A Billionaire for Christmas

But here’s the thing. When you walk into a jet club wearing pirate outfits, they tend to not take you seriously.

“I swear to God, I am Emma Dumas.”

The check-in woman eyeballs my almost-wife with suspicion. Pirate clothes aside, everything about us right now screams chaos. And she is having none of it.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m going to need some form of ID.” Her Southern accent sounds sweet, but it’s laced with disbelief.

“We lost our IDs at the Treasure Island pirate show. Why the hell else would we be dressed like pirates if we weren’t in the freaking show?”

“Ma’am, I understand what you’re saying. But people dress like pirates for all sorts of reasons. And regardless of what they are, we still require ID to gain access to the jets.”

“It’s my jet. I’m Emma Dumas. I’m one-fourth owner of Bright Berry Beach cosmetics. The freaking plane is black with ‘Bright Berry Beach’ written across the fuselage in screaming pink letters! It’s. My. Jet!”

“And yet,” the skeptical woman says, “you cannot prove that.”

“Just look me up online! And this”—Emma pushes me in front of her—“this is Jesse Boston! All you have to do is one internet search and you’ll see we’re telling the truth! Now search us!”

The woman blinks at Emma, then presses her lips together and begins typing on her computer. She looks at the screen. Then us. Then the screen again. Then us.

“Well?” Emma is out of patience.

“I see some resemblance.”

“Some—” Emma takes a deep breath. “Are you, or are you not, going to tell me where my freaking jet is located?”

“Fine. It’s in hangar seventeen C. But it’s not scheduled to fly out today, so there’s two other jets in front of it at the moment so—”

“We’re not leaving. We just want to go on board and wait for our butler to finish his poker game.”

“Then there you go. Hangar seventeen is right out those doors and to the left.” She flips her hand off towards the door.

“Thank you!” Emma exclaims. Then she sucks in a deep breath, takes my hand, and says, “Let’s go.”

I wait until we’re outside before I say, “God. I love it when you’re bossy.”

She shakes her head and huffs out a laugh. “Jesus Christ. This day is… just…”

“Yeah,” I agree. We need some jet time for sure.

Hangar seventeen isn’t just outside and to the left though. I mean, technically it is. But we have to weave our way through parked jets and other hangars before we finally find it almost a quarter mile away.

And that’s when we realize mistake number one.

“Hmm…” Emma is tapping her chin with her forefinger. “How do you open the door?”

I throw up my hands and walk over to the front wheel, then precariously take a seat on top of the tire. “No fuckin’ clue, babe.”

She turns to me. “We did not come this far to be locked out of our own jet.”

“Didn’t we though?” I laugh. I can’t help it.

“Surely there’s a way to open the door and pull down the stairs?”

I shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Look. It can’t be that hard. This is the handle, right?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s locked. I’m also pretty sure Miles is the one with the key.”

“But maybe… see? There’s this little button. I think I’ve seen Miles open the door with this button.” She presses the button.

Nothing happens.

“OK, so maybe there’s a trick with the handle and the button?”

I sigh. I’m actually kinda sore from all that rope-swinging and sword-fighting. But I get up and walk over to it because I really do want to just go inside and collapse. I study the side of the plane, trying to work out the meaning of the button and the handle.

Then I glance over at the jet in front of ours and notice there’s some writing on the door. And sure enough, when I walk over to it, there are instructions. Instructions which have been conveniently left off of Emma’s jet because it’s got that fancy custom black paint job.

“Hold the button and turn the handle at the same time,” I call to Emma.

She does that and then squeals with delight. “We did it!”

“Thank God.”

She slowly lowers the small set of airstairs and we use the last of our energy to climb them and enter the front cabin.

Then we look at each other and realize mistake number two.

“We don’t have power,” she says. Because the engines aren’t on.

I just laugh. Fuck it. I take her hand, drag her back to the bedroom, and we collapse onto the mattress.

I don’t even care about power. At least we now have a home base away from the crazy world of Fingers’ Fantasy Vegas Weddings. And even though I would really like to tackle my almost-bride and take all her clothes off, the next thing I know she’s blissfully asleep.