by Joey Bush
“Um, yes there is. What if this guy decides that he needs more money? What if he comes after you?”
“I don’t think he will. Levi gave him what he wanted.”
“But Isla—you just told me that this guy essentially kidnapped you, held you for ransom, and cut Levi’s face! He’s obviously a little unhinged.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t know where we are out here. I don’t think he ever went to New York. And he sure as hell doesn’t know anything about Bel Air. I’m not too worried about it.”
Sophie gave me a quizzical look. “Okay,” she said, though she still sounded doubtful. “Whose life are you living now, anyway?”
“I know,” I said. “It’s kind of crazy. Sometimes I wonder that, too. But then part of me also feels exactly the same, like I was before all this. So, I don’t know. I guess this is who I am now. But really, Soph, I don’t think there’s anything to worry about with Alfie.”
“You could always pay for security detail.”
“Yeah, no. I’m not that important.”
“You guys do make a good-looking couple, I’ll give you that much.” The car in front of us turned and the road was open in front of us. Sophie stepped on the gas and the car surged. The windows were down and our hair was blowing everywhere, and we both laughed as we drove along. I couldn’t help but thinking that this was as much fun as anything that I’d done recently, just being out with one of my very best friends.
The next day, I called my mother. I felt as though I was going down the list of people I had to make amends with; the last time we’d talked had been when we’d gotten into the argument at her house.
“Hi, it’s me,” I said. “I’d like to come over for a visit, if that’s okay. I wanted to call first, though; I didn’t just want to drop by unannounced.”
“Are you in Bel Air?”
“Yes. Levi and I got here yesterday.”
“I see. I’ll be around this afternoon if you’d like to come by. I should be home after three.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll come over around quarter past three then. It’ll just be me. I think it’d be good if we had the chance to talk.”
“You’re probably right,” Mom said, though she didn’t sound entirely thrilled about that prospect.
When I got to her house later, though, she came to the door with a smile, which I took as a good sign.
“Why don’t we go sit out on the deck,” she said. “It’s a nice day. And I just made some iced tea.”
“Sure,” I said as I followed her through the house. “That sounds good.” She stopped in the kitchen to get the pitcher out of the fridge and some glasses, and then we went and sat outside.
“Here you go,” she said, handing me a glass of iced tea.
“Thanks,” I said. I took a sip and then set it down on the table. “Listen, Mom I don’t want to fight with you. It’s felt really weird, fighting with both you and Sophie. I’ve hated it, and I just want it to stop, okay? Things are all good between her and me now. We’ve talked and worked everything out. So I’d like to get back on track with you, too.”
Mom swirled the ice around in her glass and took a sip of her iced tea. “There’s nothing more I’d like than for that to happen, too,” she said. She smiled. “So I’m more than willing to put all this behind us. I want you to be happy, Isla. Even if that ends up looking different than how I might have pictured it. It’s your life, not mine. It can be hard for a parent to take a step back, sometimes, regardless of how old their child is.”
“I know, Mom. I know you were just doing this because you didn’t want to see me get hurt.”
“So I’ll try to mind my own business from now on. I want to hear about what you’ve been up to. How has everything been going? What have you been doing?”
“Well . . .” Even though I had told Sophie what had happened with Alfie, there was no way in hell I was going to tell my mother about that. “Things have been . . . interesting,” I said. “We went over to Ibiza for a little while.”
“Levi seems to like it over there.”
“It’s a beautiful place. But there’s a lot of other beautiful places I’d like to visit. Eventually. I’m not in any huge rush to run off somewhere right now. I’m actually quite happy to be back here in Bel Air. I’ve decided that I’m going to invest most of the money with BCM. That was one of the first things the lawyer, I think, said to me when he told me that Alex had left me money. Not that I should leave it with BCM specifically, but that I should have someone who was experienced help me handle it.”
She nodded, looking a bit relieved. “I’m glad to hear you say that,” she said. “It’s too much money for a regular person to have to deal with.”
“You keep acting like we’re this different species or something,” I said. “We’re not, you know. Money doesn’t make someone better than anyone else.”
“I know that, Isla. But it does change people.”
“Well, I want to do good things with it. And I think you’ll see over time that that’s the case. I would like to take you on a vacation, though. You deserve that. Would you let me do that? We could all go. It’d be fun.”
Mom smiled. “You might want to wait to hear where it is I want to go before you volunteer to come along.”
“Where?”
“Colorado.”
“Yeah? Like this winter, to go skiing? That would be fun. I’ve never been to Colorado before.”
“No, I mean before the snow starts. They have ranches out there, where you can go and stay and work on the ranch. Ride horses, participate in cattle drives, all sorts of stuff.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So you’re telling me that the vacation you want to go on involves doing ranch work?”
“I’m not the sort of person who would be happy just lying around on the beach all day. That’s just not my cup of tea. I’d be antsy after a couple of hours. Plus, it’s a new experience. I’d get to try something I’ve never done before.”
