Scratch the Surface

“Yeah, okay. That’d be…nice.”

“Listen”—I crossed the room to stand at the foot of his bed—“I’m not trying to force you to spend time with me. And as I’ve told you before, I have a tendency to be pushy and overbearing, so tell me if—”

“Fuck,” he rasped. “That’s not—you have no idea how bad I wanna spend time with you. The lead on the job is amazing, and yeah, I dunno, the wanting to be in my meeting with Mrs. Chow is a little weird, but I’m not gonna say no.”

“If our roles were reversed, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to assist me?”

“Yeah, of course, but c’mon,” he muttered, gesturing at me. “I’m not exactly in a place to do anything for you.”

“So this is about money.”

“Of course it’s about money.”

“And you think money is the only way for you to help me?”

“It’s how you’re going to help me.”

I tipped my head. “Will you have money when you get your master’s?”

“Some, yeah. More than what I’m getting now, with just my bachelor’s.”

“And would you, Jeremiah Wolfe, turn down the opportunity to help kids in need if the money wasn’t there?”

“That’s not—”

“Because I suspect you would choose to live without many material conveniences if it meant you could make a difference in a child’s life.”

“You’re not hearing me.”

“What do you think I require from you monetarily that I can’t do for myself?”

“That’s what I mean, though. I want to be a real partner.”

“So to you, a ‘real partner’ is based solely on the amount of capital you’d bring to our relationship? Do I have that right?”

“Fuck,” he groaned, falling back against the pillows, throwing up his hands in defeat.

“At the moment, I have more financial resources and a larger professional network than you,” I clarified for him. “When my parents were first married, as my father was building his business, he was the one with more contacts and financial stability, but over the years, over the course of their relationship, their dynamic has switched, and now there’s no doubt my mother is the more marketable of the two.”

He was staring at me, trying for bored, which I knew he wasn’t. He was listening intently to every word.

“I don’t know what our relationship will look like five or ten years from––”

“Five or ten years?” He was incredulous.

“I’m sorry, is that presumptuous? Are you not planning to stick around?” I bristled. “Perhaps you need to reassess what you’re looking for in––”

“For the love of—c’mere, would ya?” he barked, reaching for me. I was around the end of the bed in seconds, and perched beside him so he could take my hand in his. He stared at our intwined fingers for a moment, then looked up and met my gaze. “You have no idea how hard this is.”

“To trust anyone, or me specifically? We have known each other for only a matter of days.”

Instant scowl. “You’re being awfully flippant here, Cameron.”

“And you’re being exceedingly careful, Jeremiah,” I countered. “What do you say we both stop?”

What seemed like eons ticked by as our future hung on the answer to a not-so-simple question. We were either going to start something together or call it quits; to do the former, he had to trust me. I knew it was a huge ask, and it wasn’t fair the decision was solely his, but it was up to him to jump and trust I would never let him fall. I would be his safety net from now to the grave.

I realized that was probably a bit melodramatic, but the fact was our relationship would not approach anything like normal for the foreseeable future. Not only would it be long-distance, but we would be on unequal footing as well, because we were in different places financially and professionally. This was our short-term reality, though; the long-term held all kinds of promise, and I believed we were already far more alike than different.

Beyond that, meeting him was like being struck by lightning, and I knew there were those times in your life, those singular moments when you had to decide to act, to take the first step onto a new and scary path or stick to the one you knew. I had second-guessed myself as well, but by the time I got in the car to return to him, I’d made up my mind. I would turn myself inside out before I walked away. I needed him to find the same resolve.

My heartbeat was loud in my ears, and I was the one who wasn’t breathing now.

“Okay.” I heard the emotion welling in his voice and knew he was struggling with his choice, with something brand-new and completely foreign—faith in someone other than himself.

“Okay?” I forced out past the lump in my throat.

He nodded, and I saw the tears welling in his eyes before he turned his head and wiped them away roughly.