Distracting the Billionaire's Son

Shannon Silver and I were twenty-nine hours past our last final
exam, all our worldy possessions loaded into the back of her SUV, and less than
twelve minutes from two weeks of lying by the pool with nothing in the world to
care about but our tans.

The semester had been rough, but I’d had Shannon and the
promise of this vacation to get me through when I didn’t think I would make it.
The Silvers had money, serious money, which made us unlikely roommates. She
could have had one of the luxury dorms with a private room and bath. She could
have gotten her own place. Why she stayed with me and our bunk beds and community
shower, I’ll never know. But I’ll always be grateful.

“There it is,” she said, pointing over the steering wheel as
she turned off the highway onto the loneliest looking dirt road I’d ever seen.
The SUV bumped down the hill towards a line of trees and, according to
Shannon’s description of the place, extended all the way to the water. There
was even a sign, tucked into the trees off the road
. Camp Silver, Private
Property.
Cute.

“Welcome to the middle of nowhere, Jess.” She reached over
and took my wrist, gave me a playful shake. “Relax a little. You’re going to
have a good time. We’ve got a pool, a private boat, famous chefs to keep us
happy and fat, and several cousins I’m willing to give you my blessing to flirt
shamelessly with.”

I grinned. “That’s very magnanimous of you.”

“I’m here for you, babe.”

As she drove us under the canopy of trees, the temperature
dropped ten degrees, chilling after having the sun on me for the last seven
hours. It was darker too, but very pretty. Pale rocks made the path illuminate
in the dusky light and a black wrought iron fence blocked either side of the drive
until we came to a gate with an “S” in silver emblazoned at the center.

Shannon punched in the code and the gate opened silently to
let us pass. There were no fences past the gate, and the trees seemed to stretch
endlessly around us. When the gate closed, I had a very sudden sense of peace
and security fall over me. Yes, Shannon was right. This was going to be a good
vacation.

“We stay in cabins,” she said, pointing into the trees,
though I couldn’t see anything but seas of green. “They are in pods of three
with plenty of space between each pod. My grandparents stay in the main house
when they come, but the rest of us will be roughing it. My parents love to
pretend they are campers.”

She flashed me a smile. Shannon wasn’t typical for all her
family’s money. She was pretty, but in an average way, thin but enjoyed food
more than most girls allowed themselves to, and took her family’s money with a
grain of salt. She had a job in a coffee shop and aside from the occasional
ostentatious outfit her mom or older sister sent her, wore the same big box
retail store clothes I did. She loved her family more than anyone I’d ever met
and I loved her like a sister. I hoped the rest of her family embraced me as
readily as Shannon had.

“Sounds nice. I’ve never been camping before.”

Shannon laughed. “Well, neither have we. Not really.” She
pulled the SUV off the main rock road onto a dirt path that fed deep into the
trees. The branches were close enough I could reach out and touch the leaves,
which were deep, mossy green and a little damp. The air smelled like fresh rain
and something earthy and mellow. Shannon turned the radio down and all the
sudden filled the car with the noise of birds and bugs and the slow crunch of
twigs and rocks as we drove over them. Even if it was in a cabin at a private
summer retreat with chefs and housekeepers, I was excited to be a part it.

“I love that sound. I swear it’s the only place in the world
that sounds like this. Two weeks is never long enough.”

Shannon slowed and broke through the trees to a wide
circular clearing with three very small one room cabins at three points along
the circle. At the center was a fourth building, round with high narrow windows
along the roofline. Two other vehicles were parked between two of the cabins
and a young, shirtless, guy was busy unloading one of them. At the sight of
him, Shannon squealed and slammed on the breaks.

She was out of the car and across the clearing before either
of us knew what she was doing. The boy immediately dropped the bags he’d been
holding to catch her.

This was Shannon. While I never talked about my family,
Shannon couldn’t stop talking about hers. From his picture, I guessed this was
her brother and the youngest Silver, Eric. He had Shannon’s dark hair and
average height. He was still high school skinny, but I could tell he was
growing up to be very good looking. It took Shannon a long time to loosen her
hold on him.

She leaned to whisper into his ear and then he waved at me,
a bright smile as big as Shannon’s. I waved, unbuckled my seat belt, and
climbed out of the still idling car.

“Jessica, my baby brother, Eric. Eric, this is my best
friend Jessica Lewis.” He shook my hand, firm and confident like his sister.

“Jessica. Welcome to the Silver’s annual summer retreat.
It’s good to see Shannon bringing a friend this year.”

Shannon blushed, shrugged, and looked away embarrassed. If
Eric noticed, he didn’t show it. Another Shannon Silver mystery. She was the
most easily likable person I’d ever met, but I’d rarely ever seen her hang out
with other girls. Around strangers, shyness killed her tongue, but around the
rest of us she was the star.

