The Billionaire Player (In Too Deep)

CHAPTER39

TANNER

Mothers are smart, right?If mine was to be believed, talking to Larisa about this was the way to go, but it felt weird. She’d given me the perfect opportunity to bring it up when she’d asked if I missed the perks of being a baseball player, but I felt like I should’ve had some kind of plan to discuss with her before bringing it up.

Not having a plan was really irking me, and I definitely would have preferred to have something concrete to lay out for Larisa. Since I didn’t, maybe Mom was right and she could help. If not, at least it would let her know where I was with everything.

“Don’t judge me for this, but the rush of having all that money is fading fast. I feel like I should be doing something with my life. I just don’t know what.”

“Why would I judge you for feeling adrift?” she asked. “I’m pretty sure there’s nothing anywhere that says that just because you have money, you’re obligated to be happy and satisfied with your life for the rest of time.”

I chuckled. “That’s a refreshing way of looking at it. It’s not that I’m not happy, though. I just need to find something to do.”

“Well, what do you want to do?”

“That’s the thing. I want to do something meaningful, but that’s all I know. I’ve been trying to brainstorm, but I keep coming up empty.”

“You could get involved with a charity,” she suggested. “I remember you saying something about not just wanting to throw money at a cause, but you could get involved in other ways. Maybe you could teach underprivileged kids how to play ball.”

“I could,” I agreed. “I’ve done it in the past and I’ve made inquiries, but the people I’ve contacted aren’t really looking for more coaches. More money, yes, but they’ve already got plenty of people wanting to coach.”

“It doesn’t help that they wouldn’t need to pay you?”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t look like it. I’ve already given quite a lot of money to various charities, but I also don’t just want to keep giving it away. I need to find something to do with it that’s a little smarter than just donations. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a shit ton of money, but it’s not a bottomless pit. If I keep making donations, those donations will keep getting bigger and bigger, and there are so many causes that need the support that I could easily get so sucked in that I won’t necessarily lose it all, but I will end up losing a lot of it.”

“Fair point.” She nodded slowly, took a sip of her wine, and set the glass down. “I can definitely see that the more involved you get, the more you’ll be made aware of all the need out there. You’ll end up giving until you might find yourself in trouble. The rest of your life is a long time to give without getting.”

“Exactly, but that’s not to say I don’t want to give. I have and I’ll keep doing it. I just also need to find something meaningful to fill my days with. I don’t just want to write checks for a living.”

She chuckled. “I just got a mental picture of you sitting behind a desk, writing out checks as fast as you can and handing them out to waiting hands that just snatch them away from you. I’d be happy to try to help you avoid that fate.”

“What do you think I should do then? Any ideas?”

Playfulness sparked in her eyes as she looked back at me. “Billionaires are known for being a little eccentric, right? You could always choose something weird and wonderful. There’s already a mission to put a human colony on Mars, but you could be the first to mention colonizing middle earth.”

“Middle earth, huh?” I laughed. “That depends on whether you would be willing to journey to the center of the earth with me.”

“Hand me a knife, a bottle of water, and a backpack. I could be ready to go by morning,” she said, then tilted her head to one side and moved her gaze from one of my eyes to the other. “If colonization’s not your thing, you could also announce that you’re going to start an animal sanctuary and challenge others in your position to do the same.”

“And then?”

“We hope that it becomes an environmental arms race,” she said. “Maybe you’ll inspire all the really rich people in the world to try outdoing you.”

“That could work,” I mused, grinning. “I could also go into the music industry and arrange a string of concerts for charity.”

“That’s already been done.”

“Not if that charity is a support group for billionaires who don’t know what to do with their money,” I joked.

For a while, we kept going back and forth with ideas of what I could do with my life, each one more ridiculous than the last. While it wasn’t going to help me find something real to do, it was fun. Larisa was sharp and funny, and it did help me relax a little about the whole situation, so it was a definite win.

When our appetizers came, we dropped the jokes and raved about the food for a minute. After I swallowed my first bite, still marveling at how fucking gorgeous she looked in that dress, I decided to take the opportunity to get to know her a little better.

“What’s your favorite color?” I asked, and chuckled when a confused frown passed over her features. “You’ve been to my place, spoken to my friends, and asked all sorts of questions about me and what I like, but I still don’t know that much about you.”

The frown turned into a smile. Her dark eyes glittered with amusement as she shrugged. “I needed to know all those things about you to do my job. I’m not nearly as mysterious as you make me sound every time this comes up. My favorite color is purple, and to preempt your next questions, I don’t have a favorite band, but my favorite kind of music is country. My favorite food is a potato, since there are so many awesome things one can do with them. I didn’t have any nudes on my bedroom wall growing up, but apart from that, my room was very similar to yours. Small, a single bed, a desk, and a bookshelf. Feeling better yet?”

“I’m starting to, but tell me more.”