A Regular Cinderella (boyxboy)

October

Fifteen Years Later

Addison rolled his eyes as another customer gushed on and on about Lyle Prince. It had been continuous, non-stop gossip all day long on the, admittedly hot, (or so he'd heard) local celebrity. It came out recently that the twenty-five year old player was given an ultimatum by his parents.

His dad wanted to retire and was planning to hand his big fancy company over to his son. If and only if the guy got married.

And Lyle wanted the family business. Apparently his parents had set up an arranged marriage to some trophy from a fellow business partner. And Lyle Prince hated her. Thought she was pretty but extremely vapid. So he struck a deal with his beloved patents. They would give him until the annual masquerade they hosted in March to find a person of his choice or he'd marry the girl of their choice who had absolutely nothing going on upstairs.

This caused a frenzy, Addison imagined similar to the search for a golden ticket. All the young girls wanted him to pick them and, hey, some of the boys too. (it was a popular rumor that Lyle Prince was a lover of beauty more so than a specific gender). And absolutely every mother of a girl 18-32 was trying to get Lyle Prince to notice their child.

Even Addison's stepmother was trying. Trying a little too hard, if you asked him. She paraded Marissa around to any events that were rumored to have the rich young man and was constantly pushing Marissa bosom first into him.

No wonder the man hid from the cameras. That's right, Lyle Prince was camera shy. Not a single tabloid ever boasted his picture. And since that's where Addison got his news, he didn't even know what the man looked like. He actually felt kind of bad for the guy. And then he sighed remembering his own unhappy life.

Things had changed dramatically since Addison's father died. His stepmom decided she hated him when it was revealed that his father's small fortune was left entirely to Addison. He was supposed to get access to it when he turned eighteen but somehow she had managed to keep the money from him. Which was making it really hard for him to go to college.

Straight out of high school Addison got a low paying job as a cashier. He worked there steadily for two years before applying to college. He got in and received grants that significantly lowered the cost of his tuition. Even so, when he was twenty-one he got a second job as a waiter in a gay bar on the west side of town because being a cashier wasn't exactly covering his student expenses.

He liked working in the bar well enough when the customers kept their damn hands to themselves. And it helped pay for his books and music supplies.

Addison was going to school to be a music teacher. His true passion was in performance and composing music, and he even got a few of his simple melodies turned into jingles. Honestly, composing was what he truly wanted to do, but he figured teaching was something he could do while composing and even performing.

Addison was cleaning his belt when a loud booming voice behind him made him jump, "Hey Addi," Ah yes, Eva, his big breasted pixie of a friend.

He set his towel down and asked pleasantly, "Eva, wanna die?"

"That's okay, I'm partial to living," she sat on his belt. "So... did you hear about-"