frugal like Gabe, but then I’d been a waitress through college and there wasn’t much to save. Now I made a decent living but my pay wasn’t great.
So I didn’t understand. But Gabe’s arm around my back was getting tighter and tighter. Tension had infused him—his body was stiff under mine.
“I don’t see the problem,” I said gently. “It sounds like you’ve done well for yourself and your mom.”
“Right,” he muttered, gave me a squeeze, and went on. “Zane was correct; I value material things. Money specifically. It’s not like I don’t know this, I just don’t give a shit. When I left the Navy I could’ve retired and lived a decent middle-class life. But I didn’t want middle-class, I wanted more. I went to work for Z Corps and Zane pays four times what the Navy paid. It was then I started enjoying my money. By enjoy I mean spending it. I bought my mom a two-bedroom bungalow in Bremerton and I pay the yearly taxes on that. I bought myself a condo and did that in cash. Both of those are paid in full, no one can take them from us. I want something, I buy it in cash. If I can’t afford it outright I wait until I can. The only exception to that is the house I have here, that I have a mortgage on.”
“No one can take them from you,” I whispered as understanding dawned.
“No one can take anything I have. It is mine. The condo, the cars, my dirt bikes, ATVs, boat, all mine. No bank, no landlord. Fucking mine. No shelter, no food line, no showering at a truck stop, no handwashing clothes in a sink, no handouts, no begging, no stealing, no secondhand shit clothes and shoes that don’t fit. I have money in the bank and buy what I want when I want it and I buy nice shit. That taste is still there. I still feel dirty. It doesn’t matter I now shower in a house that I never dreamed I could afford. In a bathroom that’s bigger than most people’s bedroom. The dirt and grime doesn’t come off. And when I feel it start to press in I buy something to remind myself I’m not living in a car, wearing someone else’s cast-offs that don’t fit me, and I smell like I haven’t showered for a week because I hadn’t. What you need to take away from that is, I have money and enough of it that I’m not in debt except for the house. I take care to make that balance grow. And I make a lot of fucking money working for Z Corps. But when I feel that pressure start to build I need to be able to do what I have to do to relieve it. I don’t want to be talked out of it, counseled, informed my actions are whacked. All you need to know is I’m cognizant that they are, I just don’t give a shit and I do what I do with that in mind.”
I was stuck back on I feel dirty. After Gabe sank that verbal-blade into my chest I’d pretty much shut out the rest. Or at least I stopped trying to figure out why he thought spending his money that he’d earned and saved was such a problem. And the answer was it wasn’t. He wasn’t digging himself into debt, he was smart. By the sound of it, Gabe’s accounts were healthy, extremely so. Money wasn’t his issue, the reason he bought stuff was.
It wasn’t the taste of being homeless. It wasn’t even that he’d been so hungry he used the word ‘starved’ to describe it. No, Gabe’s issue wasn’t money—it was that he felt dirty. I bet when he was a kid he’d been made fun of. I bet his schoolmates had pointed out he wore hand-me-downs, but more than that I bet they made fun of the way he smelled.
That wasn’t a blade to the chest—that was a giant gouge out of my soul.
And I didn’t know what to do with that. I certainly wasn’t going to point it out. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to do my best to find a way to soothe that hurt.
“Gabe, it’s your money, you can and should spend it however you like. And it’s no one’s business but yours.”
I felt his fingertips resting on my hip twitch right before he pressed them into my flesh. This was semi-painful but