Mistaken Apathy • •

[nikolaus drayton o'connell]

Niko gave off the impression of a lavish lifestyle, but the rich boy persona was something that had grown from his cheeky personality more than anything else. He had a good heart, even if he didn’t flaunt it as much as he flaunted the gadgets and the boy toys he owned and played with. He thought it all part of his plan, though he didn’t exactly know what plan it was. He just lived life as it came, which was something that really annoyed his father and his older brother. They couldn’t understand how Niko could do it, especially after the upbringing he had was one full of how important plans and education were. He had tired of the talks when he was twelve, and had them all memorised before that. He wasn’t like the rest of his family, and while Adrian had been passing the bar, Niko was getting his commercial pilot’s licence and putting a deposit down on his very own helicopter. It was his second favourite thing after his Harley Davidson.

He had done a few trips up above New York already. Two had been contests they had launched on the radio show with Gage, and the rest were his own. A few friends had joined him up there, or he had gone by himself on a nice day when there was nothing really taking his fancy in the city. Now, finally after plenty of convincing, Gage was going to go up with him, too. It had only taken on air torment to make his co-host agree to it, but Niko was happy enough with that, even if she hadn’t been all that keen on the idea from the off. Still, he wanted to show her the city from the sky and he thought it only fair since a handful of their listeners had already been treated to the ride with him playing pilot.

He was thrilled to wake up to blue skies and crisp, cool air that morning. It would be perfect for taking Gage up in. He grabbed a quick shower and then cleaned up the take-out mess from the night before that he had left in the kitchen. After walking Broxy and Jynx he double checked everything with a phone call to the hangar where he kept his cherry red helicopter and then he fired a quick text to Gage to let her know that he was on his way and that there was no getting out of it. When he stepped into his garage he was going to take the soft top to pick her up, but feeling rather mischievous his eyes instead fell on his Harley. Niko grinned, grabbing the extra helmet he kept along with his own, and ran his hand over the bike instead. It was much more fun than his car any day of the week! Riding out of his garage, he hit the streets and headed to Gage’s apartment, making it there fairly quickly. Buzzing up, he ran his fingers through his hair to fix the damage caused by his helmet and waited for her to let him in, or to come down; whichever took her fancy.

• • •

TAGGED! Gage Audrina Rose
WORDS! 529!
OUTFIT! Cheeky chap!
LYRICS! Paint You Wings - - - All Time Low
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Gage Audrina Rose]

It wasn’t that Gage didn’t like heights or anything. She didn’t really have an opinion on them either way; at least that was what she told herself and everyone else. Her apartment was on the sixth floor of an old warehouse turned lost apartments. The radio station wasn’t exactly on the ground level either. She hadn’t flown from Chicago to New York simply because she had to bring all her stuff with her and hire a moving truck to get her furniture; lucky for her, Martina’s husband and son hadn’t minded taking a little trip to New York to help the young girl settle into her new place. She didn’t go on Ferris Wheels because she’d never had a need to, no one had ever invited her to a place with them. And despite being very independent, she didn’t like going to places like amusement parks by herself. There was no fun to be had at places like that when there was no one to have fun with. So she just didn’t go. These of course, were her excuses and she stuck to them when someone cornered her about heights.

And more than anything at all, she hated being cornered. She hated feeling like she had no options, no choices. It almost felt like she was back in the system again. And though she worked extremely hard to hide the little fact that she had grown up in the system, she had and hadn’t exactly liked a second of it. But Niko and their fans talked her into a corner she couldn’t get out of; especially since it was near impossible for her to back down from a challenge. And a challenge that if she rejected, Niko would call her a chicken for the rest of time. So that morning, after tossing and turning all through the night, Gage rolled out of bed and went straight to the bathroom to have a shower and wake herself up. She was not looking forward to whatever Niko had planned for them. After a shower, she forced a couple cups of coffee down her throat and some toast while her pets ate, it was all she could eat with the butterflies in her stomach making a mess of her nervous system.

Gage was throwing on her Superman t-shirt when the buzzer sounded and she groaned, knowing that it could only be one person; Niko. She stepped over a lazy Rizzo and just barely missed being tossed to the floor by her playful Kennicky to reach the buzzer next to the apartment door. “Two minutes.” She said, shoving her feet into her boots and slipping her arms into the sleeves of a jacket she wasn’t completely sure if she would need or not. Things in her bag and her doors locked, Gage made her way to street level and Niko. “Alright, where are we....” She started, slipped her sunglasses on her face, expecting to see his car. “What the hell?! A motorcycle? Do you not believe in four wheeled vehicles?” Gage asked looking up to see to car parked on the side of the road.

