Mag-log inShare
New Beginnings
Huling Na-update:
2024-01-31 08:18:17Ben
“Don’t look so down,” Uncle Dean said. We were at the airport. I had already checked my bags, and my flight was leaving in less than an hour.
“I feel like I’m letting him down,” I said.
Uncle Dean shook his head. “You’re not. It’s not a crime to live your own dream. Even if that dream looks different than what your father would have wanted for you. He would have been proud of what you’ve done for the company.”
I nodded. My dad would have been proud. And it wasn’t like I hadn’t given it my all for the past six years. I had done everything my late father would have wanted me to do. But I hadn’t been happy. I hadn’t grown up dreaming I would be the CEO of a billion-dollar company.
“And he would have been even prouder of you for taking your life into your own hands and deciding where you want to go with it.”
I looked at Uncle Dean. He had been my dad’s business partner, owner of half of the company I had inherited when my dad and my stepmom had died in a plane crash. He had been there for me from day one, taking me under his wing and showing me the ropes.
And he had bought me out when he realized how miserable I had become away from home. He had become like family to me, and I was sad to leave him behind, but I wanted to go back to my friends and family. I wanted to get back on the track I had been on before my father died.
“That’s your boarding call,” Uncle Dean said when they made the announcement. He pulled me into a hug.
“Remember,” he said. “No regrets. That’s the one thing I know your dad would have wanted for you, more than any fancy company and business title. If you regret the choices you’ve made, it doesn’t matter what they were or where they got you in life.”
“Thanks, Uncle Dean,” I said. “For everything.”
He smiled, and I thought I could almost see him get emotional, but it was gone as quickly as it had come, and he was the composed, collected gentleman he had always been. I slung my backpack over my shoulder and walked to the gate. I looked over my shoulder and lifted my hand in one last wave before stepping into the rest of my life.
On the plane, the sadness that I was leaving and the worry about leaving the company behind left me. I was headed back home. I hadn’t seen my friends in seven years. I had only seen my mom twice when she had come to visit in New York, and I was glad to be going back to Oregon. No matter how long I had lived in New York, it would never really be home.
It was weird to think I was a billionaire now. When I had helped Uncle Dean run the company, I’d had a taste of the lavish life my dad had lived, but I had never had as much money as he had. He’d left me the company, but his money had gone to charities. Now that I had sold the business to Uncle Dean, I had so much money, I could drown in it.
I wasn’t planning on living a different life than I’d always had in Portland, though. I was still going to pursue my dream of being a firefighter. It was what I had always wanted. Before I had gone to New York to step into my father’s shoes, I had studied fire engineering to give myself a leg up in my career, and I had completed the six-month training and certification courses. I had sent my information to the fire station I had worked through before I’d left, and they had been more than happy to take me back.
All I needed to do was a quick refresher for the next week and a fitness test to be sure I was up to standard. If I passed—which I was sure I would—I started work in a week.
Perfect.
Kaugnay na kabanata
Billion Dollar Man Gold Digger
BenThe week had flown by, and by Friday, I was officially a fireman. I was confident and comfortable. It was as if I hadn’t ever left Portland.I drove to The Cottage, a quaint family restaurant so popular, it had a waiting list. It was owned by the Castle family.Jerrod Castle had been my best friend since kindergarten, and I was eager to see him again. I hadn’t seen him in six years. The Castles were hosting a party for my return as if I were the prodigal son.The past week had been so busy, getting an apartment, doing my refresher course, and taking care of the small details, I hadn’t seen anyone other than my mom. I was eager to see my second family again.The Cottage had been made up with lights, streamers, and a big banner that read “Welcome Home Ben,” and I laughed when Miranda came to hug me. Jerrod’s mom hadn’t aged a day.“It’s so good to see you again, Ben,” she said. “Come on, everyone is so excited to see you.”They were all there. I went to the bar area, and Harry, Jerr
Huling Na-update : 2024-01-31Billion Dollar Man Ben Is Back
MilaSaturday evening, I sat with Skylar at the bar at my parents’ restaurant, drinking cocktails. We had been friends since she moved to Portland when we were fourteen. She had wild red hair and blue eyes and freckles like the constellations that shifted when she smiled.“You know, we can literally go anywhere in town,” I said to Skylar.“Yeah, I know, but cocktails are free here because of your dad. And we’re not out hunting for guys, so there’s no reason to go somewhere else.”I rolled my eyes, but I was smiling. There had been a time when I had hated sitting at my parents’ restaurant. I’d felt they were pressuring me to take over the place with Jerrod, so I avoided it. I had wanted to be a nurse, and my parents had been disappointed with the path I was choosing. Since then, they had come to accept my direction in life, and I was okay sitting at The Cottage again.“So, Ben is back in town,” I said before taking another sip of my cocktail. I looked at Skylar.“Really?” Skylar grinne
