A Billionaire for Christmas

by Phillips, Carly

  “OK. So that means we have a lot of work to do right now.” I turn to the laptop on the conference table and bring up the list. “Who will it be?”

  Everyone scans the list. And then the room becomes thoughtful.

  “I think the lion’s share should go to the Children’s Hospital,” Mila says.

  “Agreed,” we all chant in response.

  “And then I’d like a big chunk to go to the inner-city arts and music program,” Natalie says.

  “And don’t forget the new science and technology charter school,” Hannah adds.

  I take notes as we divvy up our annual bonuses. We have seventy-three candidates on our giving list this year. All of them needy. All of them deserving. And it will take time to make sure they all get their share of the money.

  The Boston brothers are matching our charitable gifts this year. So there’s actually almost fifty million dollars to divvy up tonight and that’s gonna take a while.

  For a moment I worry that Jesse will be bored as he waits out in the lobby with all our partners and guests. But I can see him through the glass walls of the conference room.

  He and his brothers and their dates are lounging on the leather couches in front of the giant tree. Hannah’s Darrel is out there talking to Diego and Natalie’s boyfriends.

  Every once in a while, one of them glances at us.

  But they just nod and smile.

  Do your thing, those smiles say.

  Because they know that this meeting is the real meaning of the season.

  Chapter Three

  “Did I ever tell you about that little girl in the hazmat suit?”

  Joey and Huck are laughing about something. Megan and Brooke have their heads together scheming about who knows what. And Wald is leaning into me, asking where I got my tie, when this comes out of Johnny’s mouth.

  “What?” we all say, stopping all our conversations mid-sentence.

  He’s drunk. Hell, everyone but me is drunk.

  “The girl in the suit,” Johnny insists. “The one I left in the middle of the ocean.”

  “What?” This time we all laugh out the word.

  “Oh. My. God. What?” Johnny says, as he looks at Megan. We all look at Megan. She’s making one of those slicing motions across her throat, which is the dead giveaway that Johnny is about to tell a true story.

  I glance at Joey and find him looking back at me with raised eyebrows. That look says, What’s he talking about?

  I have no clue what Johnny’s going on about. But I can’t wait to hear it. And he doesn’t disappoint. Suddenly we’re all on a superyacht in the middle of the Caribbean with some dude named Logan and his crew of henchmen.

  “Umm… OK. Maybe we should table this for another night, Johnny?” That’s Megan. Apparently, she was here for this little adventure.

  “No, no, no.” Johnny laughs. “They gotta hear about the little girl. She was stealing biological samples from a secret lab on this island and…”

  The whole thing derails from there. There’s a helicopter story, and Megan chained in a dungeon, and something about rats who live forever.

  At first we’re all like, Holy shit. What the hell is he talking about?

  But by the time he gets to the fountain-of-youth rats, we’ve all gone back to our respective conversations. He’s totally making this shit up.

  “Custom-made,” I tell Wald.

  “What?” He’s still half listening to crazy Johnny.

  “The tie,” I say. “It was custom-made by this little Italian tailor just outside of Vatican City. It’s not really mine, it was my father’s tie. But I was looking for something red to wear tonight and this just popped out at me. So… where do you sleep?”

  “What?” he says again, only this time it’s a laugh.

  “You know.” I nod my head at Joey and Huck. “Like… do you guys have a custom bed? How does this work?”

  “We take turns,” he says, sipping from a glass of water.

  “No shit.” I knew it. “Is there like… a schedule? And do any of you get jealous?” I know this is prying, that Joey’s sex life is none of my business, but I can’t help it. I’m… intrigued.

  “Jealous?” Wald is still confused. “Um… well. No. I don’t think so. I mean, I love them all equally.”

  “Equally? Like… totally equally?”

