it told him that they didn’t know if he was joking or not and, whether they would consider letting him punish them or not, they clearly didn’t want to be on his bad side.

He’d understood to some degree how people would want to be his friends because he could do things for them. Until that moment, he hadn’t understood what lengths they might go to to avoid the things he could do to them. It was a heady realization that made his stomach drop uncomfortably. He was glad for the excuse to get out of the room while the thought settled into its proper place instead of the forefront of his mind.

The little cream-colored rectangle of cardboard read “Stryker-Stone Concierge Service” with a phone number beneath it. On the back was a five-digit code written neatly in blue ink. Nick had met his cousin Jesse once for about an hour, wedged between Jesse’s morning fencing practice and his flying out of the city on his way to New Orleans. Jesse had been charming and charismatic, but so busy with his own things that he couldn’t spend the time he wanted with his newly-discovered cousin. Before he’d left their meeting, Jesse introduced Nick to Penny MacAllister, describing her as his “terrifyingly efficient personal assistant” and “literally the most valuable person” he’d ever hired. In addition to answering Nick’s questions about the Stone family and the general subject of being wealthy, she’d given Nick the card. It had been in response to the question “how do I hire somebody like you?”

When he dialed the number and entered the code, a young woman answered, “Hello, Mr. Coyle. How can I help you?”

“I ... Penny?” Nick asked.

“Mr. Coyle, my name is Eleanor. I’ve been assigned to your account team by SSCS. Miss MacAllister works exclusively with your cousin Jesse. Is there something I can help you with today?”

Nick frowned into his phone. “I didn’t set up any account with you. Did I?”

“When Penny requested an access code for your use, we set up an account to track your usage. At this time, I’m authorized to provide you most of our concierge service free of charge so that you can determine if you’d like to continue to use SSCS on an ongoing basis. Is there something I can help you with today?”

“I don’t know,” Nick admitted. “Would you be able to help me find a doctor who can make a housecall today?”

“Is this an emergency medical situation?” Eleanor’s tone became fractionally more alert.

“Not an emergency - a sprained, maybe broken ankle. Not mine ... a friend’s,” said Nick.

“You’d like me to find a doctor who will come to your home some time today who can look at and treat an ankle injury on-site. Is that correct?”

“Yeah...” Nick said tentatively.

“May I share your name and contact information with potential service providers?” Eleanor asked.

“Sorry. What?”

“May I tell the doctor who you are and give them your phone number so they can contact you directly?” Eleanor explained. “We often find that providers are more amenable to requests for extraordinary service when they know who they’re providing it for.”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Nick agreed.

“It may take a short, but appreciable time to arrange this service. Is there anything else our team can help you with in the meantime?”

“Uh, no.” said Nick. “How long will it take before you know if you can find anyone?”

“We have several possible providers available. My associate Anita is working through the list now. A delay of more than twenty minutes would be unusual.”

It didn’t take twenty minutes. Nick had barely managed to find a better-fitting t-shirt before the doctor called.

“Do you think he’s really mad?” Emily asked as Nick disappeared into the hallway.

“I think he was joking,” said Jazz. She hoped Nick was joking anyway. Jazz’s social and business life were already deeply intertwined and, while she’d come here today hoping to charm her wealthy new cousin, she’s probably have to cut her losses if he turned out to be some demanding sadist. “You said he was nice. Right?”

“He seemed nice ... sweet and kind of over-awed by us, honestly.” Emily shook her head. “I didn’t think he’d move so fast with Kiki, though.”

“I’ve partied with Kiki. She’s kind of a ... frictionless surface,” offered Jazz. “I never saw her freak out like she did on you today, though.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “That was totally psycho, right? It wasn’t just my imagination. Did she seriously think I would injure myself like this to get a guy’s attention?”

Jazz gave a head-shake. “Even if this is just a sprain, you’re going to be off your feet for a few weeks. The Milan show is at the end of July.”

Emily put her arm over her eyes. “Shit! You’re not replacing me in Milan. Are you?”

“No. If you can walk, you’re walking in Milan,” said Jazz. “And I’ll find a way to shoot your catalog stuff around this. But ... do you have anything else booked? I know you’ve had a hard time finding work.”

Emily shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. Nobody else is going to shoot around a sprained ankle. I’ll have to figure out how to line up something for August while I’m on crutches.”

Instead of answering, Jazz said, “I should really look at your ass. Roll over.”

Emily groaned, but obeyed. “Please tell me I’m not going to have a scar on my ass.”

Jazz didn’t answer until she’d cleaned the scratch at the top of Emily’s right leg with peroxide and put a wide bandage over it. “It’s not on your ass and I don’t think it’s going to scar.”

Emily breathed a sigh of relief. Jazz cleaned a couple of other small abrasions. Quietly, she said, “I know you didn’t deliberately sprain your ankle, but maybe competing for Nick’s attention isn’t such a bad thing. Pilar thought you two hit it off pretty well yesterday.”

“Eventually, yes. First, I was inexcusably rude to him,” Emily admitted.

“He seems to have excused it,” Jazz pointed out. “He didn’t hesitate to carry you down those stairs.”

