New York Billionaires Series

“Soon.”

“Good, because I’m not the only one who misses you. Ace does too.”

“Oh yes. He’s lying by my side now, and I swear, his ears perk up whenever you say something.”

“Hi buddy.”Please check at N/ôvel(D)rama.Org.

“Yep, his ears perked up.”

I laugh, and she joins in, the sound everything to me. Everthing. “Guess what?” she says. “I’ve decided to do something.”

“Yes. On Saturday, I’m going to an open mic night with Posie. To perform.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. It feels like my stomach might give out, though, and it’s only Monday.”

I push up into sitting. “You’ve got this. I’ve heard you sing. Your friends have heard you sing. Summer, you’re amazing.”

“Mhm. Yeah.”

“Do you know how rare it is to sing well? Not a single person in that crowd will be thinking oh, I could do that better.”

“There might be other performers there.”

“Then they’ll be thinking how much they want to be up there on stage with you.”

“You’re great, you know,” she says, sighing. “I never used to be like this. I loved to perform. I want to find that love again.”

“You will,” I say. “I have no doubt you will. And Summer?”

“The people who care about you won’t judge, and the people who do? You don’t care about them.”

“You’re right about that.”

“Of course I am. Where is it?”

“The open mic night?”

“At a place called Barella, on Saturday.” A tentative note of hope creeps into her voice. “I’ve invited a few friends, but there’s still space?”

I want to say the words as badly as she wants to hear them. Promise to be there, to listen, to support. The chance to be there for someone is a responsibility, but it’s not heavy. It’s liberating. Knowing you’re needed and wanted, needing and wanting someone in return.

But I can’t do that for her until I know I’m in control of myself. “I’ll be there if I can,” I tell her. “If I’m ready.”

“That’s okay. I know you… have to figure things out.”

“I am, though. Day by day.”

“Good,” she murmurs.

My gaze settles on the newspaper I’ve tossed onto my living room table. I reach for it. “Do you have your copy of the Times ?”

“Yes,” she says. “I stuffed it into my bag from work. Let me get it…”

I open it up in the meantime. Scan the pages. “Open page twelve,” I say. “Let me make the world bleak for you.”

She laughs again. “You don’t make the world bleak. You make it fun.”

“Well, I’m happy you can see it that way.”

“I can. Oh, there was something I read that made me think of you right away…”

“Large Bird Awareness Week?”

“Very funny,” she says, voice light. “No, it was about Bergdorf Goodman. Made me think of the dresses you sent me.”

“Anthony, do you really do that a lot with dates? You made it seem so commonplace.”

I run a hand over the back of my neck. “I’ve done it before, yes. But not with many women.”

“So you don’t have a personal shopper there, ready to whip out the latest styles for your dates on short notice,” she says. She’s teasing, effortless warmth in her voice.

It softens my own. “Summer, I picked them out myself.”

“You… you didn’t ask someone to do it for you?”

“No, I went there myself. It should have been the first warning flag, really.”

“Warning flag?”

“That I was falling for you,” I say. “Instead, I told myself it was a good use of an afternoon, standing there, imagining a woman I’d just met in cocktail dresses.”

She laughs. “Oh, Anthony, if only I’d known.”

“Perhaps it was better that you didn’t. You weren’t interested in me at the time.”

“I don’t know about that,” she says. “I was intrigued by you from day one.”

“Intrigued, huh?”

“Yes. I just had to figure you out.”

“And have you?”

“I’m getting there,” she murmurs. “But I think I’ll need to spend a lot more time with you in order to do that.”

“Then I’d better make sure you never figure me out,” I say.