A Billionaire for Christmas

“I hope so. Even if we didn’t get married for real on the rollercoaster or the pirate ship, it was a pretty fun morning.”

It actually was.

“I’m sad that we’re going to miss the last wedding though. I think that was the real one that counts. And I wanted the dress.”

“And the cake,” I add. “I’m so hungry right now.”

“I think you just burned like two thousand calories swinging on those ropes.”

We laugh and she sinks into me. I put my arm around her and decide, if this turns out to be the highlight of our wedding day, it’s still pretty up there as far as cool times go.

It takes forever to get over to the airport, even though it’s only a few miles away. And by the time the van stops next to the charter drop I have a feeling it’s after noon.

“Your mom is gonna be pissed at us,” I say.

“I know. If it’s like… noon, and we take off at twelve thirty, with the time change we won’t land until well after eight o’clock.”

“We’ll call them from the plane and tell them we’ll be late.”

“Yeah. OK. I mean, what else can we do? We’re more than two thousand miles away from home.”

Which is crazy. But that’s pretty much the story of my life.

The van door slides open and Jessica is there. “OK, kids. We’re here. Follow Sven there and he’ll get you all set up.”

I furrow my brows as we climb out of the van. “Set up for what?”

“Your third wedding. Parachuting!”

“What?” Emma says.

“No,” I say. “We have to leave now. We have a charter jet—” I look around, trying to figure out where the jet might be. “Well, it’s somewhere around here.”

“Oh,” Jessica says. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize. I thought you understood when you said we needed to get to the airport.”

“Yeah, for our charter jet.” I’m still trying to find it, but the only thing I see are a bunch of helicopters and one plane that says ‘Sven’s Skydiving.’ “Do you have a phone I can borrow?”

“Sure,” Jessica says. She fishes it out of her pocket and hands it over.

I look at Emma. “You don’t happen to know Miles’ phone number off hand, do you?”

“Uh… no.”

“Shit. What should we do?”

“How about,” Jessica offers, taking her phone back, “you two go inside the office and I’ll figure out where your charter is?”

“Yeah,” I say, running my fingers through my hair. “OK. Yes.” I turn to Emma. “We could use a few moments of quiet contemplation right about now. It’s been a crazy morning.”

“Good. It’s right through there.” She points to a metal door with no window. “I’ll check on your charter and be right back.”

“OK.” Emma sighs. We walk towards the door, go inside, and practically run into a huge blond dude, who surely must be Sven.

“Ah, there you are!” he says in a booming voice. Then he slaps me on the back so hard, I almost choke. “Or should I say, ‘Arrgggggh, mateys!’”

“Funny.” Emma chuckles.

“Seriously,” Sven says, his face going somber. “We’re running late, folks. So we have to hustle.”

“We’re not doing it,” I tell him.

“What?”

“Yeah, we have to go,” Emma says. “Our charter jet is waiting to take us back to Key West. We just need to figure out where it is.”

Sven frowns at me. “But this is your big moment. Don’t you two want to get married?”

“We do,” I say. “We’re just out of time. We’re already gonna miss Christmas Eve dinner.”

“Well, if you’re already late…?” Sven pans his arms wide. Like… Might as well be really late.

Emma and I look at each other. It’s one of those should-we-shouldn’t-we? looks.

She shrugs. “We have to be married when we land. And at this point we don’t even know if we have a charter.”

“True,” I say. “So…” I glance at the skydiving pictures all around me. “Wanna jump out of a plane with me?”

“I do,” she squeals.

“Perfect,” Sven booms. “OK. Let’s get you out of those pirate clothes and into some jumpsuits.”

“Wait,” Emma says. “What about my dress?”

Sven makes one of those looks. Not one that says should-we-shouldn’t-we, but one that says, Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “I’m afraid… the dress isn’t ready yet.”

“Nooooo,” Emma pouts. “I need the dress.”

Sven shrugs. “Sorry. But don’t worry. Fingers will make it right when the final bill comes in.”

And that has me wondering… I wonder what that final bill will look like? We’ve got to be pushing a hundred grand at this point. After that Treasure Island bribe? Yeah. This is a pretty pricey wedding day and we’re not even married yet.

I turn to Emma. “I know you’re disappointed, but we could be stuck here. We’re clearly not going to make it home in time for dinner. So we should just… do this, right?”

She sighs, heavily.

“I’ll make it up to you, Emma. I promise. We’ll have the mean Russian lady ship your dress and we’ll have another ridiculous wedding anywhere you want.”