Acquired: A Billionaire Auction Romance

by Charlotte Byrd

  They are even more beautiful than they were last night. They both have strong jaws, defined cheekbones, and large eyes. Wyatt’s eyelashes are so long that they give him a wide-open look, which I am sure he expertly uses to his advantage to woo girls. Atticus is more serious. He doesn’t smile much, and he looks as if he is holding up the world on his shoulders.

  “So which one of you is the oldest?” I ask after we make pleasant chitchat about how everyone’s night was.

  I suspect that Atticus is, but I’m not sure. Wyatt is definitely the youngest. He has this carefree attitude that suggests nothing bothers him and that everything’s going to be fine, which I know runs in youngest children.

  “I am,” Gatsby says, sitting down next to me.

  From the look on his face, I can tell that he’s not happy that I have decided to join his brothers for breakfast. But I am curious about them because they are part of him, and I want to know more.

  “Gatsby’s the oldest, but Atticus won’t forgive him for it,” Wyatt jokes.

  Atticus rolls his eyes, and Gatsby just looks away with a guilty look on his face. The tension between them can be cut with a knife, but Wyatt seems to just find the whole thing curious.

  “So what are your plans today?” I ask, trying to change the subject.

  Atticus ignores me, but Wyatt says, “We were actually planning on going sky diving.”

  I feel my eyes open wide. Sky diving! He mentions sky diving as if the idea is as casual as going to get some coffee.

  “Really?” I ask excitedly. I never told anyone this, but I have been wanting to go sky diving for sometime now. I am terrified at the thought, but that’s what draws me to it.

  “Yeah.” Wyatt nods and looks at me. “Why? Do you want to go?”

  The invitation is so informal that I am not sure if it’s real. But before I know it, I accept.

  “It’s okay if we go, right?” I turn to Gatsby.

  He nods, but the expression on his face says something else completely. He is not happy. At this moment, I don’t care.

  I am suddenly filled with a strange mixture of adrenaline, anticipation, and fear. I don’t know what came over me, and I say yes before even coming to my senses. But a big part of me is glad. Sometimes coming to one’s senses is overrated.

  “It’s just that I’ve never been,” I add, trying to explain myself. “You don’t have anything planned, do you?”

  Gatsby opens his mouth to say something, but Wyatt cuts him off.

  “Even if he does, there’s no way it’s as cool as sky diving.”

  I smile. I know he’s right. But the expression on Gatsby’s face worries me.

  “No,” he says reluctantly. I know he doesn’t want to go, but I feel an unexplainable urge to go. I am afraid and excited at the same time. And I can’t pay attention to how Gatsby feels.

  “Great,” I say quickly, well aware of my self-involvement. “Then we’re in.”

  After Wyatt and Atticus leave the room, Gatsby and I are left alone at the table. He looks at me with a disapproving expression on his face. His eyes are narrowed and his lips are turned downward.

  I look away. I don’t care that he’s upset. No, that’s not entirely true. I don’t want to care. I want to go, and I don’t want him to take this away from me.

  “Why did you do that?” he asks, finishing the rest of his mimosa.

  I eat the rest of my Belgian waffle before answering.

  “Because I really want to go. I’m scared shitless, but who isn’t, right? I’ve wanted to go sky diving for a long time, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. To go with you, I mean.”

  “Yes, except that you didn’t ask me.”

  “I thought you’d be down for it.”

  He looks away from me. Now he doesn’t look so much disapproving as disappointed. “It’s not that I don’t want go to skydiving with you. It’s that I don’t want to go with them.”

  “They seem perfectly fine,” I say naively. I realize how innocent I come off. It’s not that I’m trying to take their side, I’m just trying to make peace. At least for this weekend.

  “You don’t know them,” Gatsby says.

  “I think it’ll be fun,” I insist.

  I need to make this a good decision. I basically hijacked the whole day, and I need for it to work out. Otherwise…otherwise, I’m not sure if we’re going to have another date.