Tag || nikolaus drayton o'connell
Words || 555
Clothes || Brave Beauty
Music || Whiskey to Burn --Lee Brice
Notes || <3

[nikolaus drayton o'connell]

Niko lived for that rush of life. He believed it came from living with his over achieving family and their ideas of what made someone great. It always came down to how hard they studied, the job they got at the end of it, and the type of people they associated themselves with. For years Niko had been trapped in a life that he loathed because his dad thought he needed some guidance, that extra help to look up to his brother and see how he ought to be. It didn’t matter that Niko wanted none of that, but rather longed to be free to live a more creative life where he could express himself. He had never been ambitious or driven to have the greatest career known to man. If he thought he could do it he would have been a race car driver, but even he knew he had limitations and he enjoyed cars a little too much to risk wrecking them in some awful crash on a track. Plus he had the gift of the gab and that made him practically perfect for the radio he had discovered during his stint at college.

He had yet to find a situation he couldn’t talk himself in or out of. It was a talent he had almost perfected, he thought. It took a lot to make Niko back down when he set his mind to something anyway, and this was just some harmless fun with someone he enjoyed winding up both on and off the air. It was part of their dynamic in his opinion, and while some of the fan responses could border on odd for the repertoire between himself and Gage, Niko took them in his stride and laughed a few of them off during their morning show. No one wanted to focus on the heavy stuff first thing in the morning when they were probably already worrying about a day or work or the bills that needed to be paid by the end of the week. That was why he tried to keep it light, even though he knew they had to make room for the brief news reports and traffic updates that were scheduled to run throughout the day, regardless of what show was on and what those presenters wanted to do.

At least this trip would give them fun stories and banter for the next few show, and Niko was more than happy to recount this day to their listeners once they were back in the studio. It would probably be expected of him since he had called Gage out on air over it and mentioned it twice since just to remind her that she couldn’t back out of it. Grinning wickedly, Niko handed her the spare helmet and then put his back on, straddling the bike and smirking at her through the open visor. “Not when I can take a Harley out.” He might have liked his car, but he loved his bike. “Now come on. You can hold onto me as tight as you like, if that helps.” He knew he was being awful, but Niko was having far too much fun already and that was just from Gage’s reaction at his Harley.

• • •

TAGGED! Gage Audrina Rose
WORDS! 545!
OUTFIT! Cheeky chap!
LYRICS! Paint You Wings - - - All Time Low
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Gage Audrina Rose]

Gage was a difficult one on a good day and she was well aware of that. She was stubborn and relentless and she ran a mile when she was given an inch. She had been that way since she was a child in the system. Nothing was going to be handed to her and that was something she’d known from a young age. She had to work her ass off for everything she wanted in her life because that was the only way it was coming to her. It was a story no one knew about in New York, except the one who had hired her on and moved her to New York from Chicago. He knew about Gage’s background and seemed to appreciate her work ethic all the more for it. She was a resilient girl at the very least. If something tried to push her down, she pushed herself forward, forced herself to come out the other side of stronger than before.

And that was what she’d been telling herself since Niko pushed her into doing this stupid helicopter ride. She knew she needed to break out of her shell, what little of it she actually had, and force herself to do things that freaked her the hell out. She would never admit in a million years that she was petrified of heights, that they scared the living hell out of her so badly that she’d had to take the train to New York when she’d first moved because she couldn’t fly. She didn’t face the window in the studio because she didn’t want to see just how high up they really were and get dizzy from it. That was all the ammo Niko needed to fuel whatever he had planned. Of course, if she’d told him her little secret, or at least that one, she might have gotten out of the helicopter ride.

It was too late now though. Everything had been said and done and she couldn’t get out of his plans now. She really had no choice but to go through with it. She wasn’t fond of the idea but at least she had the drive over to hype herself up over it. Of course, she also thought she would be in a car for that, looking out the passenger seat window at the scenery and talking herself into keeping her breakfast in her stomach for the entire flight. She did not expect to see Niko’s Harley sitting at the side of the road. Gage closed her eyes for a couple seconds before opening them again, hoping that in the two seconds they were closed, the motorcycle would have changed into his car. “You’d like that too much.” She said, pouting even as she put the helmet on her head and waited patiently for Niko to put the strap through properly. She didn’t want to have to add another first to the list she had going for that day but being on the back of his Harley was one all the same. With a dramatic sigh, Gage hopped on the back and put her hands on his sides. It wasn’t until he really let loose that Gage squealed, knowing she’d lost the round, and wrapped herself around Niko as tightly as she could.

