My budding rage vanished faster than my credit at the last bar I had been drinking in, when Luca finally explained the kind of dog fighting he and this inappropriately well tanned chef were talking about.

I mean, how would you react when you went from thinking these two were talking about making starving dogs fight, to playing in toy airplanes that shoot foam darts at each other? I wasn't this excited being backstage with that delicious boy-band group that sings 'Booty Baby'.

"Wait, wait," I said, not completely willing to trust this news. Mostly because I instinctively mistrust anything that makes me really happy. Might explain some of my relationship issues. "They fly around in toy airplanes and have dogfights with Nerf darts? Are you serious?"

"Yeah," Luca confirmed. "Just don't call then Nerf darts. We don't have permission to use their trademark."

"Isn't that a ubiquitous term for a foam dart? Like how you google something even when you're not using Google's search engine?" I asked.

Luca and Antonio looked at each other for a moment, before Luca shrugged. "Point for the pirate lady," Luca said, as he turned in his chair and looked at me. "Eat first, then I'll take us to get mauled by a bunch of nine-year-olds."

"That offer has never sounded so attractive before," I admitted.

"That's because you've never heard me say it before," Luca replied.

"Your arrogance makes you less pretty."

"I do it as a public service, otherwise women would never actually have a conversation with me," Luca said. He chuckled and pointed to Antonio. "You remember when the Duchess of Northumbria had a tour? Spent the entire trip stuttering until I started talking about how I was richer than the next two hundred billionaires combined."

"I remember that. She looked like a teenage boy at a lingerie store. Pretty sure she wouldn't know what colour your eyes were," Antonio reflected.

"You could always try putting a shirt on," I said.

"Would you really want that?"

I sighed and stared down at abs I could probably pop a beer bottle on. "No," I said.

"Some truth at last. Now try that, before it gets cold," Luca said, and he pointed at the still untouched plate in front of me.

The first thing I noticed was that despite the steak being nearly as thick as the length of my pinkie, there was no knife beside my plate. I frowned and looked at Antonio, who only smirked with a conceited grin worthy of Luca. "It's as tender as you wish your mother had been when you were a child," Antonio said.

"Bold words," I said, as I took the fork in my right hand and braced to carve through a steak probably worth more than some cargo I've been hired to haul. I pushed down, and the fork sliced through the meat like my wit through a playboy's ego.

"Damn," I said, willing to admit when I was astonished. Intrigued, I skewered the piece I had effortlessly hacked off, lifted it to my mouth, and...

And holy shit, I've never had steak before.

I kid you not, the meat had all the toughness of warm butter, and the flavour of everything you wish food could be. If someone told me my steak was laced with cocaine, I'd believe them.

"You're a witch," I said to Antonio, gesticulating with the fork before I used it to cut off another piece. I then turned to Luca and pointed my fork at him. "And how are you not obscenely fat? It's almost an insult to this chef's craft that you aren't as wide as you are tall."

"I'm contractually obligated to maintain my figure," Luca said.

"Really?" I asked.

Luca laughed. "Hell no. I could get as fat as I liked. Haven't you seen a billionaire in anything other than a Wattpad smut flick?"

"I'd have to watch the news for that." I shuddered and took another bite of steak to get that awful thought out of my head.

Luca pursed his lips thoughtfully as he finished another bite, and rested his hand under his chin. "Yeah, you wouldn't want to get to know most billionaires anyway. Let's just say that Wattpad billionaires would have multiple women on the side, donate heavily to extremist groups, deny climate change, refuse to pay taxes, pay private armies to cause political discord, and be taking regular injections of blood from young virgin women to reverse the signs of aging."

"That's kinda weird," I admitted.

"Also, he'd be fat, and have a Pez dispenser full of Viagra," Luca added.

"Now that's disgusting," I said. "Stop trying to ruin my food."

"Okay, I'll stop talking politics," Luca said, as he set his utensils down and pushed his plate away.

A woman I didn't notice before dashed forward to claim the plates. To my surprise, Luca stood up and offered the plate to her with a smile. "Midge! I thought you were on maternity leave. How did the mortgage application go?"

"Oh I still am, just filling in for a bit while accounting collects some paperwork," the woman replied. Another surprise, the waitress was, well, perhaps not fat and old, but distinctly not the model-thin blonde with gravity-defying assets that I expected in the employ of the world's richest man. "And thank you for having legal represent me in that application. My biggest worry now is that little Timmy has somehow learned to open the baby gates. He can't even crawl yet."

"Sounds like a happy problem," Luca said. "Have any pictures?"

"About a terabyte," Midge said as she pulled out her phone. She flicked her finger on the screen a few times, then turned it to show him. Luca laughed as the pictures flicked by, and eventually glanced back towards me as I finished my plate.

"Hey, who's got the Quidditch pitch right now?" Luca asked.

"A couple of fourth grade classes from The Shire," Midge said.

"The Shire?" I asked, confused.