  “Skydiving will be fun, but my brothers aren’t fun.” Gatsby shakes his head. “I’m afraid that you’ll discover that soon enough.”

  I don’t know what he means. I don’t want to.

  We arrive at a small airport later that afternoon. The office where we fill out all the releases and pages and pages of paperwork smells of diesel and adrenaline. When we watch the introductory video, my heart starts to race, and I take deep breaths to calm it down. I’m starting to have second thoughts. But Gatsby takes my hand and flashes me a smile. I feel a little better.

  The eighteen-year-old kid at the front desk has an infectious, upbeat personality that puts me at ease even more.

  “Are you sure want to do this, Gatsby?” the kid asks.

  Gatsby nods and shrugs. A familiar, mischievous smile appears on his face, confusing me.

  “What’s going on?” I ask. Wyatt shakes his head and laughs.

  “You’ll see,” Gatsby says. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  He leads me to the place in the back where Atticus is already paired up with an instructor.

  Gatsby goes to the open closet and picks out a jumpsuit for me. He hands it to me.

  “This should be a fit,” he says. When I step into it and zip it up, he hands me the helmet and the goggles and then tells me to step into the harness.

  “Shouldn’t my partner be doing this?” I ask looking at Wyatt and Atticus, who are both getting strapped in by their partners.

  “He is,” Gatsby says, tightening the straps.

  I look around. Gatsby’s partner is also nowhere to be found. Finally, I get it.

  “You’re…but how…?”

  “I’ve done this a few times before,” he jokes. “Don’t worry.”

  While adjusting his own straps and checking the other instructors’ straps, I learn that he’s been sky diving since he was eighteen. He’s been qualified to take other people on tandem jumps since he was twenty.

  A big part of me is relieved that he’s the one that I’m jumping with. But not enough to make blood come back into my ice-cold hands and to stop my heart from beating out of my chest.

  When we’re all ready to walk toward the plane, Gatsby gives me a quick peck on the cheek and whispers,

  “Don’t worry, no one I’ve dove with has died yet.”

  He’s joking, of course, trying to put me at ease. I laugh, but I don’t find it funny.

  22

  By the time we start the long walk to the runway, I am ready to chicken out. I want to run away and cry and stomp my feet. But I am too embarrassed to quit. It was all my idea, and now, finally, Gatsby seems genuinely excited. The plane is parked on the runway, and I walk up the staircase well aware of the fact that the only reason I am still going through with this is that I’m too afraid not to. And that’s an awful reason!

  The door to the plane locks behind me, shutting out the outside world. I am sitting next to Gatsby. He takes my hand. He is so excited; his eyes are twinkling in anticipation. No one seems to notice that this airplane looks like it’s a cargo plane from a third world country. The seats are metal benches. There are no seat belts to buckle. The windows are tiny and covered in dead bugs.

  We take off. My heart starts to race. My throat closes up. Gatsby starts to push and tug on me, connecting all our straps together. He makes me sit on his lap and buckles us closer together. But I am in a daze. I barely pay attention. The world is closing in around me. I want to escape. I need someone to open the door to let in some air.

  Soon enough, at about 30,000 feet, my wish is their command.
r />   “Ready?” someone yells. The door opens.

  “Woo-hooo!” Wyatt screams as he and his partner jump.

  Gatsby scoots across the bench. I am helpless to resist. Now that the door is open I don’t want go. Cold air rushes in, and the sound that it makes frightens me. I don’t watch Logan go. I take a deep breath and try to focus my mind. This isn’t normal. This is crazy. Outrageous. Why the hell did I ever suggest this?

  My mind is racing so fast; it’s impossible for me to keep my breath still. I try to take a full breath of air, but my lungs contract. I try again, but even less air gets in.

  “You ready?” Gatsby asks. He is scooting toward the opening. I am sitting on his lap and have no leverage to resist.

  “No!” I scream. But he laughs.