Tag || nikolaus drayton o'connell
Words || 582
Clothes || Brave Beauty
Music || Whiskey to Burn --Lee Brice
Notes || <3

[nikolaus drayton o'connell]

Niko knew he was different to his family. He didn’t want to be the best, or to change the world with what he knew. He wanted to live. He wanted to experience life in its entirety and be able to look back on his from his deathbed and know that he had no regrets apart from maybe a few cringe worthy ones that made him chuckle. He wanted to live a full life, an adventurous one, and so far he was doing that. Sure, his parents did wish he would be more like his brother and not act so reckless, but Niko was still smart. He didn’t throw away his family’s money like some spoilt brat. He invested some of it for the future, and everything he did spend was money he had earned himself. His helicopter lessons had been saved up for, the beautiful baby he piloted was part gift, part inheritance. He might have lived his life acting like a crazy playboy, but Niko wasn’t entirely one. He had smarts, and he knew more than he let on most of the time.

Of course, he never let other people know that. He liked the persona he put on in the city. It was the character he played when they were live on the air, and the same role that shone out when he was painting the town red most nights, too. It was a likeable guy, and a man who had won plenty of battles; although none of them had ever been serious. Niko just enjoyed life. He enjoyed having fun and he liked making other people join in, too. In his opinion, some people took life a little too seriously at times and Gage was on that little list of his of those people. He liked dragging her out to give her a taste of what he considered fun. It entertained him to pull her out of her comfort zone and break the rules a little bit. Today they weren’t going to be doing that, but he still felt like she would be glaring at him for the most part and mumbling comments about how much she hated him. Well, not mumbling. He expected to hear them loud and clear, but Niko wouldn’t take them to heart. He never did.

“Don’t you trust me?” He smirked, unable to help himself. He was having far too much fun, but he was determined to make Gage enjoy herself and walk on the wild side, even if it was just for one day. His bike roared through the city and he laughed loudly when he felt her arms squeezing around his waist. “Relax! You’re fine!” He shouted back to her, letting the bike take a corner with ease. It was a forty-five minute ride to the hangar where he kept his helicopter when it wasn’t up in the sky, and Niko parked up outside the front of it, removing his helmet as he climbed off his bike. He ran his fingers through his hair and grinned at Gage. “It wasn’t so bad, was it?” He asked wickedly.

• • •

TAGGED! Gage Audrina Rose
WORDS! 523!
OUTFIT! Cheeky chap!
LYRICS! Paint You Wings - - - All Time Low
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Gage Audrina Rose]

The move to New York was a much needed escape from the life Gage had been leading back in Chicago. That was a city she didn't want to think about, even if it was the place where she figured out what she wanted from life and where she got a start with it. She would always be grateful to her bosses who gave her the first job she'd had in the radio station. Even though it had just been a receptionist position, it had gotten her foot in the door. She'd never had anything come easy to her. She hadn't been born with a silver spoon in her mouth but she had managed to accomplish so much. And she fought for every little thing she had. She wasn't annoyed or anything like that with the people who'd been born into a better life. They'd just been the lucky ones. Or maybe they were the ones that just didn't have the gumption to dig their nails in and get things done.

Or maybe she had needed to develop that gumption. Either way, it never mattered to Gage. She was who she was because of the life she'd lived before New York. She may wish she'd had better parents but she would never regret anything because it had all gotten her to where she was. She'd had Martina growing up and that woman was the only constant in an otherwise rocky childhood. But Gage liked to think she turned out okay. She had a good head on her shoulders, she knew what she wanted and she'd been able to go after it. She was a doing a job she loved and planned on doing for the foreseeable future with a man that though teased her on air constantly was a pretty nice guy; even if his hobbies left Gage's jaw on the floor. She knew tons of people and none of them but him could boast his own helicopter!

"Not on days that end in y." She told him with a glare. She didn't mean it of course. She trusted him with her life, knew he wouldn't be on the back of the bike himself if he couldn't drive it but it still kind of freaked her out. After the adolescents she had, she liked stability. She liked have a schedule, knowing what's going to happen. It might have sounded boring but her life hadn't been stable until she'd been sixteen. That was too late for stability for a girl who had private panic attacks whenever she had to open the bills every month. It had never mattered that she had the money in her bank account to cover everything. "I'm trying." She muttered. By the time they actually reached the air field, Gage had loosened her grip on her partner's waist. She was also feeling a little bit of an adrenaline rush. Hopping from the bike, she glared at Niko while she took the helmet off her head. "If I knew how to fly a helicopter, I would toss you out of it once we were in the air." A total lie but she had to keep up appearances after all.