  “Yup. I don’t care which one of them I sleep with. It’s all pretty nice. So we just… fall into whichever bed we feel like it, I guess. Normally I sleep with Brooke.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. Joey likes to sleep alone. But sometimes he sleeps with Brooke too. Huck sleeps with me most nights.”

  I have to admit—this is a crazy arrangement. But it’s all kind of exciting too.

  “Nice,” I say.

  “Who do you sleep with?” Wald deadpans.

  I laugh. “Emma. Just Emma.”

  “Well, that’s… lovely.” He says it like he feels sorry for me. Like I have no idea how fun his haphazard sleeping arrangements are and he’s the luckiest guy in the world.

  I can’t really disagree with that, but I’m more than satisfied with just one sleeping partner.

  “And then she looks me dead in the eye and says, ‘I’m going on my first date next weekend and I’m kind of excited about it.’”

  Only Megan laughs. She’s the only one still paying attention to Johnny.

  But then Johnny is laughing too, and I have to stop listening to Wald go on about his plural arrangement to enjoy that look for a moment.

  Johnny Boston. Laughing.

  My brother. Happy.

  I love it.

  This makes me think about my own happiness. And when I glance at the woman responsible for that new feeling on the other side of the glass-walled conference room, I find her looking back at me.

  I point my finger at her and she beams a smile at me, then turns back to her charitable giving tasks and I look around the room.

  One year ago. What the hell was I doing last Christmas?

  I have no clue what I was actually doing on this particular day one year ago, but last Christmas Eve Zach and I were in the Bossy Building on my floor watching reruns of It’s a Wonderful Life. I was thinking I could relate to that dude, but looking back on it now, I can see I was wrong. Jimmy Stewart’s character—I forget his name in the movie—he was the glue in his community. He sacrificed his own happiness and future for the good of everyone.

  I glance at Johnny—who is still talking about this psycho little girl with Megan—and realize… it was him, actually. Johnny was the one who sacrificed his future for the rest of us.

  I kinda respect the dude for that. I might not know him well, but I respect him. And I hope this Megan girl is the real deal.

  Which reminds me… she told me she was pregnant.

  “So… uh… hey,” I say, directing my words at Johnny. He stops talking and looks at me. “You got any big news you want to share with us, John?”

  Megan smiles big. But Johnny just looks confused.

  “You know,” I say, winking. “The baby?”

  And then… in that moment… I see him.

  I see Johnny. Maybe for the first time ever.

  My brother. My big brother. My big, badass, dangerous, I-will-kill-you-if-you-look-at-me-wrong brother.

  His whole face changes. Like right before my eyes. And then he glances up at Megan and I swear to God, there’s a tear in his drunk fucking eye.

  “No,” he says.

  “Yup.” Megan beams.

  “Really?”

  “Oh, shit,” I say. “I didn’t know it was a secret.”

  But they give no fucks about me. Johnny pulls Megan into his lap and hugs her tight. And I don’t know. It’s weird, for a moment. Like there’s something deeper going on here than just the good news of a baby.

  But then everyone is congratulating them, and the Bright Berry Beach men come over to see what’s going on, and that feeling drifts away as this new kind of h
appiness washes over us.

  Suddenly everyone is standing, me included. And we’re all slapping Johnny on the back, and the girls are hovering around Megan, and then Emma is there. Emma and Natalie. Mila and Hannah.

  Everyone is here.

  All the important people in our new lives. Together.

  “What’s going on?” Emma says, sliding her hand into mine.

  “Johnny and Megan are having a baby.”

  “Wow. Holy shit.” And then she’s in on it too.

  I look up the giant Christmas tree backlit by the city lights and the trappings of a fantastic night all around us, then wonder if it’s real. Wonder, How the hell did I go from being a lonely, despised outcast to the inner circle of this fantastic group of people in just one year?

  Half a year, really. Because Emma and I have only been reconnected since last summer.