  “C’mon, it going to be awesome!”

  * * *

  We jump.

  It’s not so much of a jump as a tumble. A gust of wind hits me like a ton of bricks. We start falling to the earth at hundreds of feet per second.

  It should feel like flying, but it doesn’t. Wind is gushing passed me, forcing my mouth open and filling my cheeks with cold air. My cheeks and the skin on my face is flapping around as if it were fabric. The air is so cold my teeth hurt.

  I feel air pushing us out toward the sky even though we are getting closer and closer to the earth.

  And then suddenly, there’s a jolt.

  We stop rushing all together. The parachute above our heads is open and filled with air. Now, we are gliding toward earth. Barely moving.

  “How was that?” Gatsby asks.

  “Awesome! Amazing!”

  “I knew you’d like it.” He laughs. He steers the parachute with his hands and hands me the controls.

  We are still falling, but it no longer feels like falling. It feels like we’re gliding. There’s no air rushing past me anymore. A wave of relief sweeps over me as blood starts to circulate within me.

  I lose all track of time as we glide above the earth. Mountains hug the horizon and frame the valleys below. A small, winding line cutting through the valley is the highway we drove on. The tiny moving spots on the line are the cars.

  The road is so insignificant from above. The cars are barely the size of ants. I find it hard to believe that there are people in them. Being so high makes me think about perspective. The people back on earth barely register as creatures, and it’s difficult to consider them as fellow creatures. Being so high makes me feel as if I am separated from them, somehow. As if I am not one of them. Like I am someone higher and more important. It’s a dangerous thought. And an irresponsible one.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Gatsby yells into my ear.

  “Yes!”

  The mountains are getting closer to us and more majestic. I can now make out the trees. The pines are thick, and many are more than seventy feet tall. From up here, they appear like matchsticks.

  * * *

  When my feet get close to the ground, the earth reaches up and pulls me in. A new wave of adrenaline surges through my veins.

  Gatsby quickly disengages our harness. We embrace before it hits the ground. He throws his arms around my shoulders and brings my face to him. I feel the warmth of the sun on my eyelids as I kiss his lips. Tears of exhilaration and relief are building behind my eyes. I kiss him harder to try to keep them at bay.

  But before we get too lost in the moment, somebody collides into us.

  I open my eyes.

  It’s Wyatt and Atticus. They are slapping us on our backs. Gatsby pulls away from me and shakes his brothers’ hands.

  But quickly, as if on a second thought, the chaste and reserved handshakes that they exchange morph into something more. They all start to laugh and hug each other.

  Everyone’s riding a high, which we carry with us into lunch. We continue to smile and laugh and joke around well into the main course. During a brief moment of reflection, while they order a third round of drinks, I realize how different these people are from the ones I met yesterday.

  Last night, I saw three brothers who did not have much in common with one another. They were strangers, but even worse than that. They knew each other and chose not to spend time together. They carried a hatred and contempt for one another, the likes of which I only saw once before.

  But today, the three men who sit before me are no longer afraid of each other. They do not have regrets, resentments, or hatred for one another. They are smiling, laughing, and joking around. Their worlds aren’t divided. Instead, they are connected.

  “Hey, do you remember that camping trip we went on in high school?” Atticus turns to Gatsby.

  “The one you almost didn’t come back from?” Gatsby jokes. “Atticus decided to climb a giant boulder somewhere in Utah. It was perfectly smooth. Hardly a groove to hold onto.”

  “I got up there just fine,” Atticus cuts in.

  “Yeah, that was pretty impressive,” Wyatt admits. “Gatsby and I could barely get a few feet off the ground.”

  “As it turned out, that was the easy part.” Atticus shrugs.

  “Why? What happened?” I ask.

  “He got all the way to the top but then couldn’t get down,” Gatsby says.

  “He was up there for close to an hour trying to get down,” Wyatt explains. “The boulder was about twenty feet or so high.”

