There's a weird thing about having money. You don't really spend it on yourself as much as people think you do. Sure, you have a couple Rolex watches in your drawer worth a year's pay to some people but it's just watches, they keep time. You've got nice cars, that you never drive and you probably just look at. You've got a private jet, but that's not really something you think about except as how to get from one place to another. All that good stuff that everyone looks at, really isn't for you even though you own it. You get your underwear and clothing from tailors, your furniture is what everyone else buys or old antiques and family heirlooms. Your maid and/or manservant buy your groceries if they aren't delivered. You know what you buy because you want it? Art. When your house doesn't have room for the art, because it's all full of what people before you bought, you buy art and donate it to schools who probably could have used the money more than some ugly picture of paint splatters.

I'd stopped buying schools art and had started just donating the money. For some reason Pru, my sisters and brothers didn't seem to approve, but the schools had been more than happy to show me around and let me see what my money had done.

Buying a furnace for a school who's furnace had gone out and the kids were in freezing classrooms seemed like a better application of the Bomber Family Legacy than some dumbass scribbles on a canvas a drunken gorilla could make.

So, when you're wealthy, I mean, really wealthy, your money seems to all be spent on making more money. Suits to meet with fellow cattle barons. Dresses for the women of the family. Jewelry for the ladies and cufflinks for the men. Fuel for the jet. Bull and stallion sperm. Pay for the ranch hands and workers. Insurance. Taxes. Ten thousand dollar a plate dinners to support some politician who only gave a shit about you because you had money.

That yacht you bought? Yeah, you'll probably see it once or twice a year. I knew men who had bought yachts they'd never seen before a hurricane destroyed them. That helicopter? You use that to go to meetings and stuff. I hated them, I'd always hated helicopters, but Pru and my sister loved them. That race car? Heather charged around in that hopped up muscle car of hers more than I ever saw that dumbass racecar my sister bought me for my thirtieth birthday and immediately had put in a climate controlled garage in Austin.

I think I saw that car twice. I know I never drove it.

Tony and I had gone to a bar when he visited me back when The Sergeant Major died. It didn't take credit cards and Tony teased me that he had more money than me. He opened his wallet and showed me about sixty bucks in assorted bills, then dared me to match him bill for bill.

I couldn't.

It had irritated the hell out of me at the time. That goofy ass grin of his as he asked me to name a single vehicle I drove around that had my name and not the Bomber Family name or company on it.

I couldn't.

The whole drive to Richmond Miss Lily-Rylee talked about interesting things. Apparently games were pretty high graphics, not the ugly barely visible ones of the 80's, you could even play games online with a few friends or even big ones with millions of players. Not taking turns, but in real time, everyone doing things at once. There were even persistent electronic worlds out there.

I'd never even heard of World of Warcraft before.

As Miss Lily-Rylee led me into the big office supplies store in Richmond I stopped and stared. Office supplies for me were pretty much handled by the people who worked for me.

holy shit, this place is huge

"So you used to play Dungeons & Dragons?" Miss Lily-Rylee asked me as we stood in the entry of the store.

"Yeah. Tony like it, and we played the hell out of it when we got snowed in during the winter," I told her. I thought for a second. "I played either a wizard or a ranger."

She smiled widely. "You'll love wow."

"Wow?" I asked.

"World of Warcraft, silly. You're probably end up Alliance Scum," she snickered. "Do you know what you want?"

"No clue," I was honest.

"Mind if I handle this?" She grinned. "I know a little bit about computers."

I shrugged. "Knock yourself out."

A kid dressed in slacks, a black dress shirt, and a red vest came up. "Can I help you?" he asked me.

"My friend needs a two good computer desks, chairs that will support his lower back for long periods of time, ergonomic mouse pads, a cable hub, a wireless router, a good wireless printer, eight reams of paper, a box of printer cartridges, USB cables, a USB hub, four power strips," Miss Lily-Rylee rattled off at him.

"Are you interested in getting a computer, sir?" He asked, turning to me like Miss Lily-Rylee hadn't said a single word.

A look of irritation flashed across Miss Lily-Rylee's face. "Not here. He doesn't want prebuilt junk full of proprietary hardware and malware."

The guy glared at her, but she let go of my arm to put her fists on her hips, staring up at him. "Do you have what we're looking for or not?"

He gave her another glare, but led us toward the back.

