Her Billionaire Toy Boy

*****

Sam was sitting a seat in front of Mira—they’d all opted to sit in their own seats so they could lay down and have a few moments of introversion after hours spent together talking raucously and loudly in the winery—and leaning his own head out of his window. It was raining, and Sam’s thoughts were buzzing loudly around his head.

Far from feeling jealous about Damien and Mira, Sam was instead thinking about how close to devastation both he and Mira had become. Sam was sure that if Mira and Damien spent too much time alone together, Damien would say something about the Game, the point system that they used in a mercurial fashion to rate and gamify their liaisons with women. And he knew without a shadow of a doubt that Mira would not be a huge fan of this. He doubted that their fledgling relationship would survive such an assault, even though it would have been a truthful attack…

No, he decided, he would just have to keep Damien and Mira far away from each other for the rest of the weekend. Then, he’d carefully make sure that Damien and Mira just didn’t interact much, for as long as he and Mira continued to see each other. That this plan necessarily doomed his and Mira’s relationship to some sort of premature end—either that or predicted the demise of his long-standing friendship with Damien—did not occur to Sam. Sam had also drunk quite a bit of wine; and although his mental acuity was very much intact, certainly intact enough for all of this introspection and planning, he was not experiencing the most logical thought patterns he ever would produce.

So, he thought. Just another day. Most of which they’d be sleeping. He just had to keep Damien and Mira away from each other that long. It was a simple enough plan. He was the host, he knew Damien rather well, and Lisa was there to distract Damien. He sighed. He knew that he could count on Lisa to make sure that Damien was sufficiently busy, busy enough not to blow Sam’s relationship with Mira.

Thinking this gratefully, Sam fell asleep.

*****

Mira awoke the next morning huddled in the soft, clean, dry blankets in the gigantic bed, in the even more gigantic room in which she had slept. It was still dark out. There was a glass of water on her nightstand, along with two tabs of aspirin. A note was placed by the two of them. It was from Sam, saying good morning, and telling her to drink another cup of water once she was done with the one he had left for her. She smiled and gratefully downed the entire glass, took the medicine, and then walked over to the bathroom to fill the glass twice more. She then walked back to her bed and fell asleep for another two hours.

When she next rolled over the sun was up and its rays were dappling playfully over the ceiling of her room. She smiled, stood, and immediately decided to drink even more water. She wasn’t feeling hungover—she had enough experience drinking that she knew how to do so without going over her natural limits—but hydration after a night out was never a bad idea, and so she drank another two glasses of water before padding downstairs to see about making the morning pot of coffee.

She decided to use the french press. She put a kettle of water to boil and filled the press with fresh grounds, and then stood at the kettle, waiting for it to boil so she could pounce on it before its whistling woke the rest of the house. When it was ready, she poured the water over the grounds, then waited a few minutes—this time pacing around the living room, taking in small details about the place which she hadn’t had the time to study over the past few days—before plunging the instrument and pouring herself a fresh, hot cup of bitter, strong coffee.

She smelled it and smiled, then went out to sit on the porch to watch the sunrise.

Mira was quite surprised to find that Sam was already there. He was hugging his own cup of coffee.

She raised an eyebrow.

“Cold brew,” Sam said. “It was in the fridge,” he said, gesturing to his cup.

Mira sank down on the couch next to him. “Good morning,” she murmured.

“And you, yourself,” he said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Fantastically so. The bed in the master is very comfortable.”

“I’ll have to give it a try sometime,” he said, grinning.

“Thanks for the medicine and the water,” Mira said. “It was lovely to read your note this morning.”

“Of course. Feeling well?”

“Yeah, I managed to keep pretty hydrated last night among the drinks.”

“Me as well. You kind of have to get good about managing your intake when you’re in my line of business,” nodded Sam.

“And now we’re here,” said Mira.

“That we are,” agreed Sam. They looked out over the lake, behind which lay the purple mountains over which the golden rays of the sun were just beginning to crest.

They sat in silence while the quarter-sun slowly melted upwards to become a half-circle before rising in all its glory to begin warming and heralding the new day. Mira closed her eyes and felt the first warmth of the sun crest over her as well as the caffeine begin to course through her system, and she was suddenly unutterably glad to be sitting precisely where she was.

She looked over. Sam was looking at her with a smile.

“What are you looking at,” she said.

“I’d have thought it was obvious,” Sam said with mock surprise. “I’m looking at you, and just thinking about how ravishingly lucky I am that we met.”

“You have a way with words.”

“I’m telling the truth,” Sam said, and he lifted up her blanket and came closer on the couch, eliminating any distance there had been between the two of them.

A bit later, they heard the clinking sound of pots and pans and realized that Damien and Lisa must be up. Mira was watching Sam when they heard it and saw a bit of a shadow go down over his eyes, and immediately—instinctively—wondered what on earth it had been that she had done wrong. But she cast this from her mind. She and Sam were very happy together. They’d both said so, just after that morning’s magical sunrise. Surely there wasn’t anything that could happen which would come between them. Surely they would continue this weekend just as it had been going so far—extremely pleasant.

Armed with this confidence, she rose to greet the new day.