Her Billionaires(7)

Maybe Laura would...ah, who knew?

“No, of course I’m not going to tell her about the money.” Dylan turned away from Mike and finished pulling on his sweater. “Can you imagine that scene? ‘Oh, hi, I’m Dylan and I am a billionaire.’” He choked on the word, his face flushing and going cold at once, the syllables so fake. So poseur. Like a little kid dressing up in Dad’s dress shoes, or a teen trying on personalities to find the right fit. Except he had no choice here. Jill had left them this fortune and it was theirs. No trying anything on for size. This was serious money and Dylan and Mike had been catapulted from working class stiffs to billionaire bachelors.

“Billionaire.” Mike lifted his chin, as if sniffing something. “It does roll off the tongue nicely.”

“Mike Pine, billionaire,” Dylan announced grandly, jumping on the bed and bouncing like a mad monkey. His hair flopped in his eyes and he watched Mike plant his hands on his hips, shaking his head, as if faced with a recalcitrant, hyperactive eight year old.

“You are such a child.”

“Yes, but I am a wealthy child!” Bounce bounce bounce— boom! Dylan jumped off the bed and bounded onto the floor next to Mike, like a superhero landing. Mike’s eyes went from amused to pained, then his shoulders slumped forward. Dylan rubbed the soft spot between his shoulder blades and they both stared at a spot on the wall that seemed to contain everything they yearned for.

“She left us all this money, Dyl. We had no idea.” Dylan shifted uncomfortably and said nothing. Mike picked up on his change, though, and turned to him with an accusing look. “You knew?”

Dylan dropped his hand from Mike’s back and sighed. “No. I didn’t know she was a billionaire! But I figured out pretty early on that she had money. We were in college, Mike. The dot com boom hadn’t happened, and she claimed to make money off ‘websites.’ How do you think she could afford to spot us on all those trips we took?”

“We camped and kept it cheap, Dylan,” Mike sputtered. “She didn’t live like a crazy-rich person.” Blinking hard, Mike started to say more but turned toward the dresser where Dylan kept a picture of Jill. The three of them on Cape Cod, at First Encounter Beach, the green marsh grasses so thick that hundreds of thousands of minnows lived in the shallow waters there, almost giving the water a viscosity of live, teeming fish. The ocean had been so perfect, the water warm though thrashing for the bay that day, and the three of them peered into the sun, some random stranger stopped and asked to take a pic.

A pic taken a month before they knew Jill had lymphoma. For the month after that trip she’d been fatigued. Not herself. Quiet. Waving away their concerns, she had trudged on, working on her “websites” and going for long runs that turned into long walks and that, finally, turned into a leisurely stroll during which she’d collapsed. Mike had been with her and carried her three city blocks to the emergency room of a hospital. The next few days were a blur Dylan couldn’t let himself resurrect.

Not now. Not as he prepared to go out with someone new. Someone vibrant.

Someone alive.

“Yeah, Jill kept a lot of secrets from us, Mike.” His partner bristled; the wound was still too fresh.

“So let’s continue her legacy, then, and keep the money a secret.”

“For now, sure. When the time’s right, we can talk about it.”

“Jesus.” Mike ran a shaking hand through his hair and stared out the window at the city below. “What a fucking curse.”

“And a blessing.”

Angry eyes met Dylan’s as Mike spun around. “Call it whatever you want.”

“It’s both,” Dylan conceded.

“It just is— you’re right. It’s both.”

“You get to save the resort. You know Jill would have been happy.”

“So then why didn’t she save it? Why, Dylan, didn’t she tell us she had all this money? I mean, damn! It’s not something you casually forget to mention. ‘Oh! That’s right! I’m part of the richest point-whatever-oh-one percent in the world. While you were complaining about your ski mountain going under, did that slip my mind? Oops!’” The sneer in Mike’s voice was utterly uncharacteristic and made Dylan recoil. Dude was pissed.

The anger, Dylan knew, was really a form of mourning.

“Tell it to Jill, Mike.” The words took the winds out of the larger man’s sails, his body literally shrinking before Dylan’s eyes. Jill’s ashes were on that very mountain Mike had just bought— a big reason for his purchase. Now he could have her forever, safe and sound and secure.