Don't Touch

-12-

Syd looked at her phone and saw it was 7:27AM Wednesday morning. She was pissed that she woke up three minutes before her alarm was supposed to go off and she barely had any sleep that night as it was with all the stress she was dealing with. Lali's wedding was fast-approaching in just two weeks and she and Sean would officially take their parents' seats on the Council in three weeks.

Dragging herself out of bed, Syd scrolled through her phone that was already filled with notifications. "It never ends," she muttered to herself as she read through her schedule for the day. "Fuck!" She said when she realized today was the day she was supposed to have dinner with Hector. She knew she'd have to face him, especially after that day he visited her apartment, but she'd been so busy with Davidson business that she didn't have much time to think about a game plan for how she'd deal with him. Syd took a shower and prepared herself for what would be a long day.

***

"You know the subway is faster, right?" Syd said to Sean as she got into the back of the black Suburban.

"Yeah, but we gotta be official and shit with a driver when we go to these meetings. Besides, I can't stretch out and enjoy an espresso on the subway."

"Bougie ass..." Syd shook her head.

"Nah, it'd be bougie if we didn't have it! But we got it. This isn't even a drop in the bucket."

"I hope you're at least paying Frank well for him to be driving us around like this."

"Fuck yeah, we pay him well." Sean called up front to Frank, the driver. "Frank, tell Simone how much you make per day."

"I drive you around just one day and my bills are paid for the month. The rest just turns into play money," Frank laughed. "Ms. Davidson, I make $8,000 on the days that I'm driving you around... Untaxed," he winked looking at Syd through the rearview mirror.

"Well shit..." She nodded and pursed her lips. "Hey, Sean. I can drive you around too," she joked.

Sean rolled his eyes. "Anyway... first stop is the Zhang family. They seem to like you more than they like me already."

"That's because my Mandarin is much better than yours," Syd teased. "You were always slacking in our language lessons growing up."

"Whatever, I got your ass on Portuguese. When we were on the phone with the Brazilians, you embarrassed yourself," he laughed. "You really started off speaking Spanish and then went into French! You're lucky I saved you on that because Mara was about to cuss you out. Shit, she'd probably want to fight you if we were in person."

"Whatever..." Syd leaned back in her seat and looked out the window. "This is the last day of meetings until we have that deal with the Brits on Friday, right?"

"Yeah... about that. I won't be able to make it... I'm gonna tell Luca and Em to go with you."

Syd's eyes widened and her heart started to race. Alone with the Rossi brothers after what happened in Vegas? She knew she could control herself, even if she seemed particularly sensitive to their touch, but she also didn't need to deal with an awkward moment before meeting with the Brits that Sean already warned could be difficult. She needed to maintain her unshaken Simone character. "You can't send someone else with me? And why can't you go?"

"The Rossi are the only ones I trust and I got plans Friday I can't cancel. Don't worry. I'll tell them to behave."

***

After a long day of Davidson business, Syd was happy she no longer had to maintain her Simone front. She sat at their table in the restaurant where she and Hector had gone on their first date over five years ago waiting for him to arrive. She went straight there after leaving her final meeting of the day, which wasn't far away.