I liked the glass and chrome desks, but Miss Lily-Rylee steered me toward more traditional wooden desks. She didn't get a specialized one with a niche for the computer, telling me that the desk could only hold a "baby's computer, not a real rig" in a disdainful tone. Once I chose each thing it was loaded on a dolly and taken up front.

The sales guy obviously didn't like her attitude, because he tried to show us some computers, looking at me and extolling the virtues of the little black boxes. She waited till she was done, grabbed the printed paper on the side of them, and took one look at the specifications of the computers and she burst out laughing.

"I wouldn't run The Sims on these ancient piles of junk," she said. She shook her head. "We told you, we don't want prebuilt." She said it like a dirty word.

The guy looked at me and I shrugged and gave him my best "don't look at me" expression.

"These are perfectly new computers," he told me.

That seemed to annoy the hell out of her.

Miss Lily-Rylee grabbed my arm, pulling me after her. "Let's go, Samuel. I don't think I want to buy that stuff here after all."

For a second she reminded me of my little sister at the cattle shows.

Another sales guy, this one with more buttons on his vest, waved at us as we started to leave. I saw Miss Lily-Rylee's slight smile that she quickly banished as we moved over.

"Is there a problem, sir?" He asked me.

"Yes," Miss Lily-Rylee snapped.

The sales guy quickly smoothed it over that he'd addressed me first. "I'm sorry, ma'am, what's the problem."

"I told your sales associate that I didn't want to buy a pre-built computer full of malware and proprietary hardware, and he insisted on showing me the models you have here, most of which are two or more years out of date. When I refused to consider them, he kept looking at him, when I've been the one making the decisions," She said, fire snapping in her eyes.

The sales guy glanced at the trolleys that were loaded up with stuff. Shelves, two desks, chairs, a table (I'd told her I liked the minatures back when I'd played AD&D), cables, electronics. I could see the dollar signs flash in his eyes.

"My apologies, miss," he said smoothly. He waved at the trolleys. "Did you find everything you needed?"

"Everything you carry," she said, letting her stance become more relaxed.

"How about I check you out. Do you need it delivered?" he asked as we walked toward the register.

"We have a truck, thank you," Miss Lily-Rylee snapped, looping her arm in mine and following him. My knee clicked loudly and my limp suddenly got noticeable again.

He just nodded. "I'll have someone load it up for you then."

He rang us up, pulling the papers off each item, scanning them, and moving to the next. I could see the first sales guy looking somewhat chagrined, lurking about thirty feet away.

I wondered if they were paid on commission.

"How about the extended war..." was all the guy ringing us up got out.

"No. And no credit card either," Miss Lily-Rylee said.

"Very well, ma'am," he said. He looked up. "I'll give you ten percent off, how's that sound?"

I opened my mouth to tell him he didn't need to when Miss Lily-Rylee nodded. "Sounds good."

The guy that had pissed her off was going to be in trouble. I excused myself to take a leak while it was being run up.

When I got back I used my debit card to pay for it and three guys pushed the trolleys out to the truck. It took them about fifteen minutes to get everything arranged. While they were loading, she made me drink out of the bottle of water we'd bought inside. When I went to tip them Miss Lily-Rylee let me tip the first two but when I went to tip the guy who had shown us around the store she snatched the twenty out of my hand.

"No," she said.

The guy looked angry but she just glared up at him, fists on her hips again.

He slumped and walked off. He hurried to catch up to one of the other guys, said something and the other guy laughed at him and shook his head. The guy who tried to sell us the computers went over the third guy, tried again, but was rebuffed.

"Hope that teaches him a god-damned lesson," Miss Lily-Rylee said, her voice full of anger. She pulled open the door and I noticed that her irritation wasn't an act.

"What's wrong?" I asked her, getting in. She buckled up as I started the vehicle and backed out of the parking space.

"It annoys the shit out me," she snapped as I headed toward the street. "Every goddamn time."

"OK," I said, confused.

"Hang a right," she said. "We're going to get you some computers," she told me.

"Why two?" I asked. "Different models? Like a Commodore and an IBM?"

That made her laugh. "No, silly. You always get two rigs. One dedicated only for gaming, the other one for like spreadsheets, tax software, stuff like that. Take a left at the light."

"What's the difference?" I hit the blinker.

She lit us cigarettes. "The gaming rig's OS, that's operating system, is stripped to the bare bones. Nothing you don't need. All the software that normally comes on the computer is removed unless it directly affects gaming. A really dedicated one doesn't even have an internet browser installed. The video card is beefier, you'll want two. I prefer one brand, but..."