Tag || nikolaus drayton o'connell
Words || 530
Clothes || Brave Beauty
Music || Whiskey to Burn --Lee Brice
Notes || <3

[nikolaus drayton o'connell]

Niko embraced his freedom. It would be so easy for his father to cut him off with all the times Niko had disobeyed him. He would never be the suit and tie son his dad wanted. His brother had taken that path, become that man, but Niko owned only one suit and he had a habit of burying it at the back of his wardrobe and forgetting it existed there until he had a need to wear it. Thankfully such occasions were few and far between, and typically it needed to be sent out and cleaned before he could bring himself to put it on anyway. It always smelt musty, like that dark corner of his walk in where he kept wrapping paper and shoe boxes for reasons he couldn’t fathom, because he never used the boxes and he bought a new roll of paper every Christmas, or used single sheets or gift bags for birthdays.

Still, Niko was a slight clutterbug. His cupboards and drawers indicated that anyway. The rest of his apartment was almost always spotless, but he did have a cleaner who came in once a week to help with that. Niko was not lazy per se, but he was busy. With the radio keeping him heavily occupied, and then the helicopter and his secret evenings at the soup kitchen, he actually had little time for chores. His shopping was delivered, laundry sent out, and a cleaner did the big jobs for him. Else nothing would ever get done and he’d live in a place that reeked of filth and looked just as bad. Niko actually liked things to be clean and fresh. Plus, he often invited people over in the spur of the moment. He couldn’t do that if it looked like a pig sty all the time, or he had to worry about clothes being littered with leftover meals piling up.

“Then I suppose it depends which language I choose to say the days in.” He said with his usual cheeky grin. There was a teacher in his high school who had told his parents that Niko had an answer to everything. Niko thought it was the best thing anyone had ever said about him, and the most accurate. It was very unusual for him to be rendered speechless by anything. There was always something on the tip of his tongue and typically Niko struggled not to say everything when it came to him. You would miss me. Not to mention there would be so much to deal with once the show gets cancelled because, y’know, I’m dead and you’re in jail for murder.” He said casually, taking long strides across the open space to where he kept the helicopter he was so fond of. Parents had kids, boys had toys, Niko had big, shiny vehicles of all shapes and sizes. “Yeah, you’d completely regret it.” He decided for Gage as he began setting everything up to move his helicopter out from the hangar. Niko did this so often now it was like second nature to him.

• • •

TAGGED! Gage Audrina Rose
WORDS! 518!
OUTFIT! Cheeky chap!
LYRICS! Paint You Wings - - - All Time Low
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Gage Audrina Rose]

Gage couldn't honestly believe she was in New York. It had been a long road and there were times when Gage didn't think she would ever get out of Chicago. There were a few weeks back when she'd been sixteen when it hadn't looked like she would even make it out of the system. It was a low point and one that Gage didn't want to think about again. Those places were so far behind her now and she didn't want to make a habit of running down memory lane. The petite brunette wanted to continue looking forward to whatever was coming next and not at everything she'd left behind. If she lived her life like that, she probably would never have found that part time job at the radio station, probably wouldn't have gotten interested in the business and definitely wouldn't have impressed her boss with her knowledge so much he gave her a job on the spot to co-host the morning show with the regulars. He gave her the biggest break of her entire life and she would never forget that. He gave her a life away from everything she had ever known and for that she would also be forever grateful.

It had been the least she could do when she was asked to help with the newest station in New York. It was the chance to pick and choose who she worked with on the morning show, run it the way she wanted to, with input obviously but it was a team of people who she wanted to be around. Or in Niko's case, amused her just enough and had qualifications that impressed her just enough to get the job. She didn't have the final say of course, but she did have enough input to sway the decision. Not that it would have mattered, Gage was pretty sure Niko had been the only name on the short list she'd worked up after her boss had been through with it. It was fine really, Gage couldn't picture doing all that they did on the air or whenever they were in the public eye with anyone else. Niko was it; but she wasn't about to tell him that! He had a big enough ego! And she knew he had enough women throwing themselves at him to have him thinking she was trying to do the same when she most certainly wasn't! "You think you're so clever, don't you?" She asked, completely rhetorically.

