Beauty and the Billionaire

I never programmed her into my phone as Mom. She wouldn’t be offended, though. She always

felt the word “mom” just made her sound old.

“You can answer it if you want,” Mason says. “I don’t think I’m going to be much for talking right now anyway.”

I don’t have to think about it, but I pretend like I’m weighing my options before saying, “Reject.” Glancing over at Mason, I pass it off as just having other things on my mind right now, but the truth is that I know what the call is going to be about.

Traditionally, there are two occasions on which I’ll receive an unsolicited phone call from my mom. First, she always used to call when dad’s net worth topped another million dollars, but she stopped making those calls a while ago. She was calling so often, it was starting to feel like we actually had a normal relationship in which we wanted to keep in close contact with one another.

Neither of us was comfortable with that.

The other reason she’d call without warning, and what I’m almost certain is the reason for today’s call, is to give me a heads up when someone filed a new investigation into one or both of them. This generally happens at least once a year, though that frequency has been increasing slowly, but steadily over the last few years.

The reason she’s so consistent about calling me when one of them is in trouble is that she is compelled beyond reason and sanity to make sure I don’t do or say anything that’s going to hurt the public’s perception of them. “The difference between jail time and an apology is how much people think of you,” she says.

I’ve never caused problems for my parents or for anyone, and frankly, I don’t want to have to deal with it right now.

There’s enough on my plate with what’s going on with Mason and staying on top of school work and everything else without having to worry about the latest crimes two people with more money than common sense. The fact they’re my parents doesn’t change that.

“Have you not told them about me or something?” Mason asks. “If that’s all this is, don’t worry about it. I’m not going to get butt hurt if you don’t want to tell them about me until you’re sure that I’m—”

“That’s not it,” I interrupt. “I don’t talk to my parents very much, and I really have to prepare for it when I do.”

“Hey, do you want to go out tonight?” Mason asks. “I heard there’s a new club that opened a while ago in Milwaukee called Uranus or something.”

“Neptune, actually,” I chuckle. “And I’m pretty sure I’m the one that told you about it. In fact,” I say, poking him in the arm, trying to nurture any levity we can possibly conjure, “I’m pretty sure I told you about that the night we met.”

“How is it?” he asks.

“It’s uncomfortably loud, people are drunk enough that personal space is the sort of thing you fantasize about rather than expect, and the drinks cost enough to syphon away rent money,” I answer.

“So, basically just a regular club?” he asks.

“Pretty much,” I answer. “They do a great Irish car bomb, though.”

Mason chuckles. “I always pictured you as more the sex on the beach, fuzzy navel type,” he says and the stifling tension is finally starting to ease up.

“Actually, it’s a very smooth, attractive navel as you well know,” I tease. “I’m usually the red wine with dinner type,” I explain, “but I do make exceptions for special occasions.”

“Hey, I just visited my brother in jail,” Mason says. “That’s a special occasion—well, for now anyway. I’ve got a feeling there are going to be a lot of days like today from here on out.”

“I’m up for a good night of hard drinking and bad decisions,” I tell him, but pause a moment before continuing. “I really can’t pull off a phrase like that, can I?” I ask.

Mason smiles. “You’re a terrible frat guy,” he says. “That’s actually a good thing in my opinion.”

“What a wonderfully polite way of saying ‘No, you can’t even remotely pull it off,’” I laugh. “When did you want to go?”

“Now’s good,” he says. “What time do they open?”

“Not until later,” I tell him. “If you want to go somewhere now, we can always hit a dive bar or two while we’re waiting.”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Mason says. “I’d rather just not go home right now.”

Yeah. I can understand that.

* * *

We’ve been sitting in this dive for about three hours now and, apart from catching and maintaining a decent buzz, we’ve accomplished nothing else.