"New Zealand," Luca explained.

"Oh," I said. It's been centuries, but that tiny island nation is still gloating over having filmed the Lord of the Rings there. Doesn't help that the entire country hasn't done anything interesting since.

"Good. Would you prep a B-17? My guest and I are going to join in the mayhem."

"On it, boss," Midge said. She gave me a wink and walked away.

"A B-17?" I asked, confused.

"We do period pieces, to get away with calling it 'educational'. Most of the kids are flying model spitfires and hurricanes, but you and I are going to fly a bomber because I'm going to be your tail-gunner."

"You don't like flying?" I asked with a smirk.

"I'm not that good at it, and I'm extremely good at hiring people who are good at things," Luca said.

"Pretty sure your skill set is identical to a trophy wife," I retorted.

"Touché," Luca said, and he stood up. He held out his hand and gave me another wolffish grin. "So, shall we go and get murdered by a bunch of New Zealand school kids?"

That sounded so awesome. "Yes, let's," I said, and took his hand.

*****

We took an elevator up a few floors. And I'll conceded, the shirtless billionaire was a gentleman despite the warm and isolated confines.

Shame, that.

Also, he put on a shirt. Which felt a little like covering up the Mona Lisa with a beach towel. But since we were about to fly planes with small children, it seemed appropriate. I just hope the kids appreciate the sacrifice.

But when the elevator doors opened, they opened up to a vista so magnificent it made me tear up a little.

The stadium easily had space for thousands of spectators. Tens of thousands, perhaps. And the stands were stories high and clung against the walls of the room. In the centre was just open air over a hundred feet high, and the walls had massive projectors that cast a convincing illusion of a blue sky with fluffy white clouds slowly riding the winds across the horizon.

"Wow, just..." I muttered, floored and astonished. And maybe a little appalled that the absurd amount of money that went into the project didn't go into something useful. Like a corporate tax break, a bank bailout, or that absurd trans-Atlantic bridge project.

I stepped inside to the droning buzz of whirling propellers, and a dark green airplane passed just a dozen feet overhead. I gasped and grabbed Luca's arm, totally not just taking advantage of the opportunity.

The plane was about the size of a large riding lawn mower with wings, and a propeller on the front. The child flying the plane was wearing an antique motorcycle helmet and goggles that would have made him a hit at a steampunk convention. He turned lazily in the air, even as a grey plane passed by on his tail and a stream of yellow darts spat out towards him.

"Dogfighting in toy airplanes," I said, and my voice reached such a high tone it even hurt my own ears. "And you said we'll be flying with them?"

"Yep," Luca said, as he cringed and shied away from me a little. He pointed up ahead to where a plane was waiting at the end of a short runway.

And the plane in front of us was both beautiful and absurd. Like looking at a comedic doodle of a beautiful man. It had four propellers, was about as large as a decent sized car, and had two over-sized spots for seats. I was pretty sure I'd look like a cartoon character sitting in that silly chair.

And the second seat was even more absurd. It looked like a nine year year old had drawn what he imagined a five-barrelled machine gun looked like, but the kid only had a fluorescent yellow crayon.

But to no one's surprise, Luca was grinning like he had been the kid who had drawn that idiot contraption. Which to be fair, he might have been. It can be hard to tell with Luca.

I really shouldn't be so critical, since I was dancing in place from the absurd magnificence of it. "So, you'll watch my ass while I fly this thing?"

At which point, Luca raised an eyebrow and made a point of looking down, and slightly behind me. "Literally and figuratively."

How does he even manage to leer in a charming way? I made a point to climb into the plane first, and settled down just as Luca climbed up the wing of the plane and offered me a helmet. "Safety first," he said as I took it from him and set it on my head.

"I can't say I've ever flown an airplane before," I admitted as I settled in and looked at the controls. Fairly simplistic, the 'u' shape wheel both turned and tilted back and forth, so the plane could both yaw about, and twist to turn. There was a gas pedal and a brake bar...

You know, it's weird that we still call them gas pedals. Only billionaire antique collectors own petrol powered cars anymore. Anyway, I was pretty confident I had a handle on the controls as I buckled my seatbelt on.

"Well, most of these kids haven't either. So you're not too far behind," Luca replied. He wasn't facing me, electing instead to test the massive belt feeder that fed what must be thousands of foam darts to his weapon.

"But all my flying experience is with a giant rocket! I've never flown a ship with wings before!" I commented without a single note of indignation or hysteria.

"So you're saying you've spent all this time relying on thrust to get you anywhere?" Luca asked. "Never learned to listen to the sounds a plane makes as it rides the currents? How to work with the winds, gliding gently and flowing up and down? The thrill of a smooth takeoff or sticking the landing? You've never made it without clumsily pounding your way about?"

"Uh," I managed to mumble. The temperature was uncomfortably warm all of a sudden. Don't let the goosebumps on my arms fool you.

