“I must go,” Faizan said to us. “His Excellency wishes to speak to me.”
His Excellency is what Faizan called his tortured, high-needs boss. But after seeing how he treated my sister all summer while pretty much pretending that Albie didn’t exist, I took great pleasure in calling him the Broken Billionaire. That’s probably why Mika still hasn’t invited me up to the house to meet him.
“Okay, see you later,” I answered Faizan. “Maybe Albie can…”
I trailed off because Faizan raced away before I even had a chance to tell him he could get my number from Albie.
Leaving me to observe to my sister, “For someone who supposedly doesn’t want us anywhere near his house, the Broken Billionaire sure does watch us a lot.”
“In all fairness, he just said that Albie couldn’t be noisy in the pool,” Mika said, defending her boss for reasons I couldn’t even begin to understand. “He never said he didn’t want us near the house.”
“I think he just likes sitting on the lanai when he takes his breaks,” Albie said like he’d drunk the same Kool-Aid as his mom.
“And what exactly is he doing in that office again?” I asked them since apparently, it was all on me to point out that Mika’s boss was totally weird.
Albie and Mika exchanged a guilty look. Just like I suspected, neither of them knew.
“If you ask me, that’s choke creepy,” I told them. “Don’t you think it’s weird the way he watches us from his house? And did you see the way he beckoned Faizan earlier? Like he’s his manservant or something?”
“He is his manservant,” Albie pointed out. “And mom’s his momservant.”
Mika laughed, but I frowned up the steps at Faizan, who was now crouched next to the Broken Billionaire’s chair, receiving whatever command that just hadn’t been able to wait until he was done having fun with us. It reminded me a little too much of my own status of basically being indentured to the Chinese mafia version of a Fae King.
“I just don’t understand why he puts up with his bullshit,” I grumbled to Mika. “I mean, he’s a former commando. He deserves better than being at that surly dude’s beck and call. I don’t care how rich he is.”
Mika side-eyed me with a suspicious look. “Okay, are you saying this because you’re honestly mad about Faizan’s work sitch? Or are you mad because you like Faizan and he left without saying goodbye?”
I smiled and rolled my eyes, refusing to confirm or deny.
“Eww, you like Faizan?” Albie asked. “He’s, like, old!”
I pursed my lips at my nephew. “You need to C your way out of your aunt’s and my A-B conversation.”
I playfully shoved his shoulder. “And didn’t you promise you’d go straight up to your room and pack if I went surfing with you?”
“Aw, Mom…” he started to whine to my way-too-soft-on-him sister.
“A deal’s a deal,” I cut in before she could even think about caving. “And if you don’t do it, she’s not going to let you come hang with me at the North Shore tomorrow.”
Luckily, Mika was as loyal as she was loving. She doubled down on my threat, and between the two of us, we managed to send Albie running up the stairs of the house.
But as soon as her son was out of earshot, my nosy sister boomeranged right back to the subject of Faizan. “He’s only in his mid-forties. He’s just had a hard life. Maybe that’s why he’s pretty happy and grateful to be getting paid a lot to do a relatively easy job.”
“Whatever,” I groused. “How much you want to bet the Broken Billionaire will roll away and shut himself away in his office before Albie makes it up the steps?”
We both looked to where the Broken Billionaire was parked. And right on cue, her boss unlocked his chair and rolled back into the house before Albie could make it up the steps.
“See? He’s so creepy!” I crowed. “I honestly don’t know how you put up with that all summer.”
After that display, Mika had to give up any argument in her boss’s defense.
“It’s just one more day, then I’m all done here,” she pointed out instead as we picked up all the surfboards.
“Yeah, speaking of which…” I started heading toward the stairs that led up to the carport. “I don’t suppose you got paid the rest of the money and that bonus early?”
“I don’t get paid until my last day of August,” she answered as we hiked up the stairs. “Why? Is there something that can’t wait?”
I tried to figure out how to tell her Mom and Dad were short on bills again this month, without making her wonder where all the money she’d given them at the beginning of the summer had gone.
Or how the reason I wasn’t able to help them was because I was trying to pay some random criminal back in order to get out of this crazy weird ownership deal. Yeah, the Fae King had only beckoned me one time since the whole mess went down. But that one time had been enough to convince me that I needed to prioritize extracting myself from underneath his thumb.
