Free The Ups and Downs of Being Dead by M. R. Cornelius Page B

hinges with her
fingers. “I’m surprised I didn’t grind my teeth down to the gums.”
    Robbie ran his tongue across the front of his teeth, then
took another long drag on his cigarette.
    “I need a drink.”
    Evidently, that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “You need to
tell him you want your money back. Or he needs to comp you four more tabs. And
not that shit. Who does he think he’s dealing with here?”
    What a pathetic excuse for a man. Twenty-six years old,
addicted to drugs and booze, a total mooch. Robert wished he was still alive so
he could slap his son.
    When he was twenty-six, Robert had just opened his fifth
Audrey’s. He had contracts with fourteen different vendors supplying fashions
and accessories. Forbes magazine had placed him in the top twenty-five of up-and-coming
entrepreneurs. How could this wasted excuse of a son be cut from the same
cloth?
    The cigarette butt sizzled when Robbie dropped it into a
beer can on the side table.
    “So, what do you want to do today?”
    The girl didn’t seem to remember what she’d been ranting
about two seconds ago.
    “Let’s get something a little more mellow. Maybe some
Oxycontin.”
    “Yeah, that sounds good. We can see what’s on pay-per-view.”
Robbie reached his arms over his head to stretch, then kind of stopped right in
the middle. “Hey, you want to get some X and watch porn?”
    She blurted out a laugh. “That sounds like a total waste of
time.”
    “Why?”
    Her eyes rolled down to his crotch.
    “No, really,” Robbie said. “I’m feeling good.”
    She pressed her palm against his zipper and frowned.
    “I’m telling you,” Robbie insisted. “I just felt something.”
    Unbuttoning his pants, she slipped her hand in and massaged.
“I’m not feeling anything but dough.”
    “I’m telling you, it was working just a second ago. With a
little X and some porn…”
    “Robbie, you could watch suck and fuck for hours and it
wouldn’t help this poor little nub.”
    Why didn’t she just castrate him and get it over with?
    The kid who’d been sleeping on the sofa came shuffling into
the bedroom and flopped onto a pile of clothes in a chair.
    “Fuck! What did we do last night? My head’s killing me.”
    Smack in the middle of his forehead was a swollen blue knot
with red streaks that looked like they might have bled. His eyes were black and
puffy.
    The girl laughed. “You look like you took a face dive.”
    He pressed gently on the knot. “No shit.”
    Robbie rolled away and Morgan’s hand dragged out of his
pants.
    “I need a drink,” he said.
    The other two followed him into the living room, and after
he took a hit off the vodka he passed it to the kid.
    “No thanks, man.” He wiggled his fingers at Robbie. “I need
cab fare.”
    Without hesitating, Robbie reached into his pocket. “How
much?”
    “Give me fifty. I want to stop at Starbucks.”
    Robbie counted out three twenties. What an idiot. How many
so-called friends did he have hanging on, bumming off him? How much was Amanda
sending him each month?
    The kid snatched the bills and left without so much as a
thank you.
    Morgan picked through the debris of pills on the coffee
table, examining and rejecting them one at a time.
    “Check your account again,” she said. “We’ve got to find
something better than this crap.”
    With a grunt, Robbie pulled his phone out of his pocket and
slumped onto the sofa. His fingers typed for an instant before he shouted,
“What the fuck?!”
    Morgan leaned over his shoulder to look at the screen.
“That’s it?’
    “She only sent me half.”
    “Christ, Robbie. You owe Damien more than that.”
    Robbie waved her away like a buzzing fly. “I know that!”
    “Well, send her a text and tell her to cough up the rest.”
    Peering over his shoulder, Robert watched as Robbie scrolled
through the rest of his e-mails. Among all the spam from J. Crew and Amazon was
a message from Martin. Robbie’s lips curled into a snarl as he read out