Her Billionaire Toy Boy

Chapter 4

It was Saturday afternoon, and Mira was having a hard time deciding what to wear.

She wished heartily that she had given into her earlier temptation to skive off work on any of the preceding workdays a little early and hit the shops. She wished that she had stayed up late after her phone call with Sam earlier that week and done some online shopping. She wanted to have something new–something fresh, something bold and something beautiful–in which to wrap herself; but everything she had in her closet seemed to be ancient, uninteresting and drab.

She stood in the doorway and sighed before pulling out a little black dress–a classic, a standby. It would have to do.

But then she remembered: Cooking class. Surely the atmosphere would be more chaotic and casual, less sophisticated and svelte?

Mira closed her closet door and ran downstairs to find her computer. She slumped over on the couch, opened the laptop, and placed it on her lap. She navigated to a web browser and did a search for the cooking institute which was hosting the cooking class to which they would be going. She double-clicked on the header image and raised the computer on her knees so that the monitor was an inch away from her face. Not because she was nearsighted—she told herself, biting her lip—but because she wanted to physically feel like she was zooming in; narrowing in, as it were, on a solution. It behooved her in situations where she felt her nerves crackling to be analytical. It helped her feel like she was in control of a strange situation.

As she had guessed, the people in the picture were hardly sporting cocktail attire. She carefully studied the jeans and tees and fashionable sneakers which the very attractive people were wearing; she noted the artfully smudged application of white flour to their faces and torsos; she noted how the people in the image were smiling, laughing, and poking each other in the ribs, apparently having the time of their lives.

It didn’t seem like the most hygienic way to behave in a place which made food that they were going to eat; but then, the entire institution of dating wasn’t the most hygienic, she thought…and then she winced.

Sometimes she wished that she could just have thoughts like a normal person. Get excited about things like a normal person…but then she wouldn’t be herself, would she? She looked back at the picture.

She kind of liked the idea of having a sort of outfit recipe to conform to. She noted how the women in the picture were wearing their jeans—slightly baggy, cuffs artfully rolled, with a thin tee tucked in halfway—and closed her laptop. She went to get herself a glass of water and then she tackled her closet again.

Thin tee. She had that. She selected one in light dusty pink, as she knew objectively that color looked phenomenal on her. Mira had always suspected this, but when several strangers had gone out of their way to compliment her the last time she had worn that shirt, she realized that she was definitely onto something. She then dug around in her pile of jeans and pulled out a pair of “boyfriend” jeans made of a very thick, barely-denim, mostly-cotton fabric. There were a few holes in them—some created by a designer, some created by living with them for several years. She’d owned them when she was in college. By some mixture of luck and good genes, she was still able to fit into them. But she hadn’t worn them in years, as she’d been carefully curating a more polished look—the better to complement her career as a high-powered and silkily sophisticated lawyer.

That wasn’t tonight, she reminded herself sternly. Tonight, she would be—herself, still, but slightly more fun, more youthful, more laissez-faire version of herself. She smiled at the thought. Throwing her clothing selections onto her bed, she headed for the shower. She checked her phone before doing so. Nothing from Sam. She sighed with relief. Half of her was sure that he was going to call or text to cancel—but he didn’t seem to be doing anything of the sort.

While she waited for the water to heat up, she pulled up a podcast to listen to and got herself a cold wineglass full of kombucha from the fridge. The chilly liquid always made the hot shower experience seem exquisitely spa-like to her, even though she was just hanging out in her own bathroom, which was as pedestrian and non-special as most regular apartment bathrooms were. She took extra time to make sure that she smelled like a delicate flower and made sure, after her shower was done, to moisturize all over so that she radiated a healthy, dewy glow.

Humming, holding her glass of kombucha, and leaving damp footprints all over her apartment floor, Mira padded out of her bathroom and went to plug her phone into the sound system which blasted her music throughout her small apartment. She then went back into her bedroom and carefully slipped into the jeans and tee which she had laid out, and then sat at her small vanity—really a cheap IKEA dresser and a small mirror she’d picked up at a garage sale—to begin applying her makeup. She wanted a clean look, as it wasn’t a typically formal situation for her; so, she pulled up a couple of YouTube tutorials and watched them carefully as she applied her eyeliner and mascara.

Satisfied that she looked fantastic—and feeling bubbly and happy in a way that felt like a glittery second skin—she put together her purse and made sure that the 360-degree view of her was all that she wanted it to be in the full-length mirror hung on her bedroom door.

Mira smiled. Her appearance checked all of her boxes. She felt great, she looked great, and her carefully curated look did not look as if it had taken seventeen hours to complete. Which, in all fairness, it hadn’t; yet the constructed effortlessness she was going for was present, and hard-won. She sighed and looked at her phone, and then laughed.

She would always be ridiculously early. That was sort of her thing.

She still had almost two hours to go until Sam was scheduled to pick her up for their date. Well, she thought—she’d have a chance to see how her makeup would do longevity-wise. That was a good thing, she thought—there wouldn’t be any snafus in which she found herself with mascara flakes under her eyes unexpectedly.

She poured herself another inch of kombucha and settled on her couch to wait. She’d also have time to lower her heart rate, she thought, giggling nervously. She breathed slowly, in and out, out and in, while flipping through the channels in search of a sitcom that felt like an old friend.

*****

Sam was considerably less zen about the situation.

Damien had been texting him all day. He wanted to know details about Mira. The questions had felt innocuous at first, but they’d been ramping up in intensity and whininess for the past hour.

Damien was a dear friend of Sam’s, but this was beginning to be too much. Add in the fact that Sam was low-key over the one tradition which had glued them together—The Game—and it seemed like their friendship was going nowhere fast.

If he’d just stop texting about Mira, Sam thought, mulishly. If they could just establish a base of conversation, a connection, about literally anything else…

He wondered if they had ever really talked about anything other than The Game. He cast his brain back in time.

They’d been good friends in school—they’d talked about their studies, they must have; and then when they got into business together with the winery, they’d had a lot of fun setting up their vineyards together and quibbling about how to establish adequate quality controls for their wines…which resulted in many a booze-laden Friday evening in which they’d talked until the sun came out. However, it had been months—years?—since they’d done either of those things. It seemed like recently their relationship had been more defined by clubbing and cougars than it had by the friendship between the two men themselves.