All Chapters of Getting Lucky: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

KADENThere was no place better to be during the fall season than New York City. I’d experienced fall at Harvard, in Texas, and in too many other states and countries to bother mentioning. Growing up as the son of a Fortune 250 company owner, I had traveled a lot.The traveling made me uniquely qualified to make the sweeping statement that there was no place better to experience the season than right here in the city I’d called home for the last five years, and planned to call home for the next fifty—at least.Once the next fifty years were done and I was seventy-seven, then perhaps the allure of retiring to Florida would become too much for me to handle, and I’d move. But for now? New York was stuck with me.Whatever arguments could be made for any other city in the world during fall, New York kicked their ass. The weather was cool enough to drink proper beer again, not that watered-down shit I hosed my insides with during summer. I could drink whiskey neat without it being warm and

EMBERWith a beer in one hand and a roll of packing tape in the other, I carefully made my way across the hardwood floors of my small student apartment in Cambridge. Those floors had heard me laughing, crying, and had me sleeping on them from time to time over the past three years.Tomorrow, I was leaving behind my sweet little apartment on Harvard’s campus and heading for New York City. How I was going to fit all the boxes scattered around my apartment into my car, I had no idea.At least I wasn’t going alone. My best friend Gracie was coming with me. Surely between our two cars, we would be able to fit all this crap. I toed one of the smaller boxes out of my way and flopped onto my gray couch one last time, lifting the tepid beer to my lips.Drinking beer on my couch wasn’t going to help me get done packing any sooner, but since I was leaving student life behind and hadn’t indulged nearly as much or as often as some of my friends, I figured I’d better make the best of my last twenty

KADENThank God it was fucking Friday. If there wasn’t already a song written about it, and if I could carry a tune to save my life, I might have written a song about it to celebrate.Fridays were usually a joyous occasion in my life, but today was even happier than usual since this week had sucked balls. As I’d promised myself I would, I got my work and John’s work done.But it had been five days of hell. The guy’s files were a mess, even more so than I had expected. It took me hours before I could tell elbow from ass of what was going on with those clients.Since my life was also most decidedly not a musical, singing and songwriting to celebrate was out of the question. Drinks after work with my best friend, however, was just what the doctor ordered.I triumphantly hit print one last time and stapled the papers of my proposal together. Opening the file in question, I dropped the proposal inside and added it to my pile of work completed for the week.It was more of a tower than a pil

EMBER“Happy birthday to you,” Gracie said, raising her glass of champagne toward me. “I hope all your dreams come true this year.”“Thank you.” I smiled, clinking my glass against hers. We had completed our trek to New York and moved into our loft that week. It was all finally starting to feel real, and it was thrilling.Neither Gracie nor I had ever been to New York before, but it was turning out exactly like I thought it would. Both of us had seen enough movies shot there and read enough about it to know what to expect, but what books and movies couldn’t possibly convey was the electric atmosphere in the city.It didn’t smell great, and our loft was a little smaller than what we had imagined, but I was already falling in love with the city. Waking up here on my birthday and knowing I was going to be calling it home for the foreseeable future was incredible. It really did feel like a new beginning where anything was possible for the year that lay ahead. An eternal optimist, I was no

KADENMonday, fucking Monday. The office was a hive of activity when I arrived, and phones were ringing off the hook. Several of my colleagues were involved in a heated debate about something. Secretaries and personal assistants were bustling around, delivering stacks of paperwork and snapping into phones.Printers hummed because who needed the rain forests, right? Heels clacked, and the coffee machines were working overtime.The silence in my private office was almost deafening by the time I closed the door behind me. My own assistant had been busy this morning, I saw as I approached my desk with my coffee in hand and sat down.A few neat piles of paper waited for my signature, colorful flags marking the spots I had to sign. My computer was already on, but I had to enter my password to get into it. The screens mounted on my walls were also on and set to the channels I needed.Dropping my hands to my jacket, I unbuttoned it and was starting to take it off so I could roll up my sleeves