Girl Meets Billionaire

by Aubrey, Brenna

  “It’s because this shaft feels like a well. The unfinished sides, the light above.”

  “Oh.” A beat, then, “Do you have…history with a well?”

  “I fell in one,” I say. “When I was younger. They didn’t find me for a pretty long time, and I was just terrified out of my mind.”

  “How long?”

  I’m about to say three days, but that’s the kind of thing that gets reported in the news. “Long enough,” I say. “I felt like I’d fallen off the face of the earth. But most of all, it was terrifying. I was scared of the dark to start with. And you don’t know how dark the bottom of a well is—you have no idea. I thought I’d never get out. People couldn’t find me. And there are slugs, and it’s just…” I shudder. “It was a long time in there.”

  He slides his arm around my shoulders. “This isn’t a well.”

  “I know,” I say. “But I kind of don’t know.”

  He pulls me close. I find myself leaning into him.

  “It would be scary,” he says. “Alone. Not sure if you’d be found.”

  “Yeah,” I say. Not sure if you’d be found by the right people, anyway.

  He pulls his phone out and whips off a quick text, then clicks off. A few moments later, the shaft is flooded with light from the bottom.

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Is that better? Less well-like?”

  “Thanks. It is better.”

  “You got out of that well, Vicky.”

  “I got out. And grew up to be a dog whisperer slash captain of industry,” I add. He says nothing. It’s a stupid joke. “I’m sorry. I’m just messed up right now.”

  Bangs and drills sound from below.

  “It’s hard to be powerless like that.”

  “It’s more about the fear,” I say. “Did you ever have that fear of footsteps in the dark? And then you get to the warmth and light of safety and it’s such a relief. But in the well, it was like the footsteps never stopped. Hour after hour, the terror kept grinding on. It took everything out of me. Fear is exhausting. Little-known fact.”

  “How long were you in it?”

  “Can we talk about something else?”

  “I’m sorry that happened to you,” he says.

  “Something. Else.”

  He sighs. “You know that model we fixed together? With the trees? And I wouldn’t tell you why it was important to fix it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, well, now I’m telling you. There’s this guy, Renaldo, he’s the one who made it. He eighty-five, one of the oldest guys in all of Locke. He helped my grandfather and father build the company, and he definitely has enough money to retire, but building is his life. Those models take him forever to make, but Brett and I feel like it keeps him alive. And if he saw the thing destroyed…he’d be crushed.”

  “You seemed mad.”

  “Well, who’s leaving their bevs all over the model? Right? Anyway, he was kind of an uncle to Brett and me. As my dad got too busy to deal with us, Renaldo was the one who’d take us around, make us learn the ropes with the trades. Brett and I would go and do our homework at that place, and if we finished in time, Renaldo would give us little assignments. Make a five-inch bridge out of ten toothpicks and a piece of string, stuff like that. And there would be a test, like the bridge would have to extend between blocks spaced five inches apart and be able to support a stack of ten quarters.”

  “A bridge made out of just a piece of string and toothpicks? How is that possible?”

  “You’d be surprised what you can make from a piece of string and toothpicks. It’s excellent building material.”

  “Maybe this is the part where you reassure me that even though it’s excellent building material, you went on to use more durable materials in the construction of things like freight elevators in boutique hotels.”

  He turns to me there in the strangely lit shaft. “This thing’s solid steel, baby.”

  I suppress a smile, because of course it sounds slightly sexy. “So you keep Renaldo on staff. That’s sweet.”

  “He gave us an amazing education. He’s a master builder—literally.”

  It comes to me that he didn’t mention his mother. As if she wasn’t in the picture. “Did your mom help out with the company?”

  “No.” He pulls out his phone. I don’t press him on it. I’m not exactly the mother relationship queen myself.

  “I want to tell you something and have you hear me on it. Trust me on it.” I need to tell him without violating my pact with Carly.

  “Yeah?” He slides his hand along mine.

