Page 66 of Billionaire Retreat

Chapter 13

Thanksgiving arrived faster than I expected. We’d planned as a family to go visit my aunt’s family in Orlando, Florida, but then Sadie came down with a cold that I soon caught, and Griffin wasn’t scheduled to be back in town until later that day. Mom and Dad had wanted to cancel, but I knew Mom hadn’t seen her sister in a while, so I wanted her to go.

“Don’t worry about us,” I said as she went to get back in the car after stopping by my house to kiss me and Sadie goodbye. I was feeling slightly better, just really tired from being sick so many days in a row.

“I feel so bad.”

“Why?”

“It’s the holidays... we should all be going as a family or not at all,” she whined.

“Mom, you haven’t seen Auntie Akila in two years. Go. Get out of here.”

“Ada, get in the car,” Dad said, leaning his head out the window. “I want to get there before the turkey’s cold.”

“I bet the turkey’s still frozen,” Mom said, “You know Akila, she always procrastinates.”

“But she makes juicy turkey,” Dad said.

“That’s because she spends all her time doing nothing but going through recipes on Pinterest. I swear she’s addicted—”

I missed the rest of her statement as she closed the door, tooted the horn, and then drove away.

That left just me, eventually Griffin, and Sadie around for Thanksgiving dinner and I hadn’t prepared a thing. This Thanksgiving was an epic fail of historic proportions.

And I wasn’t sure if Griffin was even going to stop by. He’d said he would, but then we’d all gotten sick and I hadn’t heard from him since. He could still be on a plane for all I knew.

I walked back in to check on Sadie. She was still asleep. At the rate she was going, she would sleep through dinner, but honestly did it really matter? Thanksgiving was going to be non-existent this year.

Ten minutes after my parents pulled off, I spotted Griffin’s car in the distance. I waited for him on the front porch.

I felt bad. I knew he’d just gotten back from L.A. the night before. He must be exhausted, I thought to myself. Hungry and exhausted.

He pulled up and stepped out of the car. He’d grown a beard since moving here and it looked really good on him. It made him seem sort of like an upscale lumberjack, I thought with amusement.

He was dressed in jeans and a plain black t-shirt and he wore plain black and white sneakers. His wardrobe was a lot more casual than it had been in L.A., but I thought he looked just as attractive, if not more so.

I waved my hand hesitantly to say hello as he got out the car. He smiled at me and waved back. I was glad he was there. I didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving alone.

I stuck my hands in the back pockets of my jeans and called out to him, “Just FYI—I have no food.”

“I figured as much,” he called back and began unloading stuff from the car. He placed two paper bags on the hood of his car and said, “I have dinner.”

I cheered and gleefully bounded down the porch stairs to help.

“I saw your parents at the gate,” he said as we carried the groceries in. My parents lived in a gated community, so it was no surprise he’d run into them. “They seemed excited about their trip to Orlando.”

“They are, it’s just too bad we all had to get infected with the plague.”

“I’m feeling better now,” he said.

“I still feel like crap.”

“Well, you look good,” he said glancing at me quickly and then looking away.

“Oh, thank you...” I hadn’t expected the compliment. I was wearing a yellow tank top and a plain pair of skinny jeans. Nothing special. My hair was down because I’d at least brushed it today.

“You don’t have to worry about cooking. I’ll take care of our Thanksgiving feast.”