I relax a bit. That’s not a death sentence. That’s a manageable worry. As in, I don’t give fuck about the money.
I gesture to her work. “Let’s go through it.”
“I don’t think I can ask you to do this.”
“Red,” I say sternly, striding toward her. I reach up to cup her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me with that poutymouth. I shake her head gently between my hands. “Relax, okay? Just give me a total.”
She pushes that bottom lip out and, motherfucker, I truly wish I was here for rule four-point-five. Universe? If you’re still listening, please align our birthday charts together and tell me that it ends in real sex with my fake girlfriend.
“It’s thirty-two thousand.”
Steep, but I had assumed it would be more. I nod. “Okay. Will it be thirty-two thousand every month?”
If it is, I still won’t care.
She shakes her head in my hands. “No, I had to pay for his transfer to the new home, but then there were deposits involved in the move. It just gets out of hand so quickly. This isn’t even touching the debt from before. I can ask Serena and Anya to?—”
“Red,” I say again, dropping my hands from her face. “Just show me how to pay these bills, okay?”
Her lip wobbles a bit, and she shakes her head again. Her voice comes out in this sad, broken little whisper. “It’s too much, Carter.”
The only thing going through my head right now has nothing to do with the bills or how much they will cost me. It’s about how fucking bad I want to kiss that mouth. I’ve kissed it. Multiple times now. But never for real. I have a feeling Arden’s real kisses are way better than her fake ones. I bet they move mountains or some shit. I want to find out for myself.
The money has never been a concern for me. It was the easiest part of this arrangement.
“How much are we expecting per month?”
“He needs to be in a home. He needs a one-to-one caregiver. It’s going to be in the high thousands.” Her lip shakes again.
“That’s fine,” I say with an easy smile. I reach upto place a hand on the side of her neck. I’m trying to ground her, if she’d fucking let me. “Just tell me how to pay them. I’m not worried about it.”
Her eyes shut. I don’t want her to cry, but she’s teetering on the edge of a full-blown meltdown. It’s become very obvious that nobody takes care of Arden. Nobody has since her mom was around. She’s not used to this. She doesn’t want to let me do this for her, but tough shit—I’m doing it anyway.
I lean down and press my mouth to her head as I wind my arm around her back and give her a little squeeze. She melts into me, sucking in a trembling breath that might be the only thing stopping her from crumbling in my arms.
We go through the bills for the month, and since Arden is an organized little thing, I’m fully aware that something is amiss here. When she gets up to pour us both a glass of wine, I open one of the coffee table drawers and find what I was expecting. Colour-coded file folders that make up the total of her outstanding bills.
For the month, her dad’s medical bills might be thirty-two thousand dollars, but she has outstanding bills that are nearing two-hundred thousand dollars, and that’s with what crappy insurance her father has in place. I feel my stomach clench at the red ‘past due’ stamps on some of these pages, but I can see where she’s made the minimum payments to keep the debt collectors off her back.
I skim the blue folder and stifle a sigh. Student loans. Another crisp thirty-five thousand that she’s only managed to pay back two grand on since she graduated. Again, the minimum payments are being made, but the interest is seriously screwing her. I take out my phone and snap pictures of the documents.
I hear a cabinet shut somewhere in the kitchen, so I quicklyshove the folders back in the drawer and close it. I grab her hand-made list and pretend to study it.
When she passes me the glass of red wine, I glance up at her.
She already gave me all the relevant phone numbers and paperwork, and she told me that she advised the office that I might be calling and handling the finances for the next little while. It’ll make it easier. Less red tape to cut through.
Still, I can’t stop thinking about that blue folder.
I look at her and see a woman who is so sure of herself, who is tough beyond measure. Yet, she’s suffocating under the weight of all this shit and she refuses to ask for help. I had to bulldoze my way into her life and practically force her to accept this. I can’t imagine all the other crap that she keeps to herself, stuff that I’m unaware of.
I don’t want her to have to worry about money anymore. She already has to worry about her dad and about taking care of her sisters. She should be able to just exist as a woman in her late twenties, enjoying life without all this additional stress on her shoulders. She should be worried about what colour drapes she’ll get, moving out of this area, or where to go on vacation. She deserves that.
“You can back out, Carter,” she says, crossing her legs. She must have taken my silence as hesitancy. “I won’t hold it against you.”
I lean back against the couch and place my wine on the table. “I still need a faux girlfriend, Red.”
She shoots me a look, but her lip pulls upward into a soft smile. I might not have known her for long, but I know her all the same. This has to be a business transaction. This is an opportunity that is equally beneficial for both of us. That’s how she needs me to play this so that she’ll accept it. So, I will.