“If that’s what you want to do, then I think that sounds great. It might not be my first vacation pick, but it actually does sound kind of interesting. Why don’t you figure out when you want to go and arrange it and let me know and I’ll pay for it?”
“I’ll look into it,” she said. “So how are things going with Levi? You said that he’d come down here with you.”
“He did. He likes it here a lot, which I think is kind of funny. Considering he’s been all over the world.”
“That is interesting,” Mom said. “I’d think somewhere like this would seem pretty boring to him.”
“I think that’s part of what he likes—that it’s slow and laid back and everything is just pretty . . . regular, I guess.”
“But things between the two of you are still going okay?”
The way she was asking, it was as if she knew something, or was expecting me to say that things were awful.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I just . . .” She paused and looked into her empty glass. Then she looked at me. “I know you’re an adult. And you can make your own decisions about who it is you date. And I hope you can understand that, as your mother, I only want what’s best for you, and that means seeing you with someone who deserves to be with you. Now, this might sound somewhat hard to believe but . . . part of the reason that I don’t think Levi is right for you in the long run is because he’s supposed to be with someone else.”
A surprised look crossed my face, though not because of what she just said, but because she knew about that at all.
“I know that probably sounds rather far-fetched,” Mom continued, “but it’s true.”
“It does sound far-fetched,” I said. “But I knew about that. Levi told me.”
“He did?”
“Yes. He didn’t even know himself until recently. How did you know?”
“I had made some comment one night when Alex and I were still married, about how Ella and Levi made a good couple. They’d just been over and then had gone
out for the rest of the evening. Alex had had a few drinks in him, and he said something to the effect of it being a happy coincidence that the two of them were hitting it off so well. I asked him what he meant, and he told me.”
“Oh,” I said. It was strange to think that my mother knew this all along.
“At first I thought Alex was joking, because the idea is just so strange sounding. But then he started to tell me about it, and it sort of made sense. I mean, it’s not something I agree with, but I could see why he’d done it and how it made sense in his mind. I guess that’s sort of what I mean when I say that they’re different from us.”
“Alex must’ve told you that Levi had no idea, though, right?”
Mom frowned. “You know, I can’t remember. I just assumed that Levi knew; it seems like the sort of thing that you would tell someone.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Honestly, Isla, I didn’t think you would give him the time of day. I know he used to make fun of you. I know how hurt you were over it, even though you tried to hide it. I wasn’t sure what his motives were, though; part of me thought that maybe he was going to try to get back the money that Alex had left for you, and then once he had that, go marry Ella. I just didn’t want to see you get hurt again, especially not by him. And I didn’t tell you because part of me thought you’d accuse me of making it up, and the other part of me thought you’d never get involved with him like that in the first place.”
“It certainly wasn’t my plan to. Well, it kind of was, but it was supposed to be for revenge.” I laughed, thinking back to when Sophie had first suggested it. “It was Sophie’s idea. Project Revenge she called it.”
Mom laughed, too. “That sounds just like something Sophie would suggest. She’s always been a good friend to you.”
“I know,” I said. “And you’ve always been a good parent. I’ve been pretty fortunate in that regard.”
“As long as you’re happy with Levi, then that’s all I care about,” Mom said. “I know I’ve been hard on you in the past, and I know that we haven’t always agreed on things, but if you’re happy, then that’s what’s most important to me.”
I looked at her and smiled. “Thanks, Mom,” I said. “And you know what? I am.”
37.
Levi
You know, I could get used to this.
I was standing out on the deck at Isla’s house, spatula in hand, ready to flip the salmon filets that I had on the grill. Isla was in the kitchen, making a salad, and dusk was falling. In the distance, I could hear kids playing outside, their shrieks of laughter wafting through the warm night air. We’d be going back to New York in a couple days, but right now, I was just enjoying being here and not having an agenda.
She came out onto the deck, carrying a ceramic bowl with lettuce and some fresh veggies from her mom’s garden.
“That looks good,” she said, peering over my shoulder. “Who knew you were so good with a grill?”
“I’ve grilled a thing or two in my time,” I said. I slid the fillets off the grill and onto the serving platter. Then Isla and I went and sat down at the table. We had the salmon, the salad, some cold pasta salad that she’d picked up at the deli, and a bottle of Pinot Grigio. I poured us each a glass and then held mine up.
“I’m not usually the sort who makes toasts,” I said, “but I think tonight I can make an exception. Isla, I know we’ve been through a lot recently, and it hasn’t all been good, but I realized the other day that there’s no one else I’d rather be with.” We clinked glasses together. “And I love you,” I said, looking her right in the eyes. She blinked and laughed, her cheeks flushing. She took a sip of her wine.
“I love you, too,” she said. “And there’s no one else I’d rather be with, either.”
We started to eat as the sky continued to darken, stars coming out, glittering over our heads, and I realized that I was as happy in this moment as I’d ever been, right here, with her.
Epilogue
Isla
I waited until Levi had finished getting dressed and was sitting at the table with his breakfast before I showed him.
