Page 1 of The Grumpy Billionaire
ONE
Mr. Grumpypants Himself
They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. Not in my case. When Mara left without a goodbye, without a care, I didn’thavea heart anymore.
So what’s a heartless guy to do when the one who got away… comes back?
- Reid Mancini
The guys were already there, stuffing their faces, when I arrived at Nooky’s Diner.
I pushed open the glass door, causing the bell overhead to ring out its familiar jingle, and they all looked up. It was like a scene from that old TV show Cheers, only instead of them yelling, “Norm,” they called out my name.
“Reid!” Tucker waved one hand over his head to get my attention.
As if I could have somehow overlooked six tall billionaires crammed into the corner booth.
“You made it,” he said as I approached the table.
“There he is, Mr. Grumpypants himself,” Hap said. “Don't look now guys, but I think he mightactuallybe smiling.”
Hap wasalwayssmiling. He gave me the huge, dimpled grin that had made him a child star and the target of worldwide tween adoration about fifteen years ago, not to mention a very rich man thanks to years of syndication royalties from his weekly show Happy’s Family.
My old friend was right. A matching grinhadovertaken my face. Who could blame me? It was good to see my high school best friends and former housemates again. It had been several weeks since we’d all been together, a fact Hunter didn't hesitate to point out.
“I was getting worried that you were too big for us little people now that StillYours.com is such a huge hit,” he teased. “A guy's social media membership surpasses Facebook’s, and suddenly he's too good for the regular guys he grew up with.”
Sliding into the oversized corner booth, I laughed at the good-natured ribbing and took a look around at the collection of “regular guys,” AKA Hunter, who’d founded Chipp, a multi-billion-dollar digital payment processing software company, and Tuck, Aiden, Paul, and Josh who’d helped him with the startup, becoming billionaires themselves in the process.
I’d also taken part in the initial programming and getting Chipp off the ground but now was more focused on my own fast-growing company.
“I know. I know I've been kind of a stranger, and I apologize,” I said. “I get caught up in the work and forget how long it's been since I've come down to my house here. Hell, I forget to eat half the time.”
“Who cares about that freaking huge oceanfront mansion?” Aiden said. “What's worth visiting is your friends. I mean Hunter and Hap and Tuck moved out of the Billionaire Bachelor House, too, but at leasttheydidn't become ghosts afterward.”
Of course he was right, and it wasn't just the work at my Providence-based company headquarters that had kept me away from my seaside hometown. I’d found the distance was helping to accomplish something that time had not.
Here in Eastport Bay, it was literally impossible to escape memories of Mara. Driving along the ocean, sitting on the beach, eating out at Cliff House or anywhere at Brady's Wharf, running across the town's famous lovebirds Romeo and Juliet, the swan couple she'd loved so much.
Mara was everywhere.
Even sitting here at Nooky’s, the memories swarmed me. We’d come here often as teenagers. The homey all-night diner was pretty much the only place in town I’d been able to afford to take her back then.
Maybe someday withenoughtime and distance, this place—this town—wouldn’t hold so many painful ghosts, but in the meantime, moving my primary residence to a penthouse apartment in Providence, the state's capital, had done me a world of good.
I had absolutely missed the guys, though, and was eager to catch up on what had been going on in their lives.
“Seriously, you guys are saints for putting up with my mopey ass all of these years. But I promise it's all behind me. I’m in a better place now—finally. I’m putting her in the rearview and moving forward. I mean that's what she did with me right?”
I didn’t have to explain who I meant by “her.” These guys had known me way back when Mara and I had been inseparable.
“Absolutely,” Paul agreed. “I mean you gave her a chance to change her mind and come back, but eleven years is long enough to grieve a relationship.”
“Hell yes,” I agreed. But even now a stab of pain pierced my gut at the thought of how long it had been since I had seen her or talked to her—and how easy it had been for her to forget about me.
“All right, all right, enough about me and my pathetic lack of a love life. Tell me what's going on with you. Who's knocked up their wife lately?” I joked. “How many more babies are we adding to the former Billionaire Bachelor House clan?”
They laughed, but nobody coughed up any baby news.
