This is the ninth part in a series, so if you have not already done so, you might want to read Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, and Part VIII before continuing.
I had suspected Owen came from money, which is why I had targeted him. I probably should have confirmed my suspicions before manipulating Bianca into breaking up with him, but I’ve never been good at being single for long stretches of time, and you can never tell for sure how long it will take to divide a couple. I couldn’t afford to wait around forever, and sometimes you just have to take a chance and go for it and hope it works out for the best. Besides, you often have to get close to someone to get them to reveal their financial situation.
That said, you can almost always guess someone’s financial situation by their attitude about money. Owen had the sort of nonchalance about money that can only come from having lots of it. If I was wrong, I could always dump him.
As it turned out, I was right. We were watching TV in my apartment one night when an ad for Disney World came on. It advertised, not just the theme parks, but the hotels around the parks and the transportation that took you directly from your hotel to the parks and back. “That looks nice,” I said without thinking much of it.
“Yeah, they charge you an arm, a leg, and a kidney, but they do provide value for the exorbitant rates that they charge,” said Owen.
“How do you know how much they charge?”
“My family goes every year.”
I perked up. “Every year?”
“Yep.”
“Since when?”
“Since before I was born.”
“So you’ve been to Disney World 20 times?”
“Twenty-one if you count the time my mom went when she was pregnant with me.”
“And did you stay in one of Disney’s hotels, or, like, a cheap motel that happened to be near the parks?”
“It varied. Most years we would stay in a Disney hotel. Apparently we used to stay at the Grand Floridian, but I was too young to remember that. Mostly I remember staying at the Dolphin.”
“There’s a hotel called the Dolphin?”
“Yeah, and one right across the water called the Swan and they look basically identical. I think we stayed at the Swan a bunch of times, too. Oh, and we stayed on the Boardwalk once. That was more like a small apartment.”
Holy shit, I thought, trying to keep the dollar signs from my eyes. “Which one was your favorite?”
He scrunched up his face as he thought about it. “Probably the Dolphin, if only because it’s the one I remember the best. The Grand Floridian is really nice, though. My brother is determined to make enough money to be able to stay there every time he goes back to Disney World.”
“What does your brother do?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
“He’s a computer programmer working for some big startup in California.”
I tried harder to keep the dollar signs from my eyes, but he wasn’t making it easy. I decided to focus on something else. “What’s your favorite ride?”
“Splash Mountain.”
“Really?” I wrinkled my nose at the thought of getting wet while fully clothed.
“Yeah, it’s a classic.” He went on to tell me all about the history behind the ride, which is when I realized he was way more of a Disney fan than I had realized. I made a show of listening to him while in my head I started planning all the vacations we could take together with his family’s money.
To be continued…