“Hey look,” I said. I slid the magazine across the table to where Levi was sitting, eating a bowl of cereal, looking on his phone. “You made the cover of Forbes.”
He glanced at it but then turned it over so the cover was face down. “So that’s the picture they went with,” he said. “I look like such a tool. Never do a photo shoot; they’re awful.”
I turned the magazine over. “I think you look very handsome.” I sat down with my coffee and looked at the cover again. He was standing under a spotlight, his sports jacket in a crumpled heap on the ground beside him. He had on a blue button down shirt with a white collar, the sleeves pushed up, his red tie loosened and askew. He had his hands in his pockets and was looking into the camera with a half-smile on his face, one that you could mistake for a smirk but if you looked closer, you could tell it was actually more of a what the hell am I doing here. In big red serif type it said: PRODIGOL SON.
“I just got a wedding invitation,” Levi said. He put his spoon down and slid the phone over to me. There was a picture of Ella, looking incredibly gorgeous in a short, sleeveless, cream-colored frock, Grecian sandals with straps lacing up her long legs. She was holding hands with another, equally good-looking guy, someone named Alexios Giannakis. “Ella found herself someone richer than I am,” Levi said. He leaned over and looked at the picture again. “Better-looking, too.”
“No way,” I said, shaking my head. “He’s not bad, but you’re way better looking than he is. Who is he?”
“Oldest son of a Greek shipping magnate. I ran into him a few times here and there in Ibiza and Koh Phangan, all the big party spots. I’m sure Ella will be happy with him.”
I watched Levi as he spoke, trying to gauge whether or not he was feeling any sort of remorse. I didn’t want to be thinking like this; I wanted to be secure in my relationship with him, and I was, most of the time, but every so often that old doubt would start to creep back in and I’d wonder why he was with me to begin with.
“More importantly,” he said, taking another bite of cereal, “is that Frank will be happy with him. And that’s really what matters most.”
“I hope not,” I said. “She should be with someone that she wants to be with; not some guy that her father thinks she should be with.”
Levi nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I hope she’s happy.” He finished his cereal and stood up, stretched. His eye caught the magazine again and he turned it over again, so the cover was face down. “You feel like going for a walk?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said. “That sounds nice.”
We left our apartment and started walking toward Central Park. It had been two years since I’d put my money with BCM; in that time, Levi had sold his place in Ibiza and his dad’s penthouse, despite it being his childhood home. We purchased a more modest apartment in Midtown, and kept my house in Bel Air. I had been fine with selling it, but Levi wanted to keep it, for some reason. He said he liked having it as a retreat to go back to.
He got word last year, from an old friend, that Alfie had been killed in a hit-and-run. The police hadn’t made any arrests, but Levi had some ideas about who it might’ve been.
I could tell he felt relieved about the news. I hadn’t been that worried about Alfie after we’d gotten back to New York, but I knew Levi felt as though it were possible he could show back up, demanding more money, wanting to hurt one of us.
When we got to the park, we started walking down one of the bridle paths. It was early June, and the weather had just started to warm up, though there was still a cool note lingering in the air. The trees were beginning to leaf out and everything felt fresh and new. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs all the way with air, holding it for a second before I exhaled completely. Sometimes, I still had a hard time believing that this was the way everything had worked out.
“It’s funny the way thing
s turn out, isn’t it?” Levi said suddenly, as though he had just read my mind. “I mean, if you’d told me three years ago that I’d be here, working at BCM, in a relationship with you, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“I know,” I said. “I probably wouldn’t have believed it either. But I’m glad. Because these past two years have been amazing. They really have.”
“I feel the same way. I always thought that I’d be one of those guys who just partied forever, even when they were way past their prime, because I never thought I could deal with a ‘regular’ life. But I actually really like ‘regular’ life. And it’s in large part because of you.” We had stopped under a cherry blossom tree, that had already bloomed its pink flowers for the season, but was still beautiful anyway.
“I know this is probably going to look like I’m trying to one up them,” he said, giving me a rueful smile. “But I don’t care.”
“One up who?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”
He stopped walking and turned to face me. From a distance, the scar on his face was not visible at all; even up close, unless you were looking for it, you probably wouldn’t notice. But if the sun hit his face a certain way, then yes, there it was, you could see it very clearly. That happened right then; I reached up and ran my fingers across his cheek.
“Being with you makes me really happy, you know,” he said. “I know I’ve said it before, but sometimes I feel like I need to say it more than once.”
“You’re allowed,” I said. “Especially because I never get tired of hearing it.”
“That’s good.” He smiled and took my hand. “Isla,” he said, and then he got down on one knee. I felt my heart begin to race and my face flush. Levi looked up at me, a big smile on his face. “Isla,” he said again, “I have a question to ask you.” He paused and I smiled back, taking a deep breath, telling myself that I would at least let him get the words out before I said yes.
That’s the end of the Billionaire’s Virgin. Below I included 4 of my previous books to read as a free bonus.