The sound of Nick coming back up the hall ended the conversation. He called out, “There’s a Dr. Walker on his way over. He should be here in less than an hour.”

“He’s not a vet. Is he?” Emily raised her head.

“He’s an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in sports medicine. Apparently, he’s worked with cousin Jesse before.” Nick seemed to be in high spirits as he sat down in a chair near Emily’s head and addressed Jazz. “Have you ever used Stryker-Stone Concierge Service?”

“Piecemeal.” Jazz busied herself with reassembling the first aid kit. “I’d love an on-call account, but I could afford that or I could afford three more full-time staffers. Maybe when IBJ gets more successful...”

“How much is an on-call contract?” Nick asked.

“They quoted me a quarter million a year base,” said Jazz.

Nick looked thoughtful. “I can see how they might be worth it. Penny seems like she runs everything for Jesse.”

“She pretty much does.” Jazz rose enough to sit at Emily’s feet. “But, Penny’s a factotum. She’s way more expensive than an on-call account.”

“How much more expensive?” Nick asked.

Jez shrugged. “Nobody knows. I’ve heard some outlandish figures, but the contracts are all sealed and filed on Jayanesia. Penny might tell you if you asked.”

“I think I might have an easier time getting a hold of Jesse again than Penny,” said Nick. “I got the impression she was on-call pretty much twenty-four seven.”

“She is, but she still has time to slip away from time to time,” said Jez. “We go dancing together sometimes. In fact, she just asked me what I’m doing on the fourth if you want to hang out.”

“Actually, I’m having a party here on the fourth. If you invited her to come along, do you think she would?” Nick asked.

“If there’s dancing, probably,” said Jazz. “Are you inviting me?”

“If you promise not to injure any of my guests, yes.” Nick turned to Emily. “How are you holding up?”

Emily rolled on her side to look up at him. “It doesn’t hurt too badly. And Jazz doesn’t think I’ll get a scar on my ass.”

“That’s ... good,” said Nick. He was saved from having to say more by the elevator dinging. A fit, middle-aged man dressed for golf and carrying a pair of crutches emerged and Nick went to greet him. They spoke briefly and shook hands before coming over to where Jazz and Emily waited.

Doctor Walker introduced himself to Emily, had her sit up, and knelt in front of her before testing her ankle with thumb and forefinger. She winced and closed her eyes. He nodded thoughtfully. “That’s definitely sprained.”

Emily opened her eyes. “Not broken? I’m supposed to walk the runway at the beginning of August.”

Dr. Walker felt her ankle, foot and leg again before reporting, “No. Talus, fibula, tibia ... all there, all feel intact. You should come in on Monday for an x-ray just in case, but it definitely feels like a grade two sprain. You need to stay off it for the next couple of weeks, ice it, elevate it, and keep it wrapped.” He handed her his card. “Do that for two weeks and we’ll see if we can’t get you started on some strengthening exercises. I wouldn’t count on it being all better in four weeks, but it might be.”

Emily took the card and, with nowhere else to put it, tucked it into the strap of her sports bra. Meekly, she said, “Ok. Thanks, doctor.”

The doctor expertly wrapped her ankle, wrote her a prescription, and handed it to her with a bottle of pills. Then, he rose and shook Nick’s hand again, “Anything else I can do for you while I’m here?”

“If you don’t mind, could you talk to Kiki while you’re here? She’s got a ... stomach thing going on. I think she’s still up on the roof.” Nick asked. “I know it’s not your specialty.”

Dr. Walker held up his prescription pad, “I can offer her something to settle her stomach.” He looked back at Emily and Jazz. “And, you can rely on my complete discretion.”

“Uh, thanks,” said Nick. Once the doctor had headed up to the roof, he sat down again and considered Emily. “That’s not so bad, I guess.”

“She’s not going to be able to work until she can walk without crutches,” Jazz pointed out. Now that the initial crisis was handled, she let the guilt wash over her. She’d always run Intimates by Jazz in a spontaneous, seat-of-your-pants kind of way and a spontaneous guerilla photo shoot on a rooftop was exactly her style. Now, she might have really screwed up her friend’s career.

Nick looked to Emily for confirmation. She nodded glumly and sighed. “I’ll manage. Jazz says I can do some catalog work with only one working ankle, but I won’t be able to book anything else until I can walk.”

Nick looked pensive and didn’t say anything for a long time. More than once, Jazz was tempted to break the silence, but he looked to be genuinely thinking about something and she didn’t want to interrupt. Finally, he asked, “Emily, how many Instagram followers did you tell me last night that you had?”

Emily had laid back down. Now, she twisted and turned to look at him. “Around 1.2 million. Why?”

“Well ... my social media has been blowing up since people started to hear about my inheritance. If this isn’t too opportunistic, could I ask you to help me sort it out while you’re off your feet? I’d pay you, of course.”

Emily sat up. “I ... uh, what would you need me to do?”

“Well, the first thing I’d need you to do is tell me what I need you to do,” said Nick. “I think I had about thirty facebook friends before all this started. I have no idea how to manage large numbers of friends or followers or even what the difference between friends and followers is. If I’m not going to just drop off social media all together, I need someone to figure out how to handle it intelligently. You can do that. Right?”