Page 75 of The Billionaires

I knew that, but I don’t interrupt again.

“Anyway,” Lucius continues. “I was wearing my Spartacus-themed underwear—and kids being kids, everyone laughed. But that wasn’t the end, or the worst of it. Somehow, Gram learned about what happened, and she showed up the next day at the school. I have no idea how she knew which kid was the culprit, but she shouted at him in front of everyone, then pulled down his pants before she left.”

I gasp.

“Yeah,” Lucius says dryly. “It’s lucky there were no security guards or teachers as witnesses, or else she’d be on some list. In any case, everyone called me ‘granny’s boy’ for the rest of middle school.”

Is it weird that I don’t disapprove too much of his Gram’s behavior? Her main mistake was that she did the deed publicly, thus embarrassing Lucius. She should’ve found the bully alone and then?—

No. Wait. What am I thinking? She pulled down a child’s pants. That’s wrong to do anywhere, but infinitely more so in private.

“You win,” I say. “If I had ended up with my pants down in my middle school cafeteria, I would’ve needed therapy for years.”

“I didn’t realize this was a contest.”

I chuckle. “Can’t you just accept your win gracefully?”

“I insist that you’re the winner of this contest anyway, but I can’t say why as I promised not to mention the event in question.”

I flush. Of course! How could I have forgotten? The most embarrassing moment of my life was peeing in that elevator, hands down.

“I’m sorry,” Lucius says, sounding genuinely contrite. “I shouldn’t have mentioned that which isn’t to be spoken about.”

“Yeah. That was a low blow, especially to make a point.”

He sighs. “I feel like I owe you another embarrassing story now.”

“At least.”

“Okay, here goes,” he says. “This was in high school. I was walking with my lunch and sneezed at the wrong time. My pasta ended up all over me. Of course, the girl I liked saw the whole thing and laughed.”

“That bitch.” Oops, that might’ve been an overreaction.

“Hey, in her defense, it was funny.”

I chew on the inside of my cheek, feeling irrationally upset. “Did you ask her out anyway?”

“No,” he says, a little too sharply. “In any case, now that we’re even, I’d better go.”

Okay. A bit too abrupt, but fine. “Goodnight.”

He hangs up.

Was it something I said?

Either way, the end of the conversation notwithstanding, that was kind of nice.

I hope he calls me tomorrow.

He does call, and our conversation goes much smoother this time. We talk more about our days in school, and he shares some stories about college. I also learn about his second passion after Ancient Rome: futurism. He and his fellow futurists love to ponder what new technological advancements are on the horizon, and how they will change life as we know it.

As we’re saying goodbye, he promises to call again tomorrow.

Once again, he keeps his promise, and the highlight of this conversation is my question about his first kiss. As usual, he forces me to go first, and I admit that mine was in kindergarten, with a boy I played marriage with. The kiss was the “consummation” of that union. After teasing me about being a married woman, Lucius admits that his first kiss happened after he made his first million in his early twenties—in other words, crazy late. When I probe as to why he took so long to get to that milestone, he gets uncomfortable, so I drop the topic lest he doesn’t call again.

The next day, our chat is downright pleasant, in part because I tell him interesting facts about cactuses, like how slowly the saguaro cactus grows, at a rate of only one and a half inches every ten years—yet, mind-bogglingly, the majestic plant grows to eighty feet tall. On his end, Lucius tells me so much about Ancient Rome that I feel like I’ve taken a trip there via a time machine.

And so it goes. Each day, our conversations get longer and longer, until they start to remind me of the way it was with my first boyfriend back in high school. Just like then, I often find myself with my phone in bed, talking until midnight, which is late into the night for Lucius on the East Coast.

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