Huling Na-update : 2024-01-31Billion Dollar Man Hero Complex
MilaWhen we sat down at the table, it was like old times almost immediately. Jerrod and Ben bantered back and forth, laughing about something that had happened after I had gone home last night. Skyler was being shameless with her interjections, as always. And I sat back and listened as I had always done. I wasn’t as shy as I used to be, but it was a dynamic that had been created years ago. It was hard to think that six years had passed.We were such different people now. And yet, we were all the same in a way.“I need a refill,” Skylar said when our cocktail glasses had been empty for a while.“I’m getting this round,” Jerrod said to Ben, and he stood up. He accompanied Skylar to the bar, and suddenly, Ben and I were alone.“It’s good to see you again, Mila,” Ben said and smiled at me. His smile was enough to push up my temperature.“It’s good to have you back,” I said. “Jerrod missed you.” I would have said that I’d missed him, too, but that would have been too much.“I can tell,” B
Huling Na-update : 2024-01-31Billion Dollar Man First Day
BenMonday was my first day at the Station. I had waited for this day for years, and I was as ready as I would ever be. I had all my tests and refresher courses, and thanks to a fitness regime back in New York to get my mind off the stress of work, I was in perfect shape too. Captain Kelly couldn’t do anything but hire me to work with the men.When I arrived at the Station, Mike Kelly met me with a grin.“You’ve worked hard for this. Congratulations.”I shook his hand. “Thanks.”“Come with me. I’ll introduce you to the guys, and they’ll do the rest.”We walked up the stairs that led to the living area above the fire station. The smell of something burning greeted us.“It smells like Sam is trying to cook again,” Mike said, pushing the door open with a sour face. Three men sat around a Formica kitchen table. One man stood before the stove, and it was smoking like it was nobody’s business.“If you carry on like this, we’ll have to ring the bell and dispatch the truck to put out our own
Huling Na-update : 2024-01-31Billion Dollar Man Alarm
Ben“But all that money, though? You had to be living the life,” Tyler said.I shrugged. “I guess so, but there’s more to life than just money. And doing something I didn’t like was soul-crushing. Happiness can’t be bought.”“That’s some fortune cookie shit.” Tyler laughed.Less than an hour later, we got our first call. We pulled on our gear in no time and jumped into the truck.Ted was driving. I sat next to Sam with Tyler and Jay on the back of the truck.“House fire,” Ted said as we pulled up. “Doesn’t look too serious.”A woman in her dressing gown ran toward the truck, her face contorted in fear. A small boy tagged along behind her. He looked scared and lost.“It’s a fire in the kitchen,” she said. She was close to tears. “I tried to put it out, but it spread too quickly. It jumped to the curtains.”“You were right to get out, ma’am,” Tyler said. “Please, stay close to the truck. We’ll take care of it.”Sam and Ted assessed the house. Smoke billowed from one window only. It look
Huling Na-update : 2024-01-31Billion Dollar Man ICU
MilaOn Thursday, I was on rotation at the ICU. Both the ICU and the Emergency Room were chaotic at best. It was also where I felt I could do the most. When patients were in mortal danger and we managed to pull them through, I felt like my choice to become a nurse was the right one.“Morning, Mrs. Norton,” I said, walking into an ICU room. Mrs. Norton looked up from her seat next to the bed. Her eyes were swollen from crying and lack of sleep, her hair was a mess after spending one night after the other tossing and turning, and she wore no makeup. It made her look even younger. She was only twenty-one, but with the worry etched on her face, the fading hope, she looked like she was barely out of school.“How are you doing today?” I knew small talk wasn’t going to do much, but I didn’t want to ignore her. She was suffering more than the patient at this point.“I’m all right,” she said with a thick voice. “How is Charlie?”I looked at the patient. He was in a medically induced coma. He h
Huling Na-update : 2024-01-31Billion Dollar Man Emergency
Mila“We have an emergency,” someone called from the nurse's station, and I rushed to help out. An elderly lady was brought in with a mask over her mouth and nose, her eyes closed. Her family tagged behind her looking lost and shaken.“What do we have?” I asked.“Pneumonia. Advanced stages. She can’t breathe on her own. Heart rate is dropping.”I ran with the gurney, pushing it into an open room, and I worked with another two nurses to stabilize the woman while the attending doctor was paged. The family—three men I assumed were her sons—hovered on the periphery without interfering. Bless them.When we finally stabilized her, the extra nurses left. I stayed behind with Dr. Nash.“Are you her sons?” Dr. Nash asked the three men. They nodded. “Your mother is very ill. She has an advanced form of pneumonia.”“We’ve been telling her to come to a doctor, but she’s always been stubborn,” one of them spoke up.“How long has she been sick?” Dr. Nash asked.“Two weeks, just about,” he said. “Is
