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I think about Bob’s modest apartment with its tiny television screen that had been seriously annoying when trying to watch the Superbowl and his old shit box pick-up that he was always tinkering with, fixing one thing or another. He could have bought himself a giant screen, a new car, put a down payment on a house with this kind of cash.

‘But he could have used the money.’

‘Nah.’ Eagle shakes his head. ‘I found the will. Trust me, he didn’t need it.’

I swing my head in his direction. ‘What does that mean?’

‘It means Bob had more money than God and you are his sole beneficiary.’

I look at my beer glass and wonder if I’m drunker than I think. Bob has –had– more money than God? I find that hard to reconcile with the man I knew who always seemed satisfied with so little.

It doesn’t seem possible.

‘How much money?’ Because richer than God implies extreme wealth. Maybe Eagle was overstating for dramatic effect. Not that he looked like a guy prone to hyperbole.

‘With all his investments and extensive share portfolio, he was worth about two billion.’

My brain stops. Literally just goes offline for several beats. Investments? Portfolios?

Billionaire. Bob, who had a TV screen the size of a postage stamp and fixed people’s squeaky doors and dripping taps, was a billionaire.

Not a millionaire. Abillionaire.

‘And now you’re worth two billion,’ Triton adds as if he knows I’m not really taking much in right now and I might need help connecting the dots.

‘Yup.’ Eagle nods. ‘There’ll be probate to go through so it might take a while to get everything officially sorted, but… you’re a very wealthy man, Danny.’

I blink again. I feel like I’ve been hit with a stun gun. ‘I… don’t know what to say.’

Triton slaps me on the back. ‘How about you’ll pick up the bar tab?’

Eagle snort-laughs and Triton joins in as he holds up his glass. ‘To Bob,’ he murmurs.

‘To Bob,’ Eagle repeats, holding his glass up too.

They both look expectantly at me and I make an effort to pull myself together. ‘To Bob,’ I say, and we tap glasses.

11

HOLLY

It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve seen Danny and I’m stupidly nervous as I approach his apartment door. I don’t know why. It’s not like it’s the elevator all over again. It’s not our first time. But he’s asked me to stay the night so, in a lot of ways, it feels like the first time.

I’ve never stayed over. Nor vice versa. Hell, we’ve not even been on a date – not really. Sure, we’ve had lunch at my place, but we’ve not been outside the apartment. And the night I went to the bar where his band was playing hardly counts either. Even if it did come with a happy ending for me.

So spending the night feels… big.

But I want to. I’ve missed him. And I’ve worried about him. He’s assured me on text a dozen times that he’s okay, but I want to see that for myself. To look into his eyes and know it to be true.

If I can know that?

It’s at times like this I realise we don’t know each other that well, and it scares me. Because how can I feel this… much about a guy I don’t know that well?

But I do know the affection and admiration Danny had for Bob. The esteem in which he held him. And the emotional blow he felt at Bob’s death, and I do want to be there for him.

He left so abruptly after that phone call, throwing a few things in his car and hitting the road to Reno within a few hours, and I’ve not seen him since.

Seeing him will be reassuring. And maybe I can be some comfort to him the way he was for me that night after my shitty shift and the period from hell. I want that. Maybe a little too much. Which scares the hell out of me because Danny is making me want more and more and I just don’t know how I can juggle it all.