  “Your mother handed over the company to Smuckers.” That’s not violating our pact, right? It’s a true fact. Light beams up from below, peeking through slits in the metal. “Things…tend to work themselves out. When something belongs to somebody, it tends to find them.”

  “What does that mean?” He watches my face with intense interest. “Is Smuckers giving back the company? Is there something in the will that reverts it?”

  I shake my head. “Things work out, don’t you find?”

  “You can’t say more?”

  “I can swear to you that I never had my sights on Locke. I know you have no reason to trust me,” I say. “I know what the evidence makes it look like. What it makes me look like. I’m not that terrible person. It’s not what everyone thinks.”

  My throat feels thick. It’s like the emotion of the last eight years is rushing up all at once, choking me.

  “I want you to believe.” The words rush out of me. “I need you to believe in spite of the evidence.”

  “Hey.” He pulls me onto his lap, holds me tightly. “I believe you.”

  Emotion lurches through me. I’m stunned. Reeling. His arms pull tight around me. “I believe you. I trust you.” He kisses my cheek. “I see you.”

  I swallow. I close my fingers around his arm. His breath warms my cheek.

  And he believes me.

  Contrary to all evidence, he believes me. The world seems full of possibility. Like what’s happening between us could be real. Like maybe things work out for Vonda, too. Like string and toothpicks can make a bridge.

  Clanks and voices ring out from below.

  “Show me one of those bridges,” I say. “I want to see.”

  He’s got his phone and he’s swiping the screen. “Brett sent me this last year. This is before.” He shows me a picture of a tiny bridge with string running as tension wires under the arch of toothpicks. He swipes. “After.” It’s a sad little pile of quarters and toothpick bits.

  “Awwww,” I say.

  “Wait, I might have one of the old successful ones.” He’s flipping through his photo cloud when the elevator lurches back to life.

  I grab onto his arm as it begins an excruciatingly slow descent.

  “Hold up,” he says. “Don’t think I’m letting you out before finding a successful one.” He finally gets it, hands me the phone.

  It’s the bridge—string and toothpicks supporting quarters, but the shot gets his face, and that’s what I love. He’s maybe eleven, crouching behind the table with a shit-eating grin on his face and those dimples in full force. Happy. Proud.

  Eventually, we reach the bottom and the cage door opens to a group of guys in hardhats. They help me out first, all apologies. Henry goes to inspect the motor with them.

  I wander over to the reclaimed junk he wants to incorporate into furniture like it’s something I super need to check out.

  I’m afraid to think it’s real, but I do. My heart pounds like a happy drum. I smile. I shove at the pile with my foot and smile like a madwoman.

  I feel him near. I don’t know why I always feel him.

  I say, “They used to make everything so ornate. Even the most lowly electrical thing was ornately designed. Buildings had pretty flourishes they didn’t need. Why don’t they do it anymore?”

  “We still do,” he says. “Just in a different way.”

  I pick up a piece of grat
e with a vine pattern.

  “How cool would it be incorporated into a table or seating?” he says.

  I kneel and pick up a metal circle the size of a dinner plate with elaborate edge pattern, trying to get my head straight. It has numbers and a bird logo pounded into it. A patina of scuffs from across the ages.

  I toss it onto the pile and pick up a block of weathered timber with old nails in it and a shiny metal plate the size of a playing card stuck to the side. “I know how to get this made into furniture. More awesome than you can imagine.”

  It’s Latrisha I’m thinking of. This is her jam.

  “Tell me.”

  His eyes lock onto mine and I’m back on that roof, breath coming in shaky tremors, awash in the goodness of him. Still holding my gaze, he tosses it back into the pile. It’s a sexy, confident, screw-it-all move that I love.

  It’s the kind of thing Vonda would love even more. It’s weird to imagine that, against all odds, he senses that fun, wild Vonda part of me. He trusts her.

  He doesn’t know the most important details of my life or even my real name or hair color, but he knows my Vonda side. And he knows my maker’s heart.

  “You got a truck?”

