Rich Groom (The Dirty Thirty Pledge 1)

“Your balance was paid in full this morning. We want to thank you for your continued business and for catching up on your past due account.”

“But—” I stop myself before I tell her that it was a mistake. “Okay. Thank you.”

I hang up. What the hell? There’s a thought forming in my mind, but it’s not possible. Can it be possible? I log onto my water bill, my mortgage, student loans. Every bill I have is zero. Everything is paid. Completely. Out loud, I say, “Frankie, what did you do?”

It has to be him. He’s the only person I know with enough money to do this. But how did he know? And does he think that I can’t? That I’m not able to handle myself? I’m swinging through emotions faster than I can track them. Amazement that this happened, anger that he would dare to do this without talking to me first, relief so stark that I could cry again if I hadn’t already cried myself out today. Holy shit.

I can’t wait to talk to him, I have to know.

What did you do?

What?

The money, Frankie. Was that you?

There’s a long pause before I see any signs of him typing.

Yes, that was me.

How did you know?

I’ll explain when I see you tonight, if we’re still on for dinner.

Yes.

I send the yes quickly, because I have to know what’s happening.

But I want pizza.

Pizza? I can take you somewhere nicer than pizza.

I know you can, but I haven’t had pizza in a really long time.

Pizza it is. He types. I’ll see you soon.

I think that Frankie was scandalized when I said I wanted pizza on our date, but with what I’ve been eating lately, I just want it. I never eat out anymore anyway, or get delivery. So this is going to feel like a treat either way. Green Hills, Tennessee isn’t the place you’d expect to have excellent pizza, but we hold our own. Besides, we’ve never been a ‘sit down across from each other in a booth’ type of couple.

After doing my hair and make-up, I’m ready, and I have a minute to examine more of what I’m feeling. There’s part of me that feels like I should be angry. That he violated my privacy and took initiative in my life without permission, and I’m going to talk to him about that. But it’s honestly hard for me to feel anything but relief. This is a weight that I’ve been carrying for years, most of it a debt that wasn’t mine. It feels good to just…even contemplate the fact that I’m free.

It feels so good, and that’s so much stronger than any anger or indignation that I feel.

When Frankie comes to my door, I answer, and he doesn’t even get to say hello before I kiss him. He catches me, arms gathering me up and kissing me back, lifting me off my feet. “Why did you do that?” I ask him. “How did you even know?”

He looks a little chagrined. “When I got that package from the mailman and set it down, it knocked over the stack of late notices, and I saw the kind of food you’d been eating. I had someone look into it.”

Again, I wait for the fury, but it’s overshadowed by my sheer thankfulness. But I still feel like I need to explain. “When my father died, I found out that he had a lot of debt. More than I ever knew about. It took everything he had left, and most of what I had. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not happy about the fact that you did this without asking me, or that you had someone look into me without permission but…thank you.”

He smiles down at me. “I’m happy to. I’d do it again, and more. I want to do more. I want to do everything for you.”

I blush and take his arm as he guides me off the porch to his car. He drives us downtown for our date. This is much better than a sit down dinner ever would have been, and as we wander through the city and down to the river that runs through Green Hills, I’m comforted by the pleasant memories. We would come here, before we broke up. Senior year of high school and on breaks when we came back from school.

Even though there’s still a twinge when I think about that time, like when he showed up at the bookstore today and talked about going back in time, I have to move past that. We have to move on together and recognize that some of those things are always going to be painful. But tonight feels perfect.

The sun is hanging low in the sky and it’s one of those summer evenings where you can feel the very first hints of fall coolness, and Frankie and I are walking hand in hand. Even if it makes eating our pizza that much harder, and even if we’ll be the talk of the town. We’ve been talking about everything and nothing, the details of our new lives and reminiscing about the good parts of our old life together.