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“Look, I’ve got to get ready to go, but I’ll be in touch, alright?”

“Will you tell Bea?”

“I’d rather not tell her you’re even involved if I can help it,” Jake says.

“No?”

He shrugs. “She’ll see it as a pity thing, if we do. She’ll feel like her boyfriend has to come in and pay for her dreams, and that’ll ruin it.”

“But I actually think it would be a good investment.”

Jake’s expression is pained. “You’re an optimist, then.”

“How so?”

“In your heart of hearts, you believe in people. You think they’ll look past their fear, beyond their own baggage, and see something beautiful.”

“I guess I am an optimist,” I say. “Is that bad?”

“It’s cute,” Jake says. “Probably misguided, but cute.”

“So do you think I’m throwing my money away if I invest in this?”

“I told them I’d take half my fee,” Jake says. “And they can use the other half to produce the record.”

“So you’re as stupidly optimistic as I am.”

He shrugs. “They’re the chumps. I’d have given them all of it. For Bea? Gladly.”

“Why?” I ask. “Because she’s your family?”

His brow furrows. “It’s more than that. That song—it’s right. If we want the world to change, if we want it to be better, that’s on us. We have to change it. No one else is going to do it.”

Jake’s not the person I thought he was when we first met, and he’s not even quite the person I thought he was when we really started talking the first time. I understand a little more about why Bea puts up with him.

“Hey, I have a question for you.”

“Oh, man.” Jake runs a hand through his hair. “You’re going to propose, aren’t you?”

I stare.

“Look, I’m not the best guy, but I’m pretty good at reading people, and you seem like the kind of guy who has been carrying around a ring in his pocket since the first date.”

He’s rude. “I still don’t have a ring, but you’re right that I’ve known for a while.”

“You’ve been holding off because you don’t want to scare her?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, I can’t help you. Bea’s a hard read on that. You know her birth mom has had like a zillion boyfriends, and none of them have been more important than getting high. Certainly Bea has never been more important to her than either a boyfriendorgetting high.”

“Does she not want to get married, then?”

Jake shrugs. “I really have no idea.”

“You’ve never talked about it?”

“That’s not the kind of thing we talk about. Maybe with Ardath?”

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