The Billionaire Bum (23 page)

One Year Later

Jackson Hayes, the brilliant real estate tycoon, entrepreneur, financial genius, and recently married man was walking home from work. Admittedly, this was a rare event prompted by the early springtime weather coupled with an extremely productive late-afternoon meeting.

He was in the process of purchasing a company owned by none other than Mr. Matt Ozwell, former part-time employee to Mrs. Alissa Allen-Hayes. It was a small chain of sporting goods stores that were surprisingly profitable despite their new CEO’s lazy attitude.

Matt had inherited the company from his father a month ago, when he’d graduated from college, and Jackson wanted to buy it before Matt had a chance to really screw it up. The due diligence checked out, and pending any further information, the deal was scheduled to close in less than thirty days.

Jackson loosened his tie and threw his perfectly tailored jacket over his arm for the hike across town. He was whistling as he walked, and daydreaming about his incredible wife, Alissa.

About a half a block up, he saw group of three teenage boys harassing an older man that was sitting on the cement steps in front of a vacant retail building. He watched the scene for a moment debating the right thing to do.

The man had a plastic cup in one hand and he was holding it up in an effort to shield himself as the boys flicked pennies at him. The man was making no aggressive move to defend himself, but three against one was not good odds, and the man didn’t appear to be in the best health.

“Hey!” Jackson yelled coming closer and attracting attention to the boys. “Knock it off!” The boys looked at him and seemed to realize that he wasn’t kidding. They took of running down the street leaving only a string of profanities in their wake.

“You okay?” Jackson asked the man.

“Yes, thank you. They’re only boys. Their parents don’t raise them right any more.” Jackson nodded in agreement before putting a twenty-dollar bill in the man’s cup and going on his way. After several visits to volunteer at the shelters, he knew that twenty dollars would not solve the man’s problems, but it might feed him for a day or two.

As he was walking away, his phone vibrated in his pocket.

“Hello.”

“What’s up, my brother?” Jason’s boisterous voice echoed through the phone.

“Nothing.”

“Good, we’re having a night out. Shel, Lexy, and ‘Lissa are off at some open house thing, and you know I can’t cook for shit. We’re going down to the Phyrst. David and I will meet you there in half an hour.”

The line went dead. Jackson looked up at the street sign. He was still ten blocks from home, and it was a ten-minute drive from home to the bar. It looked like he’d need that cab after all.

Jackson

“...so I’m talking to Matt today, during the negotiation, and he tries to tell me that living in the wild is tough,” I said. Jason chuckled and shook his head, taking a long swig of his beer.

“And then, when I call him on it, he tells me that I wouldn’t survive one week in the wilderness on my own, unless I bought a ton of his camping gear.” I paused while the waitress set our burgers in front of us. “This looks so good. I was freaking starving.”

Jason was still shaking his head and laughing across the table. “He’s right though,” he said.

“Who’s right?” I asked.

“Matt Ozwell. Wilderness survival sucks. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to try it.”

“What?” I paused with my burger halfway to my mouth. “You don’t think I could do it?” I looked at David, who just shrugged and returned his attention to his fries.

Jason smiled his typical huge goofy smile at me, and I knew I was in trouble. “No, I don’t,” he said. “I’ve got $50,000 that says you can’t last one week in the wild.” He was cracking up laughing.

“What?” Not this again. David was laughing and shaking his head, clearly trying to stay out of this bit of brother bonding time.

“You heard me,” Jason said. “I’ll bet you fifty grand that you don’t make it one week in the woods. Hell, I’ll even let you have a tent!”

“You can’t be fucking serious,” I said. “I’m a newlywed. ‘Lissa will kick my ass!”

“Take Alissa with you,” he said. “When was the last time you two had an adventure together? It’ll be a marriage builder. If I remember correctly, it worked out okay for you two the last time we tried this kinda’ thing.”

I looked back to David. “What do you think, Dave?”

“I think I’m staying as far away from this as I can. Lexy will kill me if she finds out that I had a hand in making Alissa spend a week in the woods.” I laughed at that. Lexy could be quite a handful. David was a smart man to stay on her good side, but Jason was right. Alissa and I both worked a lot, and we didn’t get to spend as much time together as I would like. We hadn’t even taken a honeymoon yet – preferring to wait until the ongoing legal matters were all solved.

Nick’s trial had just wrapped up last week. He got thirty years for kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, embezzlement, and a whole list of other charges. I was so relieved to have the whole mess behind us, and I knew Alissa was, too.

My businesses had settled down again with a new board member to replace Kayla. She was doing fabulously in her new role. The investigation into Robert had determined that he made a bad judgment call, but was not maliciously involved in anyway. He was doing his job a little more cautiously now, but was actually performing better than ever. The press had lost interest, as they always do, and we were back to business as usual.

Maybe it was time to move on to the next great adventure. Alissa was an incredible woman; she would understand.

“Deal,” I said. “Fifty thousand dollars says Alissa and I are perfectly fine after living one week in the wild.”