Page 53 of Passion and Payback

“Quit worrying about my finances,” he said with a chuckle. “We’re supposed to enjoy the night, not worry about stupid things.”

“Your money is not a stupid thing,” I told him dryly.

“It would be if I were scraping by and trying to pay for something like this,” he said with a shrug. “But I’m not, so it’s stupid.”

I rolled my eyes, trying to let it go even as the worry still wriggled in my gut. “Sorry, Lucas was better with money and budgeting. Ever since…well, ever since he died, I’ve been in charge of everything.”

“Weren’t you the business side of things?” Kai asked, not unfairly.

I laughed. “Well, I meant with personal finances. Weird as it sounds, I’m great at managing the business. But my finances? Forget it. I’m like a kid in a candy store with way too much money in his pocket.”

Kai laughed softly and nodded his head. “No, that makes sense. It’s easier for people to be responsible with someone else’s money than their own. And since that’s the business’ money instead of yours, you’re better with it. It tracks.”

“Glad it does for you,” I said, taking another sip of my drink to finish it before the refills showed up. “It always confused the hell out of me.”

“So,” he began, pausing when the woman returned with our drinks, whisking away the empty glasses and plates speedily and deftly.

“So,” I repeated, sipping the new drink. I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a dirty martini, but none had ever been as good as this one, that was for sure.

“When did you realize you had a whole thing for me?” he asked with a curve of his lips.

“Oh? Is that what we’re going to talk about over dinner?”

“Well, I figured we could talk in code about what happened earlier over desserts. It seemed more appropriate.”

I snorted. “I was like…twelve when it really hit me. I kind of always knewsomethingwas up with the way I felt about you. From what I could tell, you weren’t supposed to think about holding your friend’s hand all the time or about what it would be like to be married.”

“Marriage?” he asked, sounding a little startled.

I smirked. “Yeah. I know.”

“Most guys our age were not dreaming about getting married.”

“And even less were dreaming about getting married to their male best friend, but there I was.”

Kai swirled his glass with a fond smile. “I remember how much you used to love those romance movies. Always confused the hell out of me.”

“You were the only one who knew about that,” I said with a shrug. “Anyone else would have given me so much hell. But you…you I could trust with that. You never gave me hell. Maybe some shit here and there, but that’s not the same.”

“I don’t know. I guess it never occurred to me that what you were doing was wrong. Weird as hell sometimes, but you’ve always been kind of weird, so it suited you.”

“Wow,” I said with a soft laugh. “You really know how to make someone feel special.”

He grinned. “I liked that you were weird. It meant you weren’t like the people we knew growing up. When you wanted to get out of our shitty apartments, it was because you wanted to go walk the public beaches and find pretty shells or go through the parks because you wanted to see animals that weren’t scraggly strays, pigeons, or seagulls. Not because you wanted to find someone to go fight, break a bunch of shit, or whatever the hell else everyone got up to when they were bored.”

“I didn’t see you going out and doing stuff like that,” I pointed out. “So if I was weird, so were you.”

“Of course I was fucking weird,” he snorted. “Look at every other kid who was my size or looked like me. They were always causing trouble or starting fights, and I never wanted to do that shit.”

The irony was that he almost always got pulled into fights he never wanted anything to do with. It wasn’t so much his ‘mean’ look that drew people in as his size and obvious strength. He’d never been afraid to work out, clearly getting enjoyment out of pushing himself, but that wasn’t the same reason other people tried to get stronger.

“Yeah,” I agreed with a sad smile. “But you were pulled into fights anyway. And you always hated it.”

“I hated that I enjoyed it,” he said with a sullen shrug. “I tried to stay out of fights or people’s way because I was just like them.”

“Just because you got a kick out of beating someone’s ass because they kept messing with you isn’t the same thing as going out and trying to find it.”

“You don’t get it, Hunter. You never did because you weren’t programmed that way.”

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