"Well, first timer, start by flicking that red switch to the left of the wheel. That'll engage the propellers. Gas pedal gives the propeller more power, brakes swing your flaps to try and slow you down," Luca explained. "The buttons below your fingers fire the guns. They're designed to converge at fifty metres. If you hold the triggers down halfway, you'll get a laser pointer to paint your target.

"Okay," I said as I flicked the switch. The propellers whirled to life and purred like a house cat who decided your lap was his new home. I wiggled in the seat, and put my foot down on the accelerator.

The airplane pushed itself forward kind lazily. Have to admit, I was hoping for more, but it made sense that a toy airplane wouldn't have the same oomph that a fusion rocket capable of fourteen g's of thrust could manage. It felt more like riding a car or a train, but it only took a few moments before the landing gear stopped touching the ground.

"Okay, once you clear the runway, we're fair game. So start climbing before some kids come along for the easy point," Luca shouted from behind me. I gave him a thumbs-up and put the pedal down as far as it could go.

The toy plane took off with all the vigour of a sick sloth, and we barely managed to get a hundred metres into the air before I could see a couple of dots in the distance stop moving, and start getting bigger. "Two bogies approaching, three o'clock high!" I called out. "I'll climb to get above them, then turn to engage."

"It's eleven in the morning, what are you talking about?" Luca asked.

"It's a good thing you're pretty! Those two over there, they're coming for us!" I shouted back, and pointed in their direction.

"Then why didn't you say that?" Luca asked, and he spun that epically oversized dart shooter towards them. "Keep in mind we're in the slowest plane out here, and we can't shoot them if they're beneath us."

"Got it," I replied. I took the plane in a slow turn, and abandoned the idle climb to face the oncoming planes. One of the pair peeled away, turning left to try and get around us, while the other turned a little to match my pace and direction. I watched it get closer and closer, my hands now clutching the wheel, and my fingers twitching restlessly on the triggers.

I grinned as I was finally able to see the little girl at the controls of the approaching fighter. We locked eyes, and I grinned. Her eyes widened, and a storm of little yellow bullets spat from her fighter and rained impotently down to the ground.

I took my plane into a short climb, then turned to fly straight at her. I even began to feel the wind, finally, as this toy took forever to get itself moving. When I was in range, and the little girl tried to turn away, I squeezed the trigger.

The guns howled with a peculiar 'pew pew pew' sound. I'm not trying to phonetically spell out the sound, it literally sounded like a small child was saying 'pew pew pew'. Anyway as the guns shouted, a storm of yellow darts poured out of my plane like...

Okay, I really don't have a metaphor for that. I'm firing foam darts out of a flying go-kart in the middle of a space yacht. I don't have anything in my life to compare this to.

Hundreds of shots streamed towards the little girl in her plane, a deluge of darts that formed a slightly hazy yellow cloud that all somehow missed the girl's plane. Some passed within inches of her wings, dozens were pulled by the wake of her plane's passing, and the rest formed a plane-shaped halo around her before the darts passed and began falling to the ground.

"What?" I screamed.

"You missed?" Luca asked from behind me. There was definitely some laughter being stifled behind that sexily stubbled face.

"The darts formed a fuc-"

"Language! There are children," Luca interrupted, and I heard that gun of his swing about. I turned to see him aiming that silly weapon at an oncoming plane, with a grin worthy of a teenage boy the day after prom night.

"Speaking of which," Luca said as he aimed his gun at the approaching plane. "Eat pikachu bits, kid!"

The gun shouted with a sound almost exactly like a seven year old imitating a chainsaw, and a hundred darts spat out of his gun so quickly it looked like a single, continuous stream. I watched, astonished, as the darts seemed to veer randomly as they approached the kid's plane, until every singe dart missed.

The foam storm that Luca shot was enough to inspire the kid to veer away, and I turned my attention back to the kid I had been shooting at earlier. "How did we miss?" I asked.

"We're playing with a handicap."

"What? Why?" I asked indignantly.

"Because we're playing with kids," Luca admonished. "You weren't expecting to win, were you?"

"I always play for keeps, sweetheart," I retorted as I put that plane in my sights and fired again. My plane howled, well, shouted 'pew pew', and another stream of yellow darts sped towards the fleeing fighter.

This time, a few of the darts actually struck the plane, and clean white smoke began to pour from the back of the plane. I screamed triumphantly as my target fell towards the ground, more white smoke billowing out from behind it.

After a moment, my jubilation faded, and I turned to Luca. "What's happening to her?"

Luca laughed. "You tagged her plane. Once you do, it blows out steam and auto-pilots to the ground. Pit crews will reload her plane, adjust its setting so it goes slightly faster, and she'll come back looking for revenge."

"Oh," I said, as her plane turned towards the runway. "Okay, that's pretty cool."

"Good, because we have more bogies, three o'clock high!" Luca shouted, pointing at seven o'clock and slightly below us.

At least he's cute.