Very Bad Billionaires (14 page)

Lunch

Jalicia

Aurelia comes in. She’s carrying a bunch of boxes, including some from Krispy Kreme, and there’s a guy with a Chipotle shirt right behind her. They lay out all the food with the plates. The guy and I each get a donut and a little of the Chipotle food. Aurelia sits down as she finishes, right next to my chair. I sit down.

“Hey!” I say brightly. “How are you?”

She smiles at me. “I’m good. Did you go through all the new hire materials?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“Any questions?”

“Nope, it was straightforward.”

“That’s good. We like to play two truths and a lie for all of our new hires. So you will start out with two truths and a lie, and then we’ll go around with some more. It’s the icebreaker that works best.”

“Sounds good.” I doodle on my notepad as the rest of the company filters in. It’s a small team for a company pulling in as much revenue as it does. Everyone grabs food and chows down.

At 12:15, Aurelia kicks off the meeting.

“Hi, guys. So, as you know, we just added a new QAer to our ranks.” The team applauds. “Thank you. Now, just say your name, your role, and two truths and a lie. We’ll start off with Jalicia.”

I stand up. “Hi, everyone.” I give a little wave. “I’m Jalicia, and I work in quality assurance.” I rub my chin. “I guess my two truths and a lie are this: I have a kitten named Rosie, I can braid my own hair, and I am allergic to cold.”

“Oh my gosh,” a guy with short brown hair and a Starcraft t-shirt across from me says. “That’s way too obvious. No one can be allergic to cold.”

I shrug. “What do you guys think?”

The guy who helped me in shrugs. “I think that it could be a thing. I vote for the kitten named Rosie. She doesn’t have any cat hair on her, so I don’t think she’s a cat lady.”

I toss him a withering glare for the cat lady remark, but he just smirks at me. The rest of the team is split equally between the kitten and my allergy. When everyone’s voted, Aurelia asks me, “So which one is it?”

“I don’t have a kitten.”

“SON OF A!” Starcraft boy bellows. “Seriously?”

“Yup. It’s called cold urticaria. Look it up on the Mayo Clinic site.”

“I will.” He pulls out his phone. “I’m Googling now.”

We continue to play the game. Aurelia apparently has a huge family with 9 younger siblings. The rest of the team blends together. I can’t keep track of everyone’s name, and I hope that I learn them in the weeks to come.

The last one to play is the guy who walked me here from my desk.

“Hey, I’m Christopher.”

I gulp hard. The founder!?

“I do a little of everything.”

“Control freak,” says Starcraft boy.

“My two truths and a lie…let’s see.” He looks at me. “Let’s switch it up and say two lies and a truth. I have a kitten named Rosie, because roses are my favorite flower.”

I roll my eyes.

“I broke my arm when I was doing parkour in college. I sail every day.”

“Votes for Rosie?”

A few hands go up.

“Votes for parkour?”

Another few hands go up.

“Sailing every day?”

Nobody votes except for me.

Starcraft boy, who I am beginning to hate, starts laughing at me. “T-minus doesn’t have time to sail every day. He works too much. I’m surprised he has an apartment at all, because he basically sleeps here.”

I guess that solves the T-minus mystery from when I was getting hired by Aurelia. “I’ll vote for parkour, then.”

“Parkour and sailing are lies. I do have a kitten named Rosie.”

“How do you have time to take care of a kitten?” I cross my arms.

“Cats are very self-sufficient creatures. I leave my window open, and she’s perfectly capable of fending for herself.” He shrugs, but I think he’s a monster. “I also share her with the little girls next door who think that Rosie is a toy and put tiaras and glittery stuff on her.” That makes more sense.

“I guess that closes our icebreaker. Thanks for coming to meet our new hire, everyone.” Everyone smiles at me and gives a quick wave. They know my name, but I barely remember theirs. It’s ok, though. I’ll learn.

Aurelia walks out, and then it’s just me and Christopher.

“Jalicia, do you want to go fishing tonight? I was planning on heading out to the pier after work. I have my poles and everything.” He smiles at me, but I’m not very easy.

