Life's an awful ugly place not to have a best friend. (Sarah Dessen)

William understood me a little better than the others and he was clean, which was refreshing. It was always amazing to me how someone could live in LA and sustain from drugs. William had never done drugs. I guess it wasn't so surprising because he was British and with that dainty little accent it was hard to imagine him doing anything wrong.

William drove me to Ice, which was a bar I had just acquired and was going to rename Honey. Cloud dropped by meet with the owner about buying off some of the excess supplies before Ice was closed. Cloud congratulated me on my first bar. I had shares in Super Hundred but this would be the first bar that would be all mine. Cloud insisted I head over to Super Hundred. It was a weeknight, but I went. Cloud wouldn't catch up with us for a bit so William and I sat in the VIP section and drank cool-colored drinks in cool-shaped glasses.

“So you're with Joseph now?” William asked.

I shrugged.

“He doesn't seem to be your type.”

I laughed, “Because he's not you?”

“I was never your type.”

“Oh don't give me that wounded puppy dog bull shit. The only reason you come onto me is because you resent Nicky for getting that soap opera gig after they passed on hiring you. That's when it all started.”

He was dumbfounded. He had no idea I could see through his ploy, but to be fair I didn't realize that was what was happening until Nicky suggested it. Nicky beating me to a conclusion was perhaps the most disappointing realization of my life thus far.

“I think you're great,” William said half-defending his intentions, “minus the carelessness.”

“Carelessness?”

“Yeah, and overall disregard for safety.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Honey, do you think I'm an idiot? We all know what's going on upstairs.”

I gulped. I guess I was being pretty careless. With all the houses I owned surely I could dedicate one to meth production. Imagine how much safer that would be. I would be in the clear, but this was such a good system. No one had complained about it and we didn't have to traffic anything anywhere we just doled it out at our weekly Hundred party. I'd have to talk it over with Tommy.