  He comes to me—slowly. My blood races as he nears. Is he going to kiss me? I would let him kiss me.

  But instead of kissing me, he stops.

  I look up at his gorgeous lips and sparkly golden-brown cheek stubble and enchantingly uneven dimples.

  “Did you just ask Henry fucking Locke if he has a truck?”

  An hour later, we’re rumbling over the Brooklyn Bridge in a heavy-duty diesel pick-up truck with the Locke Worldwide logo on the side.

  It’s loaded with the best stuff from the site, courtesy of the crew that Henry called over. He told me to point out the best bits, then he disappeared.

  He was on the verge of losing the Most Eligible Bastard’s manliness competition at that point for not helping to load…but then he came back in work clothes—a long-sleeved green T-shirt and jeans and boots and gloves—and he started loading with the guys.

  He went for the heavy stuff, like the hunks of concrete. He sometimes grunted, muscles bulging like melons under the light fabric of the shirt. I tried not to stare too hard as he worked. Or when he’d wipe the dripping sweat off his forehead with his big freaking glove, sometimes leaving smears of dust.

  Manliness portion of Most Eligible Bastard unlocked!

  We’re heading deep into Brooklyn, away from the trendy parts.

  “And you’re not telling where we’re going.”

  “Take a left up here on Oakerton,” I say.

  He takes a left. On we go.

  I look at the increasingly decrepit buildings from his point of view, wondering what he thinks. Was I wrong to bring him here? No matter how dirty he gets his hands, he’s a billionaire, a man from another world. He wields a shovel, yes, but some of those shovels have giant bows on them.

  I check my phone. I texted Latrisha during the loading, making sure she’d be around and she hasn’t responded.

  This is the kind of reclaimed shit she lives for.

  We pull up at the Southfield makers space. There’s actually street parking in this part of town, of the leave-your-vehicle-at-your-own-risk kind.

  I suddenly dread taking him into the dank and half-ruined warehouse, with industrial lighting and power sources hanging from ropes and duct tape on things. There are plywood partitions between workspaces. Giant welding setups that aren’t entirely legal. Home-cooked venting that is totally not code.

  Even the grungiest Locke fabrication facility is a palace compared to this. Clean and spic and span.

  And then there’s the culture of the place.

  It’s not all well-behaved jewelry makers who just need a soldering setup, or fashion-forward furniture makers like Latrisha. There’s a wild edge to a lot of the people, from the tattoo-and-leather Neo-Renaissance guys over in the blacksmith area to the facially pierced mosaic artisans to the crazy-ass pottery people and neon guys and everyone else. Will the scene be too outlandish?

  “You have an alarm on this thing, right?” I say.

  “I’m not worried,” he says. “Who’s going to steal a load of vintage construction debris?”

  “Um, you’re about to meet them,” I say.

  We hop out and walk up the fractured sidewalk to the entrance. I wince as I unlock the skull-design metal door, made by said blacksmith guys.

  I lead us into the hulking space, like the inside of a Klingon warship. And of course the first thing we see are the potters and blacksmith guys in the lounge area couches around a table loaded with empty beer bottles and some kind of sculpture that might be made out of part of a tractor.

  I smile and wave at them. “Lively today.” I grab his hand and pull him in toward the more subdued side.

  “What exactly is this place?” he asks.

  “Southfield Place Makers Studio. It’s a makers co-op.” We pass the welders and the collective hardware area where tattooed urban beardsmen argue over the schedule for a circular saw. “You have to sign up for some of the larger tools,” I explain. “They’re shared.” I lower my voice. “That guy doesn’t always follow the rules, but things usually go really smoothly.”

  He doesn’t reply.

  My mood fizzles as we go deeper, because I don’t see Latrisha’s bright red hat over the plywood partition of her space. This was a bad idea.

  “You do your jewelry here?”

  “Well, I need venting for soldering. I think I’d get evicted from my apartment if I tried it there.”

  “Damn,” he says.

  Miserably, I lead him onward, past rows of messy workshop tables made of raw plywood. Why did I think he’d like this?