“No.” I don’t know this guy, founder or no. That sounds like a date.

“Come on. I’ll tell you all about the company, get you up to speed.”

I blink. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be great.” I look down at my outfit, but it’s worth sacrificing some of my professional wardrobe to the stench of the sea. It’ll wash off anyway. “I’ll come if you promise to tell me why your nickname is T-minus.”

“Cool. I’ll meet you at the front at 5. Sound good?”

“Great.” I nod, and I make my way back to my desk. I immerse myself in all of the test plans that Aurelia put on my plate for the rest of the day, checking as the clock winds towards 5 PM. I’m weirdly nervous about this, like it’s a date. It’s just fishing, though, right?

Fishing

Jalicia

At 5, I grab my stuff and go to the front door of the company. I wave to people as they go home, and Christopher shows up. He’s wearing a motorcycle helmet and a leather jacket.

“Why are you wearing a helmet?”

“Here’s one for you.” He tosses it at me. “Put it on.”

I gulp. “What?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it? We’re heading to the pier on my motorcycle. Still want to go?”

I look at the helmet in my hand. My dad used to call motorcycles donorcycles. When your dad is a trauma surgeon, you aren’t allowed to even look at motorcycles. Not that it helped us that much, since we had so much debt from Dad’s real estate investments that we had to give up everything just to zero things out after he died; mortgages which would have been easy to pay on a surgeon’s salary were out of reach for normal plebes. I’ve been a pretty good girl in my life, and where did it land me? Until a day ago, jobless and on the brink of falling under the poverty line, despite my college degree which came attached to enormous debt.

What the heck.

“I’m in.”

“Let’s go.”

We take the elevator down.

He’s got a Harley out front. I don’t know anything about motorcycles, but it looks pretty cool to me. He sits down in the seat, and I sit behind him.

“Hold on tight.”

I wrap my arms around his waist.

He guns the engine, and I clutch him a heck of a lot harder.  The whole thing is vibrating between my legs.

“Holy cow!”

He laughs. I don’t know how he can hear me over the roar of the motor and the rush of wind going past us.

We get on the freeway, and he recklessly winds through the parking lot that Los Angeles freeways become during rush hour. I am plastered to his back. I’m simultaneously happy and exhilarated and terrified for my life. I’ve never done anything like this.

We land at the Manhattan Beach Pier. He parks his motorcycle, puts a couple quarters into the meter, and he picks up some bags that I didn’t notice earlier. We take off of our helmets and store them.

“Come on.”

We walk out to the pier. There’s a café and aquarium on the pier. There are a handful of people fishing, but not too many.

The two of us quickly put the poles together.

“What kind of bait do you have?”

“Just the artificial kind. It’s too much of a hassle to bring live bait.”

I think about the logistics involved in carrying a big bucket of shrimp or minnows on the motorcycle. “I see. Wait, you have to tell me why your nickname is T-minus.”

He laughs. “It’s not a secret. I had an internship in college where the label for my office said that my name was Christ Ays, instead of Chris Tays. All of my teammates called me T-minus and joked about me turning water into code.”

I laugh. “That’s funny. I like it. Can I call you T-minus?”

“Only when you’re very close to me. Only my old friends call me that. Normally it’s Christopher.”

“I’ll look forward to the time when I can call you T-minus, then.”

“What about you? What’s your nickname?”

“Lello, but only my closest friends call me that.” I wink. He laughs. “Tell me something about you.”

“I have a pretty checkered past.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I stole a bunch of cars when I was a teenager. I don’t know. It was an adrenaline rush. I went to juvie for a while and stopped. It wasn’t worth it; it really killed my mom. Turnabout’s fair play. Tell me something about yourself.”

“I don’t have anything like that to confess. I guess I can tell you that the deepest wish of my heart is to go into the music industry. I’m a pianist, and I also sing. I would have majored in vocal performance in college, if my dad had been supportive of that career path.”

“But it’s hard to break into the music industry.”

“Yeah, it is.” I shake my head. “So I did something more practical.”

