Page 53 of Plum

“I count the usual way. You have a billion dollars in your bank account?”

He kind of half-smiles, but he doesn’t answer.

“I don’t see how we can be dating if we can’t talk about money, Adam.” I’m teasing, but I’m also not. “Well?”

“Across several accounts, and counting my real estate investments and shares in private companies—none of that liquid, mind you—I’m worth maybe fifty million. Give or take.”

“I knew it! A half-a-billionaire!” I crow, even while it makes me kind of sad. I don’t want to look too closely at that uneasiness, don’t want to mess up the quiet vibe in our private, little bubble behind the blue fabric screens at the urgent care.

“Is that going to be a problem?” He’s intent on me again, the phone forgotten in his lap.

“Oh, yeah. Most definitely.” I stifle a sigh. I guess we are gonna go down that road. How can we not? Only well-fed children who’ve never been cold think that money don’t matter.

“I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

“Of course, I ain’t joking. You know it’s a problem. It already is.”

His eyes darken, and he turns to face me full on. “I don’t see a problem.”

“’Course you don’t. You’re the rich one.Money is no object,right?”

His expression gets vague. “Money is always an object. And it’s all relative. If you need more than you have, you’re broke.”

I snort. “What do you need that you don’t have?”

This throws him, and he shifts in his chair, breaking eye contact. “You still haven’t told me why my money is a problem.” He’s changing the subject, but I let him.

“Have you never watched a soap opera?” Fay-Lee, a former sweetbutt who’s Dizzy’s old lady now, is obsessed with soaps. We get together sometimes to watch hours on the DVR.

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Well, you’d know, if you did. Your family is gonna think I’m a gold digger, and they’ll turn you against me. Or they’ll set up an elaborate scheme and make it seem like I cheated on you, and you’ll believe them over me, and it’ll break my heart.”

“I’d never fall for it.” Adam’s eyes are twinkling, and it pisses me off.

“Or you’d take me to a fancy dinner and get ashamed of my bad table manners.”

“I’ve already taken you to a fancy dinner. You ordered two entrees and then ate off my plate.”

“See?”

“I wasn’t ashamed. I was hard as a rock.”

“That’s ‘cause slumming it is your kink or something.”

There’s a silence, and I don’t want to know what it means, so I check out my nails, pick at the cuticles. I don’t want to be right, but I probably am.

After a long time, Adam exhales, and when he speaks, his words are careful, deliberate.

“When my mother met my stepfather, we were living on spaghetti made with water from an electric kettle and bread from the day-old rack. My stepfather owned a brokerage.”

I remember cooking on a hot plate and shopping off the damaged and dented rack at the grocery store. Ma never met a rich guy who’d take us away from it all, though.

“How’d they meet?”

“She was a secretary.”

I nod. “I’ve read that in a few books.” It sounds like the romance novels that Deb passes around the clubhouse when she’s done.

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