“I’m very happy to be invited. It’s all Shannon ever talked
about was this retreat. Honestly, if she didn’t invite me I was going to stow
away in her luggage.” The brother and sister laughed easily at this and Shannon
gave my shoulders a squeeze for good measure. Shannon touched everyone, all the
time, when she wanted to express some emotion she couldn’t articulate. My
family didn’t touch, never touched, so it took me months to stop tensing up
every time she took me by surprise.

“You mean to welcome her to the Silver zoo.” We turned at
the voice, deep and resonating, completely unlike Shannon and Eric’s. A man
leaned out of the doorway of the cabin, braced his body against the door jam
and stared down at us behind sunglasses. He was taller than the other two, but
shared their caramel skin tone and dark hair. He was broader than Eric through
the shoulders, and did not flash the trademark Silver smile. “And we are all
the attractions for your amusement.”

“Jonah,” Eric warned gently. “Be nice. She just got here.”

Jonah.
The older brother. Every time Shannon ever
talked about him, it was with a mixture of emotions I could never decipher.
Sadness, maybe. Or disappointment. I’m not sure, but also always admiration and
affection. It was a quieter, distant affection though, and she didn’t squeal
and launch herself at him as she had with Eric.

He was dressed nice in impeccably neat black slacks and
black button up shirt. The top buttons was undone, but otherwise the cuffs were
tight and his dress shoes unscuffed despite being in the woods. He made me feel
like my shorts,
“Go Pink!
Girl’s Track Team
”
t-shirt, and sandals
were the ones out of place.

“I am being nice.” He pushed off the door and took one step
at a time, emphasizing his words with each step, until he was at our level.
“She should know it’s not all free food and days lounging at the pool. You go
to the beach when you’re told to go to the beach. You go shopping when it’s
time to show off our incredibly influential family to the tourists. You eat
meals when our French chef has prepared them and even if you can’t pronounce
the dishes, you eat them anyway because asking for a cheeseburger and fries
would be rude. You laugh at my father’s jokes and compliment my mother’s
clothes. This isn’t a vacation. It’ll be your job to make the Silvers feel good
about their place in the world. You good with that, sweetheart?” He tucked a
lock of my hair behind my ear before I could stop him, his fingertip barely
grazing my skin, but I jerked back automatically as if he’d branded me.

I had no idea how I was supposed to answer.  

“Stop it, Jonah.” Shannon edged between us. He hesitated,
but backed off without argument. As soon as she had his attention the stiffness
in his shoulders lessoned almost imperceptibly. “She’s my guest and my friend.
You know what that’s like? Friends? Please don’t embarrass her. We aren’t like
that.”

“He didn’t embarrass me.” I’d been so quiet while all this
had gone on that I was surprised by my own voice. I sounded convincing, but the
truth was I was a little rattled. Shannon did not do Jonah’s intensity justice.
“And I’m very grateful to be here. As long as no one makes me take a test or write
an essay about my summer vacation, I’ll do whatever anyone wants me to do. I’m
just happy to be here and not at school.”

The Silver siblings all stared at me while I rambled on, but
Jonah’s sunglasses made him particularly unnerving. I felt like the attraction
at the zoo instead. I nervously played with the bead bracelets on my left wrist
to fill the silence so I wouldn’t start talking again.

“See,” Shannon said, turning back to her older brother. “Be
nice for once.”

After a hard moment, he relented and even though I couldn’t
see his eyes, his face softened a little. “How were exams?”

“Oh. You know. I did ok I think, except maybe in French. It
was my last exam and by then I could barely speak English. It’ll probably be ok.
Probably.”

“And you, Miss Lewis? Were your exams just ok?” I thought
Shannon had told me her older brother was in grad school. The way he spoke to
me, looked at me, I felt like either he was much older or I was much younger.
Each word put me in my place, and I didn’t know why.

“Yes, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Don’t let her fool you.” Shannon nudged me and nodded to
her brother. “Tell him the truth. She always does well.”

“I’m just a good test taker.”

A cell phone went off, loud amongst the sounds of the woods,
and very unnatural. All three Silvers checked their pockets, but by the grimace
on Jonah’s mouth, I guessed he was the lucky winner.

He turned abruptly, without a word to his siblings, and got
in the little BMW lurking behind the jeep Eric was unloading, and peeled back
up the path and disappeared into the trees.

“Must have been dad,” Shannon said quietly, and that strange
sad look touched her eyes.

“That’s got to be a new record for him. Jonah had only shown
up a minute before you guys did. Dad’s got like, psychic powers when Jonah
comes within a mile of him.” Eric shared the strange look with Shannon,
abruptly grabbed the dropped bags, and headed into the cabin. Shannon followed
up the steps and I stayed at her heels.

“Are you and Jonah sharing?”

Eric laughed. “You kidding? He’s the cabin by himself over
by the water. He just stopped by to say, I don’t know. Hello, but in
Jonah-speak. Besides, I’m picking up Nelson tomorrow at the airport. You’re not
the only one with friends, Shannon.”