Read Online Dragon Day by Lisa Brackmann - Free Book Online

mean, I thought about it in the abstract, a little. But now there’s a living, breathing guy in my head. And even if he is a scumbag . . . do I want to be responsible for that?
    First do no harm, right?
    You haven’t fucked it up yet, I tell myself.
    I’ll think of something. Play things with Sidney and/or Vicky as best I can. Tell them I don’t know enough yet, that I need more time. Maybe I’ll actually do some work on this museum project, who knows?
    Right now I’m just glad to be home with my dog and a Yanjing Draft.
    The evening those guys are having, it’s the kind that ends up with somebody running over a migrant vendor with a Ferrari, or with said Ferrari smashed to pieces against a freeway abutment—with or without dead hookers. It’s how the fu er dai , the second-generation rich, tend to roll.
    Bugging out was the right thing to do.

Chapter Six
    â˜…
    I’m sitting in bed with my laptop checking the English-language China gossip sites like I do a lot of mornings, this time with a little more interest than usual, because hey, what if Gugu and Marsh did crash a Ferrari into a concrete wall?
    But if something went wrong last night, it hasn’t made it onto chinaSMACK yet.
    I take another sip of strong, black coffee. Not as good as the stuff Harrison served up the other day, which is one of the problems with hanging out around rich people—they always have better stuff than I do.
    Or maybe that’s why I hang out around them.
    I glance over at the designer clothes heaped on this armchair that I never actually sit on—it’s just where I throw clothes. They’re wrinkled, and I can smell the cigarette smoke on them from here. Discarded lizard skins.
    I drink more coffee. At least I’m not hungover, just tired and headachy and dry-eyed from all the smoke and the noise and not enough sleep. But I’m still feeling all mature for not doing anything totally stupid last night.
    That is, until my iPhone rings.
    â€œVicky Huang. I have Mr. Sidney Cao for you.”
    Fucking great.
    â€œHello, Ms. Ellie!” Sidney, as usual, sounds weirdly cheerful. Though maybe it isn’t weird to be cheerful when you can buy anything you want. “I hope you had a nice evening?”
    â€œYes. I did. Pretty much.”
    â€œAnd how was Gugu?” He’s still all Mr. Happy, but it’s forced this time. Because yeah, actually, you can’t buy everything.
    â€œHe seems . . . I don’t know, pretty good.” I mean, what else can I say? He seems like a bitter, drunk parasite? Which, you know, might be a little of a pot/kettle scenario, but I’m at least doing no harm, right?
    â€œAnd you meet this friend of his? This American, Marsh Brody?”
    My heart starts pounding. “I did.”
    â€œAnd what are your thoughts?”
    Stay Hippocratic, McEnroe.
    â€œYou know, it’s a little hard for me to say. It’s not like I really got to know him. There wasn’t enough time. And it was, kind of . . . loud.”
    â€œI see.” He no longer sounds cheerful.
    â€œWe’re going to meet again,” I say quickly. “To talk about the museum. With Meimei and Tiantian.”
    â€œAll three of my children?” I can hear a cautious little happy note under the surprise. And I’m thinking, Oh, shit, I have stepped in it again. I mean, I have no idea what the relationship between the kids is like, except from what Gugu said last night—it sounded like he wasn’t close to the other two. Who knows if I can actually get the three of them together to discuss Sidney’s art obsession? If Sidney has some kind of fantasy about a family reunion and I don’t deliver . . .
    â€œSo this . . . this Marsh Brody. He is interested in art?”
    â€œYeah. Well, movies, I think.”
    â€œMovies.” He snorts. “Those are not art.”
    â€œWell, you know, some contemporary artists,