Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 112917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
We eventually moved off the bed to clean up. His sheets were a tangled, sweaty mess, so we moved into my room and settled back into a clean bed.
Zane snuggled into me, resting his head on my shoulder and teasing my chest hair with his fingertips.
After a while I confessed to overhearing him talking to Kenji about charitable contributions early in my time with him. “I knew you had lots of money, but I also knew you were generous. Since then, I see it everywhere, even though you try to hide some of it. At the time, I worried because you seemed to be giving it all away.”
“I do give it all away,” he said. “All the ETC money anyway. The Zee Barlo money I’m more selfish about.”
“Selfish,” I said on a laugh. “Yes, that’s you. You give away hundreds of millions of dollars, and you’re selfish. Zane, fuck.”
He flicked my nipple. Hard. “Hush. You know what I mean.”
“No. I don’t. I truly believe you think of yourself as selfish. I can see the way it bothers you to say no to people like JK and your uncle.”
He paused for a moment. “I just… I feel like it’s not fair. Lightning struck twice for me, Bear. How is that possible? It was like winning the lottery twice. And I don’t need all of this money. I could give more of it away, and I don’t. I saw a thing on Instagram about how childhood poverty can make you hold on to wealth. It can actually fuck up your money management stuff because you become too risk-averse.”
He glanced at me before looking back at his hand on my chest. His voice was quieter when he spoke. “I stashed fifty million dollars away in a bunch of different cash accounts no one but me has access to. I won’t let my money managers touch it, and it drives them up a wall. They keep telling me I’m losing money every day that cash isn’t invested. I know they’re right, but I just can’t… I can’t let someone else control all of my money. What if something happened? What if I lost everything and couldn’t afford to help Gran anymore?”
I thought about his rich friends, the fact his music would continue to bring in significant royalties for the rest of his life, the reality of his existing talent and determination to make more. But I didn’t say any of those things. He was right. This wasn’t about reality. It was about fear.
I tilted his chin up. “You have enough money to be able to afford to spend some on a security blanket, Z. No one else gets to decide what you do with that money, and there are worse things to do with fifty million dollars.”
“There are better things to do with it, too,” he said with a self-deprecating smile.
“Maybe, but peace of mind is worth something.”
I stroked his hair while I thought about an aspect of this subject that was bothering me. “I want you to consider reframing this in your mind. You talk about lightning striking. I get that there was luck involved. There’s a little bit of that, maybe, especially in terms of being in the right place at the right time. But, Zane… You worked your ass off in both cases. You and your friends came up with an idea and actually followed it up. You researched a need and filled it. You developed it and got it to market. That wasn’t lightning striking. And in your music career, you work incredibly hard. You dedicate all of your time and energy to your music and your fans.”
“I know I work hard. But I wouldn’t have been able to afford to pursue music full-time without having the ETC money. I was lucky. People like Bodhi aren’t. They have to work a full-time job while trying to get traction. It’s different.”
“I get that, I do. But the way you talk about it reminds me of the Ventdestinian superstition. There was a faction in the royal guard that blamed me for Asger’s death. Since fortune had selected me to protect him, I’d messed with fate by leaving. It made me feel guilty. Like his death was, at least a little bit, my fault.”
Zane looked up at me. “That’s not fair. You weren’t even there. It was the fault of the assassin. And maybe the existing security detail or conditions at the naval yard. It sure as hell wasn’t the fault of someone who was thousands of miles away in another country!”
I nodded. “That’s what I’m saying. We all have agency. We’re not at the mercy of the winds. Not completely, anyway. Bodhi has been on the professional circuit for years now. He’s had just as much opportunity in the past few years to make it big as you did in the beginning. He doesn’t have the same skill, the same drive—hell, maybe it’s just the combination of charisma, talent, and looks, who knows? My point is, if lightning struck, Zane, you were there to harness it.”