“I think I understand that. I just wish you had told me, maybe I could have helped.”
“You did,” I said, “you got me back with Mike, at least indirectly. You knew Telling Reece was the right thing and look where we are now.”
“When you’re right, you’re right,” Gia conceded.
“It does happen every so often,” I said.
We hugged again happy to be where we were, with the people we were with and that it had al worked out.
Chapter Seventeen
Mike
Ava had been cut off. It was never properly explained to either her or me but, somewhere along the way, our parents had decided that their only daughter was a disappointment. So much so that the cut her out of the will, making me the sole heir to their vast fortune. Nearly a hundred million at the time of their untimely deaths. I was having none of it though. Waiting until the money was mine, free and clear, I cut Ava a check. I had to be careful to fit on all seven zeros. Not stopping there I also co-signed on her first apartment when she was nineteen. My parents were gone and had already lost interest before that Though Ava was still my baby sister and what kind of brother would I be if I didn’t take care of her?
She had moved up since that first apartment, Ava was always a clever girl and invested her share of the family fortune wisely, doubling it in less than two years. After what had happened with Jessa and On the Go Ava, technically, had more money than I did. Interesting how things worked out.
The place had parking out front though it was gone of course. Instead of several goes around the block, or walking several blocks like I did at Catharine’s I waited for an appropriate ebb I had a different idea.
“Pull over here,” I said.
“Are you sure, sir?” the driver asked.
“Quite,” I said.
Wanting to earn his tip, the driver did as he was told and eased over as far as he could get while leaving me enough room to open my door.
“I’ll call when I’m finish,” I said, before Sally and I bundled out so the limo could carry on before being rear-ended by one of the city’s notorious yellow cabs. Pausing just outside the range of the security camera, I hacked into that one, a process as second nature as breathing by that point, simply turning it off.
“What are you doing?” Sally asked.
“Hacking the security cameras,” I said.
“You can do that?” Sally asked.
“Of course, you can never be too careful,” I said.
“Did you ever think of doing that with On the Go?”
“Yes, eventually. She brought in a new security team and I haven’t cracked the new firewalls yet.”
“Yet?”
“It is only a matter of time,” I said, pocketing the phone, the cameras neutralized, “then it is going to fall like Troy.”
Sally took hold of my arm and lay her head on my shoulder on the way up to the beautifully carved French-style doors. Ava and I had a standing arrangement in which we always had keys to the other’s place and could come and go as we pleased. More than once I had come home to find my door locked and the shower running. To be fair, I did life a lot closer to the airport than she did. One of the main things she spend her riches on were trips around the world, Australia and Sweden being particular favorites.
“Hey all,” I sang, coming through the door.
“Mikey!” Ava cried throwing herself at me in an attack hug.
“Hey, little one,” I said, returning her embrace.
“You must be Sally,” Ava said, regaining her composure.
“Yes, I am,” she said.
They shook hands as Ava looked Sally in the eye with an intensity that bordered on uncomfortable, staring into her subjects very soul. I had seen her do it countless times over the years and it never failed to amuse me. Not least because of her diminutive size. After a long moment’s inspection, Sally passed the test, Ava giving a short, sharp, nod of approval, before turning on her heel and going back toward the kitchen.
“What just happened?” Sally asked.
“It’s just her custom,” I said.
“I passed right?”
“Oh yes,” I confirmed.
“Good,” Sally said, seeming genuinely relieved.
“Particularly because I would like her to be godmother. If that’s okay with you of course.”
“I’ll have to think about but yeah, I don’t see a problem with that, at least not at this moment.”
“Give her time, she’ll warm up. I actually think you could be friends.”
“Didn’t she grow up rich?” Sally asked.
“Yes but so did I.”
“Fair point,” she said, giving me a smooch.
Unlike the friendsgiving Sally and I were among the first to arrive the rest trickling in later, some of them much later, my excitement growing the more time passed without Derek arriving. More than half an hour after the appointed, we were seated at the candlelit table, Ava on my right and Sally on my left, Reece and Simon across from me. The spread was huge as usual, most of it cooked by Ava herself. While we were raised rich our parents, particularly our mom, didn’t want us to be helpless and taught us the basics of survival. I even knew how to how to pump gas if it should that ever come up.