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He’s silent for a little bit.
“A loan,” he says patiently. “I’ll loan you the money.”
“I—” I clamp my mouth shut. While not a good solution by any means, it does sound… palatable.
“Zero interest,” he adds, like he thinks he should sweeten the deal.
I stare at him for a moment. “You’d be a terrible bank.”
He laughs. “I’m not in it for the profit. Plus, you’ll need to… contribute, so it’s a kind of an I’ll-scratch-your-back-if-you’ll-scratch-mine type of deal.”
Something that feels uncomfortably close to hope spreads inside my chest again. I try to tamp it down, but it’s not really working as effectively as I would like. “That’s all great. You’re not twenty-five the last time I checked, though, so what’s the point of this conversation, exactly?”
“They’ll also release a part of the trust if I happen to get married,” he says.
Once again, I’m relegated to staring before I shake my head.
“Weirdly archaic, but whatever. So… what? You’re going to get hitched to loan me money? That’s taking self-sacrifice to a whole other level. And where do I come in with all of this? You need a witness or something?”
“All things considered, it’d probably be better not to include any more people in this scheme than strictly necessary, so I was thinking more along the lines of you and I getting married.”
He drops that little nugget all casually. Me, on the other hand? Let’s just say it’s a good thing I’m not eating or drinking anything, because I would sure as fuck choke to death right about now.
“What?” I ask.
He’s very calm about the whole thing, which is highly annoying as he gestures between the two of us.
“You and me. We can get married.”
“No, we can’t,” I say.
“Yes, we can,” he says easily.
“No, we can’t.”
He cocks his head to the side and asks, “Is it against your religion or something?” Calmly. Almost curiously. Like I’m the one being ridiculous and unreasonable.
“Last time I checked, I’m a guy,” I say.
He shrugs, looking almost bored now. “Last time I checked, marriage licenses don’t come with a penis restriction. Men do get married, you know? I can give you examples if it’s something you’ve never heard of before?”
I narrow my eyes at the teasing.
“I meant you’re straight,” I say. “Unless I’ve gotten this thing really wrong over the years. Feel free to clear that up.”
The corners of his lips tip upward.
His lips twitch.
I’m going to deck him.
“It’s not going to be a real marriage,” he says in the kind of voice people use when they’re explaining something to a five-year-old. “So that really doesn’t matter. It’s a business deal.”
I study him for a long time.
“What do you get out of it?”
He rolls his eyes. “If we’re married, and you get into an accident, I get to decide whether they pull the plug. It’s the main draw for me.”
