The Billionaire's Flame

Get Better Soon

“You ready to rock, punk princess?”

I breathe a sigh of relief at the sound of Brady’s voice. It’s been about fifteen minutes since the altercation at the bar with Kieran and Connor, and the Sharpes still haven’t left, despite having closed out their tab. I haven’t been able to breathe properly since Kieran showed up, but seeing and hugging Brady calms me, like it always does.

“If by ‘rock’ you mean ‘strum our acoustic guitars softly,’ then totally,” I tease him as I guide him back toward the employee locker room.

“Tell me,” he says as I reach into my locker for the change of clothes I brought for our show. The wardrobe at the Crimson Cavern is a little straight-laced for performing music—a tight-fitting, black button-down shirt and a pair of even tighter-fitting, uncomfortable black slacks. I packed a pair of simple dark-wash skinny jeans and an old Dead Kennedys tour tee, which I now slip into a bathroom stall to change into as Brady continues, “Why is the whole town ablaze with talk of some billionaire in from Silicon Valley?”

Word really does travel fast, I muse as I step out of my work clothes and into my new ones. Oakland isn’t even a small town. “You mean, the one that sat in my section tonight?”

“What?” Brady demands. “Is he still here?”

“He was when we came back here, but he'd already cashed out, so probably not. Also, I doubt he’s a billionaire. Maybe a millionaire.”

“Kieran Sharpe?” Brady asks as I step back out of the stall and shove the old clothes into my locker. “Definitely a billionaire, Em.”

“Oh.” I try not to sound too surprised as I reach for my guitar case. What the hell does a billionaire want with me? Judging by the way he stared at me all night, he wanted something. I guess the real tell will be whether or not he’s gone when we come back out. “Whatever. Let’s play.”

He’s still there, I determine when I step back into the dining room with Brady. He and his family are heading to the door, but he’s looking straight in my direction—and stops when he sees me.

“That him?” Brady whispers as we head for the stage. (To be clear, the “stage” is just a flat, wooden platform in the corner of the room that’s slightly above eye-level.)

“Yeah,” I whisper back. Kieran is at the door now. He’s hugging and kissing his mother and sister goodbye. Does that mean he’s staying?

“Looks like a tool,” Brady mutters. “Bet that suit costs more than my house.”

That’s actually saying something, since Brady’s house is pretty nice. He comes from money—not billionaire-level money, but the kind of money you’re more likely to see in Berkeley or San Francisco than Oakland.

I don’t reply to Brady as we open our guitar cases and take our seats on the stools on stage. There’s only one microphone, since I’m the singer of the two of us. I’m no Whitney Houston or Celine Dion, but I’ve got a decent set of pipes.

“How’s everybody doing tonight?” I ask into the microphone. I smile at the crowd of people in the restaurant, but I’d be lying if I said my gaze didn’t travel straight to the door to see if Kieran stayed.

He did. He’s headed back to the bar to take a seat.

The customers give polite cheers in response to my question. I’m not exactly famous, but I’m sort of Oakland-famous, being born and bred here and playing at one of the town hot spots every Friday night. They like Brady, too. Everybody likes Brady.

We open with a cover, like we always do. I’m a songwriter, but I tend to keep my best work private, given how much it exposes about myself that the rest of the world can never know. The first song we play is Radiohead’s High and Dry, followed by James Taylor’s Fire and Rain and the Beatles’ Blackbird. By then, the crowd is hooked. The bar is so packed that I can barely see Kieran, though I’m pretty sure he’s still there.

Our originals are rougher. My music’s total s**t when it isn’t from the heart, but since I can’t write about half of the things that are really from the heart, most of them end up being about the fire that I survived when I was nineteen. It’s easy to please crowds with songs about fire, but there’s only so much you can say. The metaphors become tiresome after a while—especially for the singer.

We end with the same song we’ve been ending with for several years now: Soon You’ll Get Better by Taylor Swift. I’m not exactly a Swiftie myself, but Brady insisted it would win us points with our audience, so I took a listen to some of her work. Needless to say, the ballad spoke to me on a deeply personal level. Even now, having played it countless times, I can’t sing it without thinking of my mother and tearing up.

When we finish, the restaurant patrons clap enthusiastically. A few rabble-rousers at the bar even hoot and holler a bit. One glance in their direction is enough to tell me all I need to know: they’re the kinds of assholes who never once looked at me in high school, then tried getting into my pants as soon as I lost the baby fat and learned how to rock a little black dress. Not interested.

The one person I am interested in, despite how uneasy he makes me feel, doesn’t approach me. In fact, he doesn’t even clap. By the time I find his face amongst the crowd, he’s already heading to the door, and then just… gone.

“Guess Mr. Billionaire didn’t enjoy the show,” Brady says with a roll of his eyes as we pack our guitars into their cases. “I think I’ll survive.”

“Yeah,” I say with a weak smile. “Me, too.”

Surviving is what I’ve proven best at over the years.

- - - - -

By the time Brady drops me off at my place that night, I have seventeen missed calls from Connor, along with a slew of profane and even vulgar text messages. They seem to alternate between Do I need to remind you how much you f*****g owe me? to Want to f**k you so bad, baby, please come over.

I know I need to be careful with Connor—piss him off too much, and my mom’s medical bills stop getting paid for—but I can’t call him back right now. I just can’t. I’ll come up with some suitable excuse tomorrow.

I open the door to my mother’s room as quietly as I can, peeking in to see if she’s still awake. She’s asleep, of course. It’s nearly eleven.

I head to my bathroom, where I shower the day’s grime and troubles away. As I scrub and shave my skin, I actively avoid looking at the burns that linger from that fateful night. Connor calls them “sexy” and Brady calls them “badass,” but if you ask me, they’re just flat-out hideous.

After my shower, I step into cotton shorts and an oversized band tee. I’ve never messed with blow-drying or hair-styling much; my wavy, auburn hair is best left to do as it pleases.

I know I should go to bed, but I’m still pretty wired. I’m glad the show went mostly well, but things with Connor are rocky at best… and then there’s Kieran.

Why was he so fixated on me tonight? Why leer at me from afar all night—even confront my boyfriend at the bar for manhandling me—only to leave without a single word?

He left a ridiculous tip, in case you were wondering. His bill was $550 and he rounded up to a thousand. Nina was thrilled.

I glance at my laptop. I could look him up. If what Brady said about him is true, I’m sure he’s got a Wikipedia page—and probably at least a couple fangirl blogs, too. I could learn anything I want to know about him from a simple Google search.

I don’t, though. What good would it do me? I don’t need to become emotionally invested in a visiting billionaire who’ll probably be gone by tomorrow.

Instead, I creep back into my mother’s room and curl into bed with her.

I might be twenty-seven years old, but if you ask me, you’re never too old to snuggle up with your mother.

"Get better soon," I whisper to her as I close my eyes. "'Cause you have to."