Huling Na-update : 2024-01-31Billion Dollar Man It's A Date
BenI drove to Mila’s apartment just before noon. She had texted me her address this morning, and I wanted to pick her up instead of meeting her at a restaurant. I was only being a gentleman. I knew I couldn’t pursue Mila the way I would have liked. With Jerrod being as protective as he was and with him as my best friend, Mila wasn’t exactly available for me to go after.But we were friends. We had spent a lot of time together before I had left for New York. She was my best friend’s little sister, after all. We’d had lunch together plenty of times.Sure, it had never just been the two of us, and it had usually been at the Castle residence where Mila had still lived back then. But for us to hang out as friends wasn’t strange, and I wasn’t stepping on anyone’s toes by taking Mila out to lunch. We were just going to hang out together like we used to.The moment Mila stepped out of her apartment building door after I buzzed up to let her know I was waiting for her, I knew I was wrong. Thi
Huling Na-update : 2024-01-31
Pinakabagong kabanata
Billion Dollar Man Epilogue Part 2
BenI had sold the company as Jerrod had suggested. I had thought about it long and hard and decided it was what I wanted. I hadn’t wanted to be the CEO of the company in the first place. Not when my father had left it to me and not when Uncle Dean had, either. I had put in the work and found someone worthy of the company. I heard it was thriving, now.The money received for the company sale had been enough to pay Brantley, and I still had enough left to give Penny an amount. I felt Uncle Dean’s widow had deserved a bit of an allowance after everything she had been through because of my father.After Brantley and Penny, I had bought a large house in Portland for me, Mila and Landon, and I had put the rest away as an investment for the future. We had so much money we would never struggle, even if we both stopped working.Mila and I were both working because we loved what we did. Mila didn’t want to stop nursing after she had Landon, and I understood. She asked for fewer shifts so that
Billion Dollar Man Epilogue Part 1
BenSeven Months LaterWhen I unlocked the door to the house I had bought six months ago, I was stepping over the threshold as a father. It was the first time, and I was very aware of it. A lump rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down.“Ready?” I asked Mila. She nodded and climbed out of the car. She moved comfortably. It was amazing how women bounced back from giving birth in no more than a day or two. It would have been different if she had had a C-section or something, but Mila had given birth naturally.She opened the car door and lifted the carrier out of its brace.“I’m coming,” I said, running to her. I took the carrier from her so she didn’t have to strain herself and put my arm around her as I carried little Landon in the other hand.Mila had given birth to a beautiful baby boy twenty-four hours ago. It had been a beautiful surprise. I would have been just as proud if it was a girl, but I was so happy it was a boy. Landon Atwood had a great ring to it.We walked together t
Billion Dollar Man Aching For Him
MilaAgain, he didn’t touch my pussy even though he came so close. Instead, he moved up my hip bones and kissed my stomach, my ribs, moving past my breasts to my shoulders and working his way down one arm. When he reached my fingers, he sucked them into his mouth and played with his tongue around them. It was a strange feeling, ticklish and such a turn on.Ben let go of my hand and moved across my chest, avoiding my breasts, moving over my shoulder and down my other arm. When he reached my fingers, I was just about losing my mind with lust. I wanted him inside me so badly, and he’d been teasing me by not touching any of the areas I so desperately wanted him to touch.When Ben pressed his fingers against my pussy, I jumped. I had wanted it so badly, now that I had it, it was like a jolt of electricity shooting into my body. Ben pressed his thumb against my clit and pushed two fingers into me. He moved his thumb while curling his fingers over my G-spot, and it didn’t take long at all be
Billion Dollar Man All Figured Out
MilaLate on Friday night, my phone rang. I was already sleeping, and it took me a while to find my phone on my nightstand.“Are you awake?” Ben asked.I smiled. “I am, now.”“Can I come over? I have great news.”I looked at the alarm clock next to my lamp. The red numbers said it was well after midnight.“Of course,” I said.Half an hour later, a cab pulled up and dropped Ben off in front of my apartment building. I had been looking out for him. I buzzed him up before he rang my apartment, and I smiled when he stumbled up the step to the front door. He had been drinking.When I opened the front door to him, he stepped forward and folded me against his body.“I missed you,” he said.I laughed. “It’s been two days.”“Two days too many,” Ben said. He smelled like beer and cigarette smoke.“Where were you?” I asked.“I was at the bar, having drinks with Jerrod.”I raised my eyebrows. It was good news. Unexpected, and good. I led Ben into my apartment and closed the door.“Get back in bed