  Somehow, I find myself in front of the Santa Machine, looking down at it. It’s like a legit robot Santa. Like one of those wide, circular fake-security bots that the city started putting in the parks last year. But he’s got a beard, and bushy eyebrows. And to scan your lanyard you pass it through his mouth.

  I chuckle just thinking about the craziness of this idea. And the wacko imagination of Alien Elf and her nerdy boyfriend.

  “Did you scan yours?”

  I turn to see Emma coming up next to me. “Not yet.”

  “Well, good. Because you’re not on the list, buddy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She leans up and kisses me on the mouth, then whispers, “You’re not an employee, Jesse. You have to wait until Christmas morning like everyone else. Now, come on. Take me home. I just spent fifty million dollars and I’m exhausted.”

  We say our goodbyes, grab our coats, and head down to the garage where Emma’s Huracán is waiting.

  I get to drive home. One of the perks of being sober.

  But I’m still drunk. I’m drunk on her.

  My Emma.

  And when we get back to our apartment, we drop the car off with the valet and I hold her hand all the way up to the penthouse.

  We share this place now. It’s ours.

  But when we walk inside, I glance at the wall of windows just before Emma flicks on the lights, and see the Bossy. All lit up for Christmas in a pattern of gold that makes it look like a beacon.

  Is someone living on my floor now? Did Chek get all our stuff? Will I ever go back there? Or is that place a part of my past now?

  “Are you coming?”

  I turn and look at Emma. Her head is tilted to the side a little, like she has a question for me.

  “No,” I say, walking over to her and taking her hand. Then I look down into her eyes and say, “I’m already here.”

  I have the craziest dream.

  Like seriously, insane dream.

  We’re all there. All of us. Johnny and Megan. Joey, and Huck, and Wald, and Brooke. Emma and me. Mila and Diego. Hannah and what’s-his-face. Natalie and the two guys from the party, even though those guys are just her current flavor of the month and don’t really belong. Dreams are weird like that.

  For some reason we’re at the Kane estate. Charlotte is there too, even though Johnny told us that she’s dead. I don’t know why we’re up at the Kane estate. I have only been up there once, and that was recent. I rode up with Joey to pick up Maisy for one of his father weekends when Huck and Wald were out of town on business and Brooke was at work.

  It was a nice drive up, I guess. But then the guard at the gate said he knew me. There was this weird conversation with him. We went to school together. I swear to God, I have no recollection of that dude.

  But anyway. He was there. The guard. And we were at the Kane estate. All of us.

  There was some kind of weird ceremony. Not the money-making one that Joey described after that weird shit-show went down earlier in the year, but something else.

  A wedding, I think it was.

  Except we were all getting married. Only not to each other. Like, I wasn’t marrying Emma, and Johnny wasn’t marrying Megan, and Joey and the guys weren’t marrying Brooke.

  We were all marrying something else.

  The Way, I think.

  I think it was a dream about being married to the Way.

  A subconscious message that this happiness we’ve found is just an illusion.

  That we’ll never break free.

  I wake up in the middle of the night sweating and throw the covers off me. Emma is on her stomach, snoring softly, the light from the city outside illuminating her dark hair with bits of gold and red.

  And I don’t know, but… I can’t shake this feeling that the great time we just had at the holiday party is just an illusion.

  I swing my legs out of bed, walk down the hallway, and open the door of the fridge. White light spills out past the door and I just stare into it. And come to a realization.

  I need to marry her. Like now. Like now.

  I don’t want to wait until spring.

  But I can’t marry her now. We’ve got plans. Hell, in a few hours we’ll be on the jet to Key West and by dinner tomorrow night we’ll be completely wrapped up in Christmas preparations.

  “It’s fine,” I tell myself, grabbing a bottle of water and closing the door. It was just a dream. Everything is going great. Johnny is having a baby, for fuck’s sake. I’m gonna be an uncle again. Joey and his partners are all happy and satisfied. Maisy comes every other weekend to spend time with them.