Gage hadn't had any intention of holding onto Niko as tightly as she had. She had expected herself to hold on appropriately enough and then hop off the bike and continue to act as though the ride had bored her to tears. He had no idea if she was going to get away with it or if Niko would call her on how hard she gripped his sides. And the truth was, she didn't now how she would answer if he did. She'd had an absolute blast on the back of his motorcycle. "I would get away with it. Please give me a little more credit. Though I would have to train another co-host and that takes a lot of time and energy I could be putting into club nights. I mean you've just gotten my coffee order right." She said with a sigh as if giving up on the idea of murdering him. Today could have been put to better use as well but she'd been cornered into it and now she had no choice but to go up in a helicopter; something she had never done before. And something that definitely scared the living hell out of her.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tag || nikolaus drayton o'connell
Words || 614
Clothes || Brave Beauty
Music || Whiskey to Burn --Lee Brice
Notes || <3

[nikolaus drayton o'connell]

Niko couldn’t complain about a difficult life. He came from wealth that had made things considerably easier for him in the past. It had allowed him to pursue wishes that otherwise would have been impossible. He never would have been able to have his bike, his helicopter, or his licence to fly without the money he came from. If Niko was ever asked about problems growing up he could talk about how he was the black sheep of the family, and explain that his parents were disappointed in his life choices. Niko had not turned out to be the man they had hoped. It didn’t matter that he was successful, he was the wrong kind of successful for them. He wasn’t a doctor or a lawyer, or someone who they could talk proudly about with their rich friends. Niko didn’t exactly help himself though. He showed up late, straddling his bike, hollering while fetching a bottle and winking at someone’s daughter just to make a show of things. His family didn’t approve of him, so he acted up to fit that role they had made for him. He was happy with his life and everything in it. He didn’t care about living up to their standards if it was going to leave him miserable.

That was why he never really mentioned his family. It wasn’t so much a sore subject, as a complicated one. His brother they doted and fawned over, swelling with pride over his accomplishments. Obviously, it did bother Niko a little bit, but after all these years he was so used to it that he shrugged it off and just worked on improving his status as the black sheep. He was proud of what he had done with his life. Yes, it was different from what his parents had wanted for him, but Niko loved what he did. He adored being on the radio, working with Gage. He liked what they had together with their show, and it was what he had wanted since he had started thinking about his future in college. Niko wasn’t going to throw that away or jeopardise it just so he could hear a genuine ‘well done’ from his currently disapproving father. “I’m a genius in some countries.” He grinned cheekily.

Niko had noticed Gage’s tight grip on him throughout the ride, but he merely grinned about it. There would be the perfect time to bring it up, but he wanted to save it for then, to catch her unawares with it at some point in their future. It might be on air or off air, but Niko knew that there would be the most perfect, glorious opportunity to cash it in. “They always look at the wife first, and you’re my work wife.” He pointed out, and he continued to move through pre—flight set-up. “Yeah, it’s not every day you find a natural talent like mine.” His helicopter outside now, he grinned and moved to open the door. “Ready to hop in?”

• • •

TAGGED! Gage Audrina Rose
WORDS! 510!
OUTFIT! Cheeky chap!
LYRICS! Paint You Wings - - - All Time Low
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Gage Audrina Rose]

For Gage, there was really only New York and the life she was creating there for herself. She had her old caseworker, a woman she called regularly about good news or just to catch up but she didn't have a single family member alive, that she knew of, to call with these kinds of things. When she'd done her first interview with an artist, it was Martina the young brunette had called squealing with excitement. She had been the only person in Gage's life to take a genuine interest in the smaller than average girl. If she would have been able to Foster or adopt, Gage would have been in excellent hands, and probably wouldn't have found herself in New York City making a name for herself over the airwaves. The sayings running amok were that everything happens for a reason or that God only gave you what you could handle. They were ridiculous and Gage couldn't understand what some fake man looking down at them all from space could mean by leaving a small child without a family, or why he would toss her into one with an absentee (or dead) father and an abusive, drug-addicted mother just to throw her into foster home after foster home. Gage was not the type of girl to sit back and complain about the cards she'd been dealt in life. She was the type to fight for her rights and dig herself out from the hole life had put her in without her damn permission.