“Well, I’m glad you did. It lead you to your current job.”

I nod. We fall into an easy, companionable silence. I see the tip of my pole bend as a fish nibbles it. Then it comes back. I set the hook quickly, and I reel for my life. I regret casting as far as I did now. The fish is fighting me, but there’s no point in reeling in a fish that’s too easy. I’m using a lot of elbow grease to pull it in, but I can see the line bringing it in closer. I reel it out of the water. It’s an impressive size and a keeper.

“Do we need to release it? Is it one of the forbidden fish?”

“No, those are the other kinds of croakers. This one is a yellowfin croaker. Look at the fins. This one is safe to eat; it’s not badly contaminated.”

Christopher has a fish cosh, and he kills it quickly before putting it into a plastic bag.

“Holy shit! We need to cook this right now. I don’t have any ice.”

“Let’s disassemble the fish poles and run back to your motorcycle.”

We gather everything properly like an expert pit crew at a race, and we sprint back to the motorcycle. This seems kind of silly, but it’s wonderful, and we’re laughing together. I’m breathing hard as I get on my helmet.

“Go go go!”

He turns on his Harley, and we gun out of Manhattan Beach.

House

Jalicia

Two minutes later, we’re pulling in front of a house.

“Wow, is this your place?” It’s white and chrome, with very clean lines. Tons of windows and very pretty.

“Yeah.” He takes off his helmet, so I take off mine. “Wanna come in and eat this fish?”

“Yeah!”

I’m practically skipping with how happy I am. When I was little, my family used to go fishing all the time. After my dad died, though, we never went again. It’s something that I like to do, but I don’t do it nearly enough. Today was a perfect time with Christopher.

“Do you know how to clean fish?”

I cross my arms. “Nuh uh. I caught it, so you clean it. You have to sing for your supper, you know.”

He grins an easy smile, one that shows off his straight, even white teeth. He could be a toothpaste model. Toothpaste commercial model? Regardless, Colgate should put this guy on the payroll.

He rolls up his sleeves, showing a multi-colored mosaic of tattoos. It looks like a full sleeve. “I’ll sing for my supper then.” He pulls out a filet and boning knife and quickly and efficiently cuts up the fish.

“I find that my kitchen smells like fish if I’m not careful.” He opens a plastic bag. “That’s why I push everything into a bag that immediately goes outside.” He opens the sliding door, and I hear a thump as the bag lands in the outside trashcan. “All done.”

“Since you cleaned it, I will cook it.”

“Thank you, milady.”

“It’s not going to be that fancy. I’m just warning you now.”

“Not fancy is my middle name.”

Dang, he’s so easy to get along with.

“Can you get me some foil, onions, garlic, and red wine vinegar?”

“Coming right up.”

I preheat his oven to 375 degrees. He bangs around his cabinets, and by magic foil, onions, garlic, and red wine vinegar show up. He opens the cabinet closest to the oven, and he pulls out a cutting board.

“Do you need anything else?”

“Pepper?”

“Here’s my pepper grinder.”

“Thanks. This is great.”

“Awesome. I’m going to walk to Lido Bakery to grab some Mexican wedding cookies for dessert. Be back soon.”

I chop the onions and garlic with a knife from the wide collection he has. I take the filets and the onions and garlic and put them in the foil. I put the vinegar and pepper all over the top, and then I close them. I like to eat fish en papillote. I toss the packets into the oven and set a timer for 10 minutes.

I open up his fridge to see if he has anything else, and I see a big bag of bell peppers, which are perfect. I hunt around until I find a pan that’ll work and some coconut oil. I’m going to stir-fry some bell peppers and some of the onions, then I’ll put those on the side.

I turn on his stove and wait for the pan to get hot. I stir-fry the vegetables, violating the salt to hand rule egregiously. There’s salt and pepper everywhere on top of the veggies. I put them on plates that I found in a spare cabinet.

Right as I hear the door opens, the timer chimes to take out the fish.

“Perfect timing,” I call. I put on an oven mitt, and I pull out the little packets.