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“I paid it, Faith.”
“No,” she says.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Get it back,” she says fiercely. “Tell them you want it back. I’m not taking your money.”
“They will, and they did. It’s done, and by cashier’s check.”
“I’m not taking your money, Nick,” she says, her tone absolute. “Thank you. I mean that, and those words feel too small for what you’ve done, but you don’t know me well enough to do this. And even if you did, I don’t want charity.”
“It’s not charity. It’s a gift that I want nothing in exchange for. And as I’ve asked before, when do I knowenough, Faith? I can fuck you all I want, but I can’t give a damn? Because I give a damn. I get it. It’s early. It’s new. But it is what it is, and I can’t change that.”
She presses her hands to her face, and I can see them tremble, as they did last night when she found out that she’d earned sixty thousand dollars on her art. And I don’t know how it’s possible, but I know this woman in a way that defies the time we’ve been together. I reach for her hands and pull them between us. “I’m alone in this world, too. You know that, right?”
“You don’t seem alone.”
“Why? Because I’m foul-mouthed, cocky as you say, and sexy as fuck?”
“Nick,” she whispers, no laugh this time.
“I know that we are new to each other. I know it feels like you could count on me and then I’ll be gone, but I’m not going to be. Even if you decide you don’t want to beusanymore, I’m your friend. I will remain your friend. And I don’t have a lot of friends, but the ones I have, I take care of. Okay?”
“The money—”
“Is not a big deal to me. I know that feels big to you, but it’s not a lot to me. I’ve done well for myself, but my bastard of a father was rich as fuck, and now I have his money. And I’d like to do more than a few good things with it.”
“How much was the check you wrote?”
“A hundred and twenty thousand.”
“Nick,” she breathes out. “You can’t—”
“I already did.”
“It’s a lot of money.”
“I just told you. I have a lot of money.”
“It’s a lot of money,” she repeats.
I grab the notepad on the table, write down a number, and show it to her. “That’s the current valuation of my holdings.”
Her lips part in shock. “That isn’t even comprehensible to real people. Did you— Are there too many zeroes on that number?”
“No, there are not.”
“Okay. I… Okay. But even if you took two or three zeroes off that, I’m not taking advantage of you.”
“No,” I say. “You’re not. Because it’s a gift.” I settle my hands back on her knees. “But let’s talk about why I did it and what it does for us. I have documents for you that state this is a gift. You do not owe me anything in return. But I have a plan to make this go away, and we need it to go away. But it means you’re going to have to trust me, and Faith, I meanreallytrust me.”
“I trust you, Nick,” she says. “Why do you think I slept so well in your bed?”
“You sure about that? Because you seem to have a calendar and a timeline for when we’re allowed to do certain things.”
