Page 168 of The Encore’s Crown

you make everything into something

I stop breathing for a second. It's such a disgustingly perfect thing to say that I almost throw the phone across the room.

Instead, I sit on the arm of the couch while everyone moves around me. Aga is negotiating with a toddler like it's a hostage situation for the black marker. Mama is still trying to work out where any of this came from. Amelka has stopped crying because she found a ribbon to wave around. And Kiri has somehow dropped himself into the middle of all of it from a studio in Los Angeles without anyone here knowing he exists in my life at all.

I stare at his message. I want to tell him that isn’t why I like him. Except like is beginning to feel too small. It’s his talent, obviously. The way he makes a bass feel alive beneath his hands. It’s his kindness, even when he hides it under profanity and bad decisions. The way I feel safe in his arms. Calm. Like nothing outside the space between his body and mine can reach me.

His arms.

His chest.

His mouth.

His eyes.

The way he looked at me in that penthouse as though I were something he’d spent his whole life refusing to admit he wanted. I bite my lip.

Ugh.

It's everything. There's no chance I’m sending him a full inventory of every pathetic fangirl thought I’ve ever had about him. I never once seriously considered his money. Maybe that was stupid. He’s been famous for years. He sells out arenas. His face is on shirts, magazines, billboards, and probably several regrettable tattoos. Obviously he has money. But it was always abstract. Something managed by accountants and credit cards he never had to think about.

Now it’s here. In my living room, bedroom, in Mama’s sewing room and in the cream shirt Kacper has just covered with what might be his first attempt at art. Suddenly I understand the scale of it.

Kiri has money. A lot of it.

Enough to call brands, move people, create opportunities, and open doors I’ve spent years standing outside. And he wants to spend it on me? Spend seems wrong too, because he doesn't just want to spend it to impress me with perfume or clothes or whatever ridiculous thing arrives next. He wants to spend it on my dream. That part is so sweet I almost feel sick at the magnitude of it.

My heart trips over itself.

I look down at his message again.

Let me be your luck.

All this isn't why I like you.

i know

thats another reason why i want to do it

I close my eyes. Another delivery van pulls up outside. Mama sees it through the window. The doorbell rings.

“Natalia, no more.”

“I don’t control them.”

“Then who does?”

My grip tightens around the phone. “No one. It’s just brands wanting me to represent them. Some videos went viral recently.”

Mama narrows her eyes but turns toward the door. Kacper holds up the ruined shirt with both hands, proud of himself. I take a picture and send it to Kiri.

One of the pieces has already been customized.

tell the artist i’ll pay double for it

Chapter 58

Twenty-Three Minutes