Page 119 of The Billionaire Is Back

My family is greatly confused by all of this. My very concerned mother keeps offering activities that would barely interest me under normal circumstances. Does she really think I’d enjoy getting a pedicure with her? Do I look like I want to go to Target to see if theyhave another pair of those sunglasses she got last week? I don’t. Unless Claire is at Target. But I tell my mom that I love her because she’s trying because she loves me. At least one woman still loves me. When Alice sent me a text yesterday to ask if there was anything she should send to Claire, I replied that we’re spending some time apart and she replied with a thumbs-down emoji.

My brother’s way of showing he cares is to leave me the hell alone. Except sometimes when I pass by whatever room he’s in, he’ll strum “You Give Love a Bad Name” by Bon Jovi because he’s an asshole little brother who’s been an expert at annoying me all his life who can now do it by shredding power chords on his axe. Or whatever the kids are calling guitars these days. But I’m not the one who gives love a bad name. Rock ’n’ roll gives it a bad name. Because rock ’n’ roll makes love sound cool. And love is not cool. It’s sad.

Like my dad’s CD collection.

Which is why I’m listening to sad songs from my dad’s old CDs on the old stereo system that he refuses to replace.

What’ll I do

When you are far away

And I am blue?

What’ll I do?

It’s my father who finally breaks, having had quite enough of his old sad music being used for depression. He abruptly turns off the music mid-song. “All right, that’s enough of this,” he announces to the room, as if we’ve been having a conversation.

“Enough of what?” I mumble, blowing Cheeto dust off my exposed chest.

My dad claps his hands together and then raises his finger, pointing to the ceiling. “We’re taking the boat out. Put a shirt on, come with me to the docks, and then you can take your shirt off again.”

It would take more willpower than I currently have to fight him on this.

“Damien, you’re coming too!” he calls out. “Let’s go.”

An hour later, after rigging the vessel from muscle memory alone, we’re busy doing nothing, just drifting on the water.

My brother’s long, lean body is stretched out on the seats across from me, looking like he doesn’t have a care in the world. I mean, he doesn’t, really. Aside from his upcoming lobster race and the fact that he’s an unemployed grown man with no driver’s license who’s living with his parents. Aside from the fact that he could be making bank as a global rock star and instead is playing to a bunch of townies in a local dive bar.

But that could be my mood talking.

“Isn’t this better?” my father asks. He takes in a lungful of sea air. He gestures at the blue sky.

I shrug.

Marine moping feels no different from land moping.

My dad grabs a few beers from the cooler and offers me one. I take it. Because what else am I gonna do?

“Only silver lining about my heart condition…” He sighs. “I read that having a drink is actually good for it.”

“Actually that was debunked. Alcohol doesn’t help at all with your heart. Alcohol is just straight up bad foryou,” I inform him, and then I pour the poison directly down my gullet.

“Figures,” my father mumbles before pausing to take a sip. “The one fun scientific fact ever discovered in the last thousand years and they had to take that away too. But Pluto will always be a planet to me, dammit.”

We sit for a few minutes, drinking in silence, listening to the waves lapping against the side of the boat.

“Not as nice as your boat back in New York, I suppose.”

Sitting here on my family’s boat, the one I bought for them, with the familiar breeze caressing my skin, I take a deep breath. I’m still gutted. I’m still a Godforsaken hollowed-out shell because I don’t have Claire.

But this is nice.

“No, Dad.” I sigh. “This is better.”

I watch my father take that in. “What happened with you and the Sweeney girl?”

“They broke up,” Damien adds helpfully, his forearm still resting over his face. The big brother in me wants to yell at him for not wearing sunscreen, but I don’t have the energy for it.

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