  “Oh my god, I can’t believe I survived that.” Atticus laughs and shakes his head. I still don’t know what happened.

  “Me too. Getting away with a broken foot was lucky,” Wyatt adds.

  “You broke your foot?” I ask.

  “Yep. I couldn’t really climb down because it was so smooth and it was getting dark. So I just grabbed onto the top and tried to ease myself down. But that didn’t work out too well. I fell and broke my foot. I thought it was a sprain at first, but the doc in the emergency room confirmed it.

  “But that’s not even the really impressive part. What was really amazing was what these two guys did for me.”

  “Oh please,” Gatsby cuts in. “What did you want us to do? Just leave you there?”

  Atticus turns to me. “I couldn’t really walk, so they basically carried me all the way back to the car. It was like ten miles up and down really steep terrain.”

  “You did?” I ask them. They smile and nod but look a bit embarrassed.

  “Man, that was fun,” Wyatt jokes. “I had no idea you were such a lard ass!”

  “Yeah, I know. He was so fucking heavy, wasn’t he?” Gatsby adds.

  They continue to make jokes, and through the laughter, I can see that they were both happy to do it. The incident tied them to each other, connecting them in a way only adversity can. We all clink our glasses to that night. Taking a sip, I realize that this is how brothers should be.

  23

  Gatsby doesn’t know this yet, but I know what it’s like to not talk to your siblings. My sisters, and I don’t speak, and I am familiar with the distance and the wide space that it can create between you and your childhood. There are so many memories that connect these people.

  You can’t imagine your childhood without them. They are the only ones who truly understand how crazy your parents are. So when you are grown, and you don’t speak or don’t have a relationship with them, it is as if these memories and emotions and feelings are shelved. Boxed. Put away in a safe. Locked in some room without a key.

  Looking at Gatsby laughing and carrying on with his brothers, I start to really miss my sisters. I want us to have a reconciliation or, at least, a conversation. All the things that I am mad at them for, all of our arguments, now seem so insignificant. I try to remember the details, but even those are vague.

  I have two sisters. The three of us used to be very close, but then we started to grow apart in high school. When our mom got sick, we came together again. We all came to visit, and in the end, the three of us practically lived there. Our dad left when I was two, and my sisters were five and seven, so it was just the three of us in the end. But then,
after the funeral, things fell apart again.

  We lead different lives in different cities. After mom’s death, we promised that we would call and email, but quickly reverted to our old ways. I called too much and got mad when they didn’t return my calls. They got mad when I didn’t send them any gifts for their birthdays and holidays.

  We all had our excuses. They said that they texted and emailed instead of called. I said that I didn’t have any money to buy groceries let alone gifts. We were all wrong.

  We promised to meet up for the holidays, but when one cancelled so did the other one. Old resentments crept in and took the place of the love that we had once felt for one another.

  But now, seeing Gatsby with his brothers, I have an overwhelming urge to call them. To try to make things right. Maybe even take them sky diving.

  Back at the lodge, Gatsby goes downstairs to the business center to get some work done. Only this place would have a business center in the middle of the wilderness! I have an hour to myself and I decide to take a bath. I haven’t taken a bath in ages, and I’ve never taken one in a bathroom like this!

  The space is bigger than my apartment back home. The toilet is sequestered to one side, and the rest of the space is taken up by the spacious two, or even three, person shower and the giant claw foot tub. There’s a floor-to-ceiling window looking outside into the setting sun. The pines look like they are hanging their heads, kneeling before the sun.

  Somewhere in the distance, I see a small round creature rolling across the horizon. I lean in closer and block my eyes from the harshness of the sun.

  It’s a bear!

  Oh my god! I can’t believe my eyes. A bear? A real bear!

  For some inexplicable reason, I turn off the water to see better. When I look up again, the bear is closer, and now I am certain. Except that it’s not just one bear. There is a little one and the big one right next to him. They are wandering across the grasses in front of the window, going from one section of the forest to another.