Her Billionaire Toy Boy

Finally, after ninety minutes of hard work, she had a packed suitcase and a pared-down list of errands to complete.

She checked her phone, listening to a voicemail and disregarding a text. That hurt, that past conflict, was not going to stand in her way now. She’d deal with her broken feelings about Sam … later. Just now, she felt as if she were flying.

*****

Sam took a deep breath. He had decided to allow himself another phone call.

“Hey,” he said when he got the voicemail tone. “I know I haven’t any right to be worried, really,” he said in a worried voice, “But I am. I know that you’re furious with me, and you should be. But if you could just drop me a text or something so that I know you’re alive and well and not—well—not as sad as I am—”

He hung up abruptly and hated himself. That was far more honesty than he’d been aiming for. Sam sat down and then opened his phone again.

He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of this.

He opened up Facebook, and then Instagram. He wasn’t one thousand percent sure that Mira had either, but it was worth a check.

Five minutes later, he was staring at an Instagram post with his mouth hanging wide open.

Mira had checked in at the nearest international airport.

*****

She still couldn’t believe that she was doing this.

Mira held her ticket, still warm from the ticket kiosk, in one hand. She had memorized the gate number—and her seat number—and the airplane number. She’d needed something to focus on. She’d gotten past security with no major inconveniences, and now she was just scanning for her gate. She had forty-five minutes until boarding began.

To immortalize and memorialize the moment, she’d posted a picture to her social media of the bright blue sky through the airport windows. It felt like something she had seen other people do, and it felt appropriate as she now felt as if she was doing something different, living a day in someone else’ life. She wondered when it was all going to catch up with her; but as it hadn’t yet, she continued walking, hearing the click-click of the wheels of her suitcase rumble over the tile between security and her gate as she made it for her gate.

She had time. She passed bar after bar, and coffee shop after coffee shop, before she decided that a nice herbal tea might be a good idea. She picked up a chamomile tea—anything to still her rushing nerves—and held it proudly, sipping from it as she wended her way through the crowds to her gate. Once there, she pulled out an expensive magazine she had purchased at another shop.

She so rarely did any of this. Mira hardly felt like herself. Her heart was beating out of her chest. She kept waiting for someone, anyone, to reach out to her, to stop her in the hall, and say something horrible and true-sounding like ‘Stop. This isn’t you. This isn’t what you do. Go back—go to work—keep doing the same thing you usually do, day in and day out.’

No one did this.

As she sat there, happily looking up at the TV screens which announced weather in her destination city and details about boarding for her flight, her phone rang. She looked at it. Sam. She waited until he left a voicemail, as she knew he would, and then listened to it.

He just wanted to know that she was safe. Her heart melted a little bit, but then her jaw tightened. He’d given up the right to know anything about her when he’d treated her as horribly as he had.

But then she thought: If the situation had been reversed—if she’d made some sort of awful mistake, done something terrible which resulted in their relationship ending, and then he’d gone off the grid—she’d want to know, right?

She took a sip of her tea and then brought up her phone and typed for a moment, then pressed send. She then turned off her phone, threw it in her bag, and got up to get on the plane. She was looking forward to the eight hours of unreachability. She hoped there was a good, silly movie on the in-flight monitors. She hoped she’d be able to sleep. And that was it; she did not want to think about anything beyond that.

Mira showed her ticket to the ticket attendant and slipped onto the plane, stowing her small, light suitcase above her seat in the overhead compartment and smiling apologetically at the people in the aisle seats she had to displace in order to get to her window seat. She put her books below the seat in front of her and took stock of her surroundings. She had a good, unencumbered view of the space below her—not a wing seat, or anything like that. As this was an international flight, she had a small computer screen in front of her, embedded into the headrest of the seat before hers. She poked at it a few times. There was a small selection of movies as well as a flight tracker; a small airplane icon was currently blinking on top of the state of New York with the status indicator ‘BOARDING’ put right next to it. There was also a small complimentary gift bag on her seat. She retrieved it and opened it; inside was a small blanket, an even smaller pillow, and a set of earbuds.

Mira pulled a small bag of almonds from her bag and began to munch on them as she watched people file into their seats around her, then stowed them as the flight attendants performed their final checks. After a moment, she buckled in and dreamily listened to the safety presentation and felt the rumbling of the plane as it took off. She watched the city she was leaving grow smaller and smaller and felt her problems become miniature and insignificant as they, along with New York, slowly vanished behind her as she flew away.

*****

Sam looked up from several hours’ distraction of muddling through business expense worksheets to find that there were several notifications on his phone. Several were texts and calls from Damien, wanting to talk to Sam and apologize. Sam dismissed these, aware that there was a certain irony to his denying Damien the grace of a reconciliation when that was what he himself so desired from Mira. Damien probably just wanted money, Sam thought uncomfortably. Either way, he decided that Damien could stew a little longer. Particularly while Sam was still in limbo himself, Sam thought. Then Sam noticed that he had another text message – a text from Mira. His fingers clammed up and shook so hard that he had to hold the phone very still in order to navigate into their conversation feed. He read the text:

Sam – hello, Mira had written. I’m going out of the country for a few days to clear my head. I’m perfectly safe, but I think I need to center myself for a moment. Please don’t be concerned on my behalf. I’ll be ready to speak in a few days, I think. In the meantime, be well.

His breathing slowed. She was okay. She was talking to him. She’d indicated that perhaps in a few days they’d be able to speak again. He lay back down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. That was nothing but a good thing. A very good thing. But he could not let himself relax. He couldn’t wait three days…

Sam thought about this for a moment. He then pulled his computer toward him again. If she would be ready to speak in a few days, he wanted to be ready. He turned his phone notification system onto very loud—of course, it hadn’t been a few days yet—but the second she was ready to talk to him again, he wanted to be there.