Body Count by OlymousMons90
"Is that your girlfriend?" Max asks me, looking a little surprised as he leans over to take a closer look at the framed picture I've got standing on my office desk.
"Nah, she's my wife. Her name's Charli, we got married just three months ago."
"Oh, really?" Max replies raising his eyebrows a little and not sounding like he's expecting a response.
"You seem a little surprised, I'm betting you're thinking that she's way out of my league or something? It's okay, my own brother's think that way too." I responded with a chuckle.
"Oh, no. Nothing like that, it's just that I used to know her not that long ago. Her name used to be Charli Thomas, right?"
"Yeah, it was. How exactly did you know her?" I ask a little more curiously now.
"Well, I still live on the Lower East Side, and Charli used to live there too. We knew some of the same people and went out to some of the same places too. It really is a small world, I guess." Max answers before I nod back in return.
This is only my second week in my new job on Wall Street, and it's a big promotion for my finance career. My name is Adrian Roberts, I'm 5'9 and am a thirty-two-year-old Financial Consultant now living in Tribeca, New York City. My wife's name is Charli Roberts, formerly Thomas, she's a twenty-eight-ear-old Human Resource Manager in another firm here in downtown. She stands at only 5'1 but is fit with wonderful curves, short blonde hair and piercing grey eyes.
I moved to NYC three years ago from Phoenix, Arizona, chasing my career goal of working in high finance and making some good money in the process. I met Charli about a year after my move here and we began dating almost straight away, moving in together six months later. We eventually got engaged and then recently married, and I couldn't be happier about my life with her, and the new job I now have as well.
Max Keifer is another one of the Financial Consultants I'm now working with; he's been here at this firm for almost three years and has been tasked with helping me to get settled in and to advise on my client list for me. He's around the same age as me, although I think he's a year younger. So far, he's been a great help, and unlike many of the people I've worked with since moving to NYC, he hasn't come across like he's trying to get one over on me or to feed me bullshit to make himself look better. No, he's been okay, and I've appreciated his help.
"Well, I better go get my own shit sorted this morning, do you wanna catch-up as usual at lunch? I'll take you to a great little café nearby that has the best bagel's around." Max informs me.
"Sounds great." I reply as I return to my screen to get my day started.
Max was right about the bagels at lunchtime, I couldn't believe how good they were. As each day goes by towards the end of Summer, I'm settling further into my new job. The salary I'm on now will allow us to soon buy an apartment near where we're currently renting, and both me and Charli have even started looking at what's on the market.
I'm relaxing at home on a Friday night, sitting on the couch after we've eaten some takeout, drinking a bourbon while Charli is cleaning up the mess in the kitchen. Shortly after Charli joins me on the couch, as I place my arm around her as she sips her wine.
"So, two weeks in. How's it been so far? Still happy with your new job?" Charli looks up and asks me.
"Yeah, it's been good actually, better than I thought it would be."
"Not as cutthroat as the last place then?"
"No, not yet anyway. A guy there named Max has been good to me, showing me around and helping me to get settled in."
"Is he the same guy you've been having lunch with every day?" Charli asks.
"Yeah, oh, and by the way, he knows you too apparently from where you used to live when we first met."
"Are you sure? What's his full name?"
"It's Max Keifer, he's about my age and lives on the Lower East Side still. He said you used to know many of the same people and went out to the same places. Do you remember him?"
"Yeah, I do." Charli answers while now looking away from me, she seems to be deep in thought after my revelation.
"So? How did you know him?" I ask after a pregnant pause.
"Oh, like he said, we knew some of the same people, that's all. You know, just through some of our mutual friends." My wife answers.
Our conversation then drifted onto other topics before I took Charli by the hand and led her into our bedroom to make love to my wife. On Saturday morning we had three appointments with different realtors in our area, apartment hunting is ramping up.
On Sunday we visited Charli's mom who lives in the Upper West Side in her own gorgeous apartment. Diane Thomas is fifty-eight years old and currently single, and she's a twice divorced mother of two. She still looks great for her age, and anyone can easily see where Charli gets her good looks from.
While Charli's mom Diane is slightly taller at five foot three, and they both share very outgoing personalities, they both like to keep in great shape too along with their good looks. It turns out that Diane started out as a dancer when she was much younger and used to perform regularly even on Broadway too before marrying her first husband. He was fairly wealthy apparently and worked in finance just like me, and they had their first child together, Charli's older brother Joseph.
Diane divorced her first husband just a few years into their marriage and quickly remarried to one of his best friends and colleagues, no doubt that would've caused quite an issue in their firm at the time I'm assuming. Diane and her second husband named Jeffrey had a child together too, my wife Charli, but Diane also divorced him by the time Charli was four years old. But those two divorces pretty much set Diane up for life, it gave her the wonderful apartment worth a fortune she still lives in now, and enough alimony that's meant she'll never have to work again.
I'd like to say that I get along well with Diane, and while that's true, something inside tells me not to be too trusting of her. Maybe it's my catholic upbringing back in Arizona with a large family of six kids and parents that have been together since they were in high school. But I'm a little concerned about her influence, especially over her daughter Charli. Maybe my concern is that I don't see her as a good role model for our future children; she's still going out enjoying herself and always seems to have at least one or two guys she's dating at the same time. I don't get why she can't be happy and settle down with just one of them, maybe she likes all the attention, I'm really not sure.
Diane seemed happy with the news that we'd been looking at three different apartments to buy, she even told Charli that she was relieved that she was finally getting her life back on track. On track from what exactly I thought to myself.
The next two weeks moved along much the same way, me getting stuck into my work and spending lunch with Max each day, to looking at more apartments each Saturday with my wife.
It's lunchtime on Monday after my first month is over, and we're at a nice little café eating when I tell Max about how I've been apartment hunting with my wife Charli for the last few Saturdays. That everything is a little more expensive than I was hoping for but that we could probably cover it just the same. I've started to like Max as a friend and not just as a colleague; normally I wouldn't talk with guys I work with about my personal life but seeing as how he already knows my wife, I wouldn't think it's an issue. Max's response however, was that he raised his eyebrows and nodded a little before looking away in thought.
"Are you sure you should be buying a place right now?" Max finally asks me.
"Yeah, what's wrong with now? Do you know something about the firm that I don't?" I quickly ask in return.