  Hell, I even have a fucking client. First fucking client in years. Some young teenager who wants to learn how to race yachts. He’s not from a big important family, and I’m not taking money for it, but still. This kid… he’s good. He reminds me of myself at that age. And I could be a part of his rise. A huge part.

  Everything is good. Everything is perfect. And next spring Emma and I will have the perfect wedding and it will only get better.

  Even Zach is doing things. I’m not really sure what, but he’s living down on Key West and working with Emma’s brother, Luke, on some boat.

  We made it.

  We got out.

  We gave away fifty million dollars to charity last night.

  But my eyes wander back to the Bossy Building across town. It’s like a siren song calling me back.

  “Fuck.” The sound of my own voice startles me out of the lingering dream-state. “Jesus Christ, Jesse. Pull yourself together. It’s just a stupid building.”

  I uncap the water, drink it down, cap it back up, and then go back to bed.

  Emma turns over when I get in under the covers, her hands instinctively wrapping around my upper arm as she snuggles up to my chest.

  I push the weird dream away. I push all the anxiety away and concentrate on what I want instead of what I think I deserve.

  Because deep down I want Emma, but I don’t think I deserve Emma.

  And I do.

  Dammit, I do. She was the first girl who ever found her way past the thick, cynical, drugged-up walls around my heart. And she never left. She’s been in there, inside me, for thirteen years.

  It’s our time now.

  So I think about that instead.

  I think about sleeping with her every night for the rest of my life.

  I think about Saturday night dinners with her family. I think about that whole street of cottages the Dumas family owns and how her mother already calls the blue one the Emma and Jesse house. How we will spend our lives down there with them. And maybe my brothers and their partners will have their own houses too.

  One will be called the Joey, Huck, Wald, and Brooke house. And one will be called the Johnny and Megan house. Alonzo will be my friend and we’ll go fishing with his father every summer and catch giant swordfish. And we’ll go diving with Tony, and boating with Luke.

  Maisy will be there, learning to dive, and swim, and fish, and sail, and then Johnny’s new baby. One day, Emma and I will have our own crew. We’ll sail the world with them, and teach them how to re
ad the stars in the sky, and we’ll go places. Special, faraway tropical places you can only get to by boat.

  And one day, years and years from now, we’ll forget.

  We’ll forget all about the Way. And the Bossy. And the Kane estate and their missing, dead daughter.

  We’ll forget that my father and uncle were killed. We’ll forget all the bad things and only remember the good ones.

  That’s how I fall asleep.

  Forgetting.

  But I wake up in the morning remembering everything. The dream. The fear. The Bossy.

  And that fucking building is still staring at me from across the city when I look out the window.

  “What are you doing, Jesse?” Emma is rushing around the penthouse like a crazy person, trying to pack up everything we’ll need for a week in the Keys. “Did you call the car service?”

  “Yup,” I say, shaking myself out of the lingering bad dream. “And the jet is fueled and waiting for us. My man Miles is baking up those Barbie and Ken mini-rolls as we speak.”

  Emma is rushing past me with an armful of clothes that require a garment bag for travel when she practically skids to a stop, then places one hand on my cheek, gazes affectionately—I might even go so far as to say passionately—into my eyes, and beams a smile at me that could power space rockets and light up the solar system.

  Then she kisses me on the lips, pats my cheek, and says, “You can eat the man-sized ones if you must. I’m just saying, the little ones taste better.”

  They taste the same. They are scrumptious little bits of creamy sugar syrup and layers of doughy cinnamon that literally fuckin’ melt in your mouth. No chewing necessary. It makes no difference what size they are.

  But I don’t want the man-sized ones. The mini ones remind me of our first date. And that… that was probably the best day of my life. I’m not even sure our wedding day could top first-date day, that’s how much fun I had on our first date.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Emma asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been acting weird all morning.”

  “Have not.”

  “You so have. Are you disappointed that you didn’t get a Santa Machine present?”