My Crazy Billionaire

5, Him

Signing the last of the documents, I dropped my pen to the desk and stretched out my hand to relax the muscles. My fingers felt numb from signing numerous documents all morning and I felt a slight pounding in my head indicating an eminent headache.

I looked to the large grandfather clock on the wall to my right. 12:34p.m. Huh! How time flies. I vaguely remembered Corine informing me she would be going for lunch about 30 minutes ago. The rest of my staff would be on their lunch as well. Meaning, I would be one of the few people still in the office.

I removed my tie and unbuttoned the first two buttons of my shirt and craned my neck backwards to relieve some of the tension in it. If I had a girlfriend or a friend around or anything, this would have been the perfect time to go for lunch with them. I sighed and ran my hand through my brown hair.

Most of the employees would probably be taking their lunch at that café just across the street. I never really went there but I heard the place was nice. Needing a bit of fresh air, my anger from the morning dissipated, I picked up my keys from my key bowl, picked up my phones and left the office. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was going to but I just needed to leave.

Deciding to call Maddie on my way out: thank heavens the press was no longer outside…I rang Maddie and put the phone to my ear as the dial tone sounded. When I got to my car, I connected the phone to the car’s Bluetooth and drove off not even knowing where exactly I was going to.

After about four rings, Maddie breathy voice came on the phone like she was in the middle of something.

“Hey Xavi. What’s up? Why are you calling?” she breathed, muffled sounds sounding in the background.

“Can’t your favorite brother in the world just call you to check on you?” I chuckled.

“Xavi. You are my only brother” she deadpanned. I could practically hear her roll her eyes right now. I chuckled again.

“That we know of. For all we know we could have other siblings somewhere that we don’t know of.” I joked but it left a bitter taste on my mouth. Maddie knew of our parent’s ways. She just didn’t care though. She was cool like that. She had always been cool. People found it weird that I was so close to my older sister and that we share everything but she was my first friend. She was just this cool older sister who made fun of you but listened to you and made you feel not so small you know. I had always turned to her and Ethan most of my life. Plus, with parents like ours who pretty much left us alone most of the time, we couldn’t help but be close.

“Well, I don’t care about them. You are the only one I care about. Now tell me. why are you calling? It’s not like you to just call me like that. You are quite the workaholic.” She said and I found myself laughing. She knew me too well.

“I don’t know Maddie. I just felt like calling” I said sounding sadder than I intended and I heard her pause and mumble something to someone in the background. It was then that I pulled up into a beautiful park. Parking my car, I turned off the ignition, locked it and went towards a hotdog stand and ordered two hotdogs and bought some mineral water. Taking the food and drink, I went to a bench in the park and just looked around, admiring my surroundings. It was a beautiful day.

“Xavi…Xavi…you still there?” Maddie said something and I was brought out of my reverie. I held the phone to my ear and paid attention.

“Yeah I am. Was that Trevor in the background?” I asked and bit into one of the hotdogs. Trevor was basically the love of Maddie’s life, her husband and the father of their four-year-old daughter Liana or Lia as we called her and their one-year-old baby boy Gregory or Greg. While Maddie was one of the best and most cut throat lawyers in our city, Trevor was a sweet, nerdy, super intelligent scientist. They met in college and after unexpected turns, they fell in love and got together. They had been together seven years. Crazy right? Trevor worked for one of the biggest scientist companies in the country and he had invented some high tech which brought them a lot of money. At first glance, you would never believe that he was that rich but Trevor was so humble and down to earth it was crazy. Him and Maddie were perfect for each other and I couldn’t be happier that my sister had found someone like him. She deserved to be happy.

“Yeah. It was. Hey Xavi you ok? You sounded sad just earlier.” She said sounding worried and I paused in my eating movements. Classic Maddie. She always detected my moods.

“Say hi for me. I’m fine Maddie. Just some work stuff. I’ll be fine.” I said deciding not to bother her with my problems. Plus how exactly was I supposed to explain the mafia thing to her? She was going to be so disappointed in me and I couldn’t handle that at the moment.

“If you say so lil bro. just know I’m always here for you okay?” she said and a sad smile rose on my lips. That I could always count on.

“I know sis.”

“You know what you need in your life Xavi? You need a woman in your life. Someone who will love you for who you are. Not those different girls that decorate your bed every night. Seriously that is disgusting. You could catch something ew.” She said sounding disgusted and I laughed.

Here I was, a 27-year-old man getting lectured by my 29-year-old sister about my s*x life. It was silly.

“Yeah…we know how my history with women looks like” I said rolling my eyes. I bet she rolled her eyes too.

“Yeah. That’s because you are too chicken of a man to walk up to Lily and tell her how you’ve felt all these years. You cannot find some other girl because you are still in love with Lily and you are not doing anything about it.” She scolded and I sighed.

“I can’t just walk up to her you know” I sighed finishing my hotdog.

“Why not huh? Why not? How hard can it be? But no…you are too busy stalking her and sending her anonymous stuff like some creep.”

“You know Maddie, it is moments like these that I regret telling you everything” I half joked and heard her laugh on the other end.

“Yeah I don’t regret it. I like listening to you. Plus, if you got a girlfriend, maybe you could tell her all these things” she said suggestively and I rolled my eyes. Maddie could be quite persistent.

“Yeah yeah whatever. aren’t you supposed to be like busy or something?” I asked her and she sighed. Her tiredness showing.

“Yeah actually I am. We had an emergency call from Lia’s school to come pick her up. Your niece very helpfully poured paint all over herself and the rest of her classmates. It was a mess. School was closed early because of it.” She sighed and I couldn’t help but laugh. Liana was a little troublemaker.

“You know she learns those things from you Xavi” she said and I laughed again.

“Me? how come? You guys are her parents” I complained.

“Yeah whatever. I’m blaming you.” She said and I couldn’t help but smile. Women.

“Ok sis”

“Hey Xavi. Come by for dinner on Sunday. I miss you, Liana misses her favorite uncle; she’s excited to show you her new stuff and Trevor has this new thing he wants your opinion on.” She said.

I thought about it. Not like I was doing anything on Sunday anyways.

“Okay. And tell Lia that if she is good all week, I will bring a gift for her.”

I heard Maddie relay the news to Lia and I heard her excited squeals. I smiled at that. They were adorable.

“Okay sis. I gotta go. I’ll call you.” I said

“Okay Xavi. I love you. Bye.”

“I love you too” I said and cut the call. I did miss my sister. It was good I called her.

Setting down my phone, I looked around the park from the man selling balloons to the hot dog guy to the ice cream guy to the numerous people just hanging about and enjoying life. The beautiful California sun was shining brightly overhead and in that moment, life just felt normal. It was rare that I ever felt normal. But in that moment, I did. I had to bring Lia and Greg to this park one day. I just knew that they would love it.