  It’s not just the scene here, it’s him, too. He’s dressed down, but he’s a different species than we are, like he can’t wash the rich off, no matter how hard he might try.

  “It seems a bit low rent, I know,” I say, “but it’s a great deal and the tools here are really good.”

  He doesn’t reply, seeming stunned by the decrepitude.

  I keep going. If nothing else, he can see some of Latrisha’s furniture and maybe hire her, and that would be great. Whatever else he thinks about this place, Latrisha’s furniture is amazing.

  “And it’s not like we let just anyone in, much as it might look like that. People have to pay monthly and we can kick them out if they’re assholes. I mean, it’s hard to do this kind of stuff in the city; it’s not like we all have sheds in our yard, or even yards, and when you look at the start-up capital for like, a woodworker or even someone like me—”

  “Vicky,” he says in his laughing way.

  I turn and walk backward. “We all have lockers for our personal stuff over there,” I say.

  “Watch out.” He grabs my arm just in time to keep me from backing into a couple rolling a cart.

  He smiles down at me, and it’s one of his fake smiles. And that’s not okay. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Tell me,” I say.

  He lets me go. “It’s a wealthy guy complaint. Trust me, you don’t want to hear it.”

  “I know it seems a little shabby.”

  “You think that’s the problem?”

  “Or…low rent.”

  “Vicky,” he says. “You’re seriously apologizing for the state of the place?” he says. “It’s utterly amazing.”

  Shivers swirl over me. “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “I worried you’d think it’s…I don’t know.”

  “One of the little-understood things about having my kind of money is the insulation. It can be great—you’re insulated from tedious chores and time sucks, and I never have to talk to anybody who I specifically don’t want to talk to; other people talk to those people for me. But I’m also insulated from something like this. I literally can’t have this.”

  “You could if you wan
ted.”

  “Yeah, okay, technically I can, because it’s a free country, but I’d almost have to come as somebody else. Like a poser. Look at me. I could buy an airplane hangar and fill it with the best tools money can buy before dinner. I’d have to take a space from somebody who actually needs it.” He’s silent a bit. “This place is awesome. And I can never be one of the people who belong here.”

  I’m stunned at how I misread him. He wasn’t feeling judgy; he was feeling jealous. Billionaire Henry Locke can’t have this. And he thinks it’s awesome.

  I grin and turn to him, walking backwards. “I wanted you to like it. It’s one of my favorite places in the world.”

  His eyes sparkle. “I like it a whole lot.”

  Heat creeps over my neck, because I feel like he’s talking about me.

  He catches up to me and takes my hand. My heart skips a beat.

  “Do you have a lot of collaboration?” he asks. “Do people walk around and see what each other is doing?”

  “Yeah, people hook up on projects, but it’s not as if we’re walking around all dude, please tell me about this awesome creation of yours! That would be a little dorky.”

  “They hook up from the lounge,” he says.

  “More often than not,” I say.

  I see Latrisha’s head pop up, and I think, Yay! She widens her eyes at me. I suppress a smile. I warned her I was bringing Henry, but she still looks a little stunned.

  We get to her space, and I see she’s cleaned it up. “Latrisha, this is Henry. Henry, this is Latrisha. She makes furniture out of reclaimed stuff and it’s freaking amazing.”

  “Hey,” he says, taking her hand. “So nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise.” Latrisha’s apron is full of pockets and her hair is wound in a braid on top of her head like a rope crown. She’s trying to disguise her grin, and it makes her look a bit mad. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “I think I might be familiar with one of your recent pieces, actually,” Henry says, moving over to her workbench and picking up a remnant of the polished metal she used on Smuckers’s throne. He goes on to slide his hand over a partly finished stool on her workbench. “I love this burnished effect. How did you get it?”

  She explains her burnishing technique, which I realize would be good with the reclaimed posts and wood. She ends up showing him pictures. They discuss finishes so extensively, it seems like a joke at one point.