Billion Dollar Man Lessons Learned
BenI shook my head. “I won’t. I know I haven’t treated her right, but I thought I was doing the right thing. I’m sticking around, now. I’m not going anywhere. I’m madly in love with her. Mila is one of a kind.”Jerrod nodded. “She is. And I can see how you feel about her. I have no doubt that you care for her. It just pissed me off so much that I was the last to know.”“I get that,” I said. I really did feel bad for what we’d done. But there was only so many times I could say I was sorry. I knew that this time, Jerrod had accepted my apology.Jerrod nodded again. We both drank our beers, listening to the music and watching the crowds shuffle in. As the night dragged on, the bar filled up with patrons who were done with their work week and looking for a way to unwind.“It’s just all so unexpected,” Jerrod said after a while. “Your relationship with her when I still see her as a kid is one thing. But now she’s pregnant. Man.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “I don’t know what to m
Billion Dollar Man Have to Fix It
BenOn Friday I walked into the bar where Mila and I had gone with Jerrod and Skylar. We hadn’t been careful enough that night, and Jerrod had seen us together. That was when the trouble had all started between me and Jerrod, and I was hoping this was where it would all end.I had texted him, telling him I was going to be at the bar tonight. I wanted to talk to him, but I was tired of running after him when he wasn’t interested. I had asked him to come to meet me. He hadn’t replied. I had told him what time I was going to be there, and now that I was here, time would tell if Jerrod was going to show up to talk to me.My wristwatch told me it was eight o’clock. I would give him half an hour before I left again.Until now, everything had been about Jerrod. He had been the one who had been wronged. Mila and I had kept our relationship secret from him when it was already a no-no that his best friend and younger sister were dating. It had been wrong not to tell him and even worse that he h
Billion Dollar Man There For You
Mila“I love you, too.”There was nothing else to say. Words couldn’t describe how we both felt at that moment.After I changed back into my clothes, we met Dr. Holt in her office again. She gave me a prescription for prenatal supplements and an eating plan with do’s and don’ts for the next seven months.“I’ll see you back here in about eight weeks,” Dr. Holt said. “Then we’ll find out what you’re having.”When Ben and I walked back to the car, I felt like I was walking on air. Everything felt different, now. I felt more ready to be a mother, to have this baby and to raise it, than I had before. Now that I had seen the baby, I knew that I wanted all of this.Did Ben feel the same?“You know, you still have time to back out of this,” I said to Ben. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me.“What makes you think I would want that?” he asked.I pulled up my shoulder. I couldn’t guarantee that this feeling of amazement was mutual. Ben took a step closer to me and kissed me long and
Billion Dollar Man Seeing The Baby
MilaOn Wednesday I had the day off again and had scheduled an ultrasound. Now that everyone knew about me being pregnant, it was time to meet the baby.Ben was with me. It made me less nervous, but only a little. It was crazy how tense I was about the appointment, even though everything was out in the open now. The idea that I was pregnant, that we were having a baby, was terrifying.It had all happened so fast. It had been mere weeks since Ben had come back to Portland for the first time and now we were starting a family together. There were nights when I was sleepless and in a fit of panic, wondering how the hell we were going to get through this. We had been a part of each other’s lives for years, but when it came down to knowing each other, we were practically strangers.When I was with Ben, like now, all my worries melted away. We were great together. He was so attentive now that I was pregnant, and since he had told me he was going to stay, our relationship was stronger than ev
Billion Dollar Man Spreading The Word
BenI let go of Jerrod’s shirt. He stumbled back, his expression surprised. Maybe he had expected me to throw the first punch. He had been ready to fight me. But I wasn’t here for that. I hadn’t come to beat up my best friend. I had only come to set the record straight.“She’s a great person, Jerrod. You know that. She doesn’t deserve this shit.”I turned around and left the office. Jerrod stayed behind, gaping. I had never been one to back down from a fight. There had been enough fights in high school that had shown Jerrod that. But this wasn’t high school, and Jerrod was like a brother to me. If I ended up with Mila, he would be a brother-in-law, in fact.So, I wasn’t going to go there.Instead, I headed back home like a good boy to seethe in private.After I had taken the time to calm down, I phoned Mila.“How are you doing?” I asked.“Better,” she said, and I was relieved. “I came off my shift just now. I’m going to crawl into bed for a few hours.“Have you told your parents yet?”
