The Fluke

4 - Jules

A few hours later, Val and I have polished off an entire pizza for breakfast and turned on our favourite hangover movie, Superbad. Val is out cold on the couch. She told me while we ate that she stayed awake most of the night sobering up and waiting for me to call her. I told her the exhaustion was fair considering my level of embarrassment over the whole situation. When she passed out during the movie I let her sleep.

Oddly enough, I don't feel like I need a nap. The pizza really did wonders to ease my hangover. I do need a shower, though. I tuck Val under the blanket and clear the dishes to the kitchen. I take a quick shower, just enough to feel refreshed.

I wrap my hair up in a towel and wrap another around my body. As I'm gathering some clothes to change into, I hear a loud ringing. It takes me a few seconds to realize it's the Facetime ringtone from my phone. I look around the room and see my lit up phone on my night table, making an angry vibrating sound with every ring.

Spencer's face is smiling up at me when I reach my phone. I hit the accept button and watch as a grainy video image comes to life on the screen.

"Jules!" He smiles at me as he comes into clear focus. We share a lot of similar features and the same dark brown hair, but Spencer's eyes are hazel while mine are green. I warm at the sound of his voice. It's always so good to talk to him.

"Hey, Spence," I say as I cross the room and shut the bedroom door so Val won't wake up as we talk. "Sorry I didn't return your calls and texts. I'm soooo hungover today. Val is passed out on the couch out there." I jerk my head back toward the door I just closed and return to my bed, sitting down.

"What's on your head?"

"I just got out of the shower. Give me one minute, I'm going to get dressed." I drop the phone on the bed and leave Spencer with a view of my ceiling. I quickly change and I can hear him talking to someone, I guess he's with friends or something. When I pick up the phone again and settle onto my bed to get comfortable, I'm surprised by what I see.

Spencer has flipped the camera view around so I am seeing what he sees in front of him as he holds the phone. I'm looking at a beautiful pool in the middle of a yard somewhere in California. There are lots of full, green bushes across the pool, speckled with tall, swaying palm trees. Beyond the trees, I see breathtaking mountains and clear blue sky. To the right of the pool is an expansive looking bungalow.

"Spence? Where are you?" I ask.

"Mi casa!" Spencer has turned the camera back to him. He's holding his phone at arms-length, his other arm spread out wide, and he's giving me a mega-watt smile.

"Excuse me?" That can't be his house.

"I told you I was buying a property in Palm Springs, Jules. Well, this is it!" He spins around, too quickly for me to make out any more details of his surroundings.

"Show me again," I demand.

Spencer gives me another once over of the yard. This time I can see another building on the far side of the pool, it is two storeys tall. There's a built in hot tub at the other end of the pool. I see an elaborate outdoor patio and bar, and at least half a dozen luxurious looking loungers on the edge of the pool. I'm blown away.

"What do you think? It's not an official tour, of course. You'll get that when you come down and see it in person."

"It looks like a rich person's house."

"I am a rich person, Jules."

I always stupidly forget that Spencer is a billionaire, probably because he is an accidental billionaire. At 28, Spencer is two years older than me. He made his first million when he was in his early twenties. He is one of the smartest, most creative people I know, but he is also a big risk taker, a bad habit of his which he can now practice without a worry because his financial safety net is essentially bottomless. Seven years ago, when he was in his third year at Stanford, Spencer learned about something called Bitcoin. It was kind of a joke back then, nobody had made any money from it yet.