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He blows on his coffee, his expression distant. “I’m afraid to spend. Afraid to make the wrong choice, and give away my money for something useless. Hell, I don’t even trust banks. I hide my money inside my room.”
My mouth hangs open. “Are you serious?”
He nods, looking sheepish.
“But you have to pay for things, right? Rent, bills, food? How do you do that, if you have trouble spending?”
He shrugs. “I force myself to do it. I mean, I don’t spend much on food. I eat at the café and the taco joint where I work, mostly. I save the rest.”
“What for?”
He puffs out a breath. “For colder days? For when I lose it all again.”
My mug clatters when I put it down hard. “Why would you lose it all? Zane is training you, and I bet he’s got a job lined up for you when training’s over. He and Rafe and the others… they don’t seem to me the kind to kick people out on the curb.”
“You can never tell, though, can you?” His eyes narrow. “It doesn’t matter. That thing you said, about a crash course…”
Wait a minute, is he suggesting…?
I shake my head. “No. No way.”
“You don’t know what I was about to say.”
“Sure I do. I’m a mind-reader.”
His bright smile flashes. “We could help each other out. If you take me shopping, I’ll take you partying. It’s a perfect solution.”
“Read my lips: No.”
“Come on, Embers.” His smile fades and a crease appears between his dark brows. “There’s this wedding reception you’re supposed to attend and don’t want to. There are clothes I’m supposed to buy and I don’t fucking know how. The clothes I buy when left to my own devices are crap, they don’t last the damn month. I need someone… Someone to show me how to spend, crazy as it may sound. Someone to tell me it’s okay to use the money, to buy something good.” He presses his thumbs to his temples, as if fighting a headache. “Would you think about it?”
Holy hell, he is serious.
It’s a crazy idea. Tempting. But crazy. May be fun.
Frigging insane.
I sigh. “My parents believe going out will solve all my problems. I only have to change, get out of my shell.”
When I look up, I see a flash of emotion in his eyes I don’t have the time to decipher before it’s gone. “I don’t think you should change,” he says. “You’re just fine as you are.”
I blink at him. That’s not the reaction I was expecting. It was either a guffaw, or him agreeing with my parents’ assessment.
“I am?”
“Yeah. Why should you pretend to be something you’re not? To like something you don’t? Like parties. If you hate them, then why pretend you don’t?”
God, good question. “Because then I seem like a freak? I mean, everybody likes parties, right?”
“You’re not everybody, and you’re not a freak,” he says, his smile faint, but I think I like it even more than his smirks and wide grins. It feels more real.
And wait, hasn’t he said this before? About me not being everybody? It’s obvious, and yet another meaning lurks between his words, something he’s trying to tell me.
Yeah, or I’m imagining things.
“Come on.” He raises his mug, clinks it with mine. “Say yes. Help me out here. Otherwise I’ll show up at the wedding naked.”
And of course my gaze immediately flicks back to his sculpted chest and arms, and my mouth runs dry. I lick them. He’s putting me in a tight spot there.