"You're the expert, chief," I smiled at her.

She seemed to relax, giving me a smile. "The other one has the rest of the software. Email, spreadsheets, word processor, internet browser."

"You seem to know your stuff," I told her.

She shrugged. "I fell in love with computers in college. I'm an avid gamer," she giggled. "Hell, at 2AM on any given night I'm sitting at my computer in just my panties, headset on, screaming at someone to get their shit together."

"You sound competitive," I shot her a smile.

She smiled back. "You find that sexy, don't you, Texas?"

I thought about it. Prudence was the perfect Texas ranch baron wife. Elegant, soft spoken, will of iron, steady...

and dead

"Turn here, left at the light," She said, breaking into my thought process.

"Yeah, I think I do," I told her, thinking about Nancy, Heather, Miranda, and Catherine. All three highly competitive women that I counted as some of the best friends I had during those times.

"We'll get you an X-Box and teach you how to play," She grinned at me. "Pull in here."

I parked, drank the last of my apple juice when she shook the bottle at me.

We went inside the store and I stopped and stared. The computers here were a lot different than the small black boxes. There were boxes with electrical components pictured on them hanging on the walls and on shelves.

A thin guy with a "Richmond 10K Marathon" shit on turned around, saw Miss Lily-Rylee and broke out in the grin.

"Oh hell, it's Blacksox. What, you overclock and slag your GPU again?" He asked.

"Went to water cooling," she answered, stepping forward and giving him a hug. "How have you been, Devon?" she asked when the hug broke.

"Keeping the shop above water, Sox," he smiled.

"My friend here needs set up. Gaming rig, high end, and a good computer that'll last him awhile for normie stuff," she said.

He looked at me and I just shrugged. "She's the expert."

Devon nodded. "She knows her shit. All right, let's get you hooked up."

"He hasn't used a computer since the Commodore days," she grinned. "Plus, he's old, better get him some good sized monitors."

Devon tapped his chin, waving at us to follow him. I looked at the racks on either side of us. All of them with boxes of hardware. Tony would probably know what went where, but it was all Greek to me.

"I've got some 24" LCD's in stock. Probably enough to do a full three by two spread for the gaming rig and two for the normie rig," he mused.

Miss Lily-Rylee looked at me. "It's going to be expensive. Give me a budget?"

I shrugged. "Computers are expensive. Last one I bought was like five grand, a brand new Pentium to replace the old IBM that died," I shrugged, thought about it, "Go wild."

She stared at me. "Really? Are you sure?"

"It's going to last longer than a year or so, right?" I asked.

"I can hook you up, man," Devon smiled. He looked at Miss Lily-Rylee. "You want to build it?"

She shook her head. "You're better at cable management than I am," she got a mischievous look. "Hook him up with LED fans, colored coolant, all that good stuff."

"You're going to build it right here?" I asked.

"Sure am," Devon said. He looked at Miss Lily-Rylee. "You want to put together the normie box and I'll do the cabling while you put together his rig? That way I can keep an eye on the desk."

She nodded, looking at me. "Do you mind? I mean, it might be boring for you." I could see the hopefulness in her face.

"Sure," I said. "Can I ask questions or do I need to be quiet and stay out of the way?"

"You can ask questions," she said, taking my hand and tugging me around the counter. "We'll get you a nice monster case, one of the big ones."

I laughed and followed her. Her excitement was contagious. We sat down at a wooden bench with static straps on it. While she was looking at the cases I tapped my fingers on the grounding strip and wrapped the anti-static strap around my wrist. When she turned around, one of the larger cases in her hands, her eyes widened.

"Where did you learn that?" She asked me.

"Some of the ammunition I had to work with had delicate electronics," I told her. "You wore one so you didn't get a spark and short out a couple million dollars of taxpayer money."

She cocked her head, squinting at me and chewing her lip. "Huh," she said. She set the case on the desk, turned around and got one about half the size. She slapped the big one. "This is for the gaming rig. Air circulation is important, since heat is your biggest enemy."

I nodded at that. "Heat versus power, got it. Was like that for some stuff I worked with."

Again, that look, but she got down two toolkits. "All right, Tex, let's test your chops. I'll build the gaming rig and walk you through building that one."

She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and handed me one of the toolkits.

"Let's get to work."