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I say nothing, letting her speak.

“You probably have never had to worry about money in your entire life, so don’t sit there with your infinite sums and tell me you know how debt works. You know how money works. That is completely different.”

She is right.

“You’re right,” I agree softly.

She blinks.

“I don’t know what it feels like. I have never had to, and I am not going to pretend otherwise,” I confirm.

I am aware I am still holding her wrist, my thumb resting over her rapid pulse.

“Let go of me,” she mutters.

“No.” I don’t look away. “Not until you let me help you.”

“If you think for one single second that you can use this… this mess as leverage over me, or that I would ever accept a single cent—”

“I didn’t offer you money Vance.” I release her wrist, but I do not move. The proximity between us remains close. “I said I want to help you. Those are different things.”

I wait, watching her ocean blue eyes, intently.

“Vance.” Nothing. She is still staring at me with those glassy blue eyes, so I continue. “I know how money works. I understand how debt works—even if I haven’t been in it myself. I am not your enemy.”

“Well, you’ve spent the last year treating me like I am.”

Fair point.

She snaps out of her daze, quickly gathering the spreadsheets and shoving them into her satchel. She yanks the strap onto her shoulder, turns around, and walks out of the library without looking back at me once.

I don’t shout after her. I sit alone in the quiet stack.

It isn’t my job to fix her problems. We aren’t friends. We are barely civil, to be honest, and like she said, I’ve been a complete dick to her.

But as I watch the empty doorway where she disappeared, I am confidently sure about one thing. I am going to help her.

And she is absolutely going to fucking hate me for it.

I feel I can live with that.

Josh and the guys think that I have lost my goddamn mind when I tell them about the plan—as casually as I can over drinks at Stave later that evening.

“A bookshop event?” Josh pauses mid-sip, his tumbler of whiskey hovering inches from his mouth as he stares at me like I’ve just told him I plan to join the circus.

“What the hell is that?” Theo chimes in, leaning across the quartz top, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion.

“Well, a music and literature night,” I say smoothly, leaning back against the leather booth and swirling the ice in my own glass. “There’s a difference.”

“Julian. Is this for the girl?” Josh asks.

“It’s for the bookshop.” I correct him instantly.

Josh, Theo, and Marco all look at me through narrowed eyes, glancing among themselves as if searching for a hidden punchline—anything to explain the irrationality of it all.

“Right…” Marco lets out dryly, swirling the amber liquid in his own glass. “The bookstore that you casually mentioned belongs to her family?”

“Because you love books so much?” Josh smirks.