The petite brunette had fought and fought to become an emancipated minor, breathed a sigh of relief when she'd won her case and finally her life started to be her own. At that point, she'd had enough money saved to get an apartment on her own, as long as Martina co-signed for the small one bedroom space. She would never say she got lucky, that Karm threw everything good into her lap because she worked damn hard to get that job at the radio station and she would have been very happy there, would have eventually worked her way up there. The only thing she'd ever say she was lucky about was the fact that she hadn't gotten fired on the spot for being in the sound booth when she really shouldn't have been. She'd not been expecting the pseudo-interview she'd gotten on the spot, nor the job offer that had accompanied it. Realistically, Gage shouldn't have gotten the offer or the job. She had no real experience in front of a microphone but they gave her a chance. Five years later, she was riding on the back of a motorcycle belonging to her co-host as they go to his helicopter hangar to ride his damn helicopter. Or fly it, whatever. Gage wasn't concerned about the grammar of the situation, just the fact that she was in the situation in the first place.

She knew better than to open her mouth on air and bait him. She knew better and had done it anyway. "Which countries? I'll write them and sort out their policies right now." She said crossing her arms over her chest. "You need a real wife, put all the blame on her." She muttered though Gage made sure to say it loud enough for Niko to hear her. It was a game they were playing after all and it couldn't be played if one of them gave up. Gage kept quiet while Niko went through everything he needed to do to get them in the air, once again wishing she'd kept her mouth shut. Gage wasn't the overly adventurous type. She'd never even flown before! In anything! She'd driven from Chicago to New York when she'd made the move at eighteen and she hadn't taken any trips or really taken any vacation time since then. She loved her job too much and those days when she was forced to take a day or two, it was because she was so sick, she was contemplating a visit to the hospital! "If I say no, can we forget it and fake it later?" She asked curiously, once again letting her nerves show just a little bit.

♦ ♦ ♦

Tag || nikolaus drayton o'connell
Words || 700
Clothes || Brave Beauty
Music || Whiskey to Burn --Lee Brice
Notes || <3

[nikolaus drayton o'connell]

Niko’s family would probably say that he had squandered his opportunities, wasted his potential. They didn’t see that Niko lived a rewarding life. They just saw their son choosing to take the wrong path, the easy roads, and failing at everything they had hoped for him. They had wanted another son who would go on to earn megabucks in a courtroom, or a hospital. They’d have probably died with happiness if Niko had decided to chase politics. Instead they were just disappointed in what their little boy had turned into. His particular branch of the O’Connell family tree only enjoyed talking rich things, praising those that stuck to the stereotypes of success. Niko, while he was a semi-famous name in New York City, it wasn’t enough for his tight collared parents. His career choices seemed like a joke to them, and they chose to ignore it as often as they could. It spared Niko from nagging phone calls and invitations to events he couldn’t really give a damn about.

He did love his family, he just couldn’t stand how they were snobs. It was as though a person needed to tick all of the boxes to be accepted into their little circle. It wasn’t what Niko wanted for his life. He didn’t want to boast about who had the best accomplishments, or who was the first to have the big fancy wedding. He wasn’t looking for anything like that. Life was about living. It was about being alive and doing things that made you aware of how alive you were. He wasn’t going to fall into that group of people who saw life as a long competition. Not everyone saw success and achievements in the same way, and it was just foolish to think that anyone could compete with someone who had the opposite thoughts and opinions on that. Not to mention Niko considered it a waste of time. When people were too focused on making that next great step, they could miss out on so many other things from the world around them.

Niko was so far from unhappy. He was thrilled with all that he had in his life, and the few plans he had set for the coming months. He liked his job, his co-host, and all the opportunities afforded to them both on and off air. He didn’t need to explain himself – or that – to anyone else, least of all those too ignorant to understand. “Now, now, don’t be jealous; I’m sure those countries would appreciate you as well.” He teased, finding it impossible not to when Gage argued with him like this. It was part of what made their dynamic so good. “But then I might have to be home in time for dinner, or make my plans around this mystery wife.” He pulled a face, pretending to be horrified by such a notion. “And she might expect me to fund her shoe addiction.” Niko had liked the girls who had stuck around for flings, and casual adventures, but too many of them began to get comfortable around his wealth, and he noticed how quickly they became lazy or expected him to always pick up the bill. He didn’t mind certain elements, but he was attracted to independent women. He was happy to help support someone he loved, but he didn’t want them to think money was everything, or grow lazy because they had access to shortcuts. He laughed and leaned in close to help Gage up into the helicopter. “If you say no, then I’m afraid this is about to turn into a kidnapping.”

• • •

TAGGED! Gage Audrina Rose
WORDS! 608!
LYRICS! Paint You Wings - - - All Time Low
NOTES! <3 <3 <3