Smoke and Steel (Wild West MC #2)(7)

Oh crap.

“Bree—” I started.

“No,” she snapped. “I think you’ve said enough.”

“Okay, seriously though, have you not seen The Tinder Swindler?” Kyra blurted.

Yikes.

She went right there.

Bree and Christos didn’t meet on Tinder. They met on Bumble.

Kyra’s delivery wasn’t smooth, but it was a pertinent question.

Bree’s face went red as a beet. “That’s an awful thing to say!”

“It was all fun and games in the beginning,” Marcy pointed out. “Now how many times has he asked you to bail him out?”

“And you’ve only been seeing him a couple of months,” I reminded her.

“We’re nearly to our three-month anniversary,” she sniffed. “And I don’t bail him out. I’ve given him a few loans. He’s going to pay me back.”

“And again, how many loans have you given him?” Marcy repeated.

Bree screwed up her face. “You all are ganging up on me.”

“We’re not,” I said carefully. “We’re just saying this is something to consider. In the beginning he’s flashing cash, taking you to expensive restaurants, buying you things, and talking about Mediterranean cruises and flying you to see his homeland to meet his family. Now he’s been in a lurch, not just once, and needs you to cover him, and you’ve only known the guy what amounts to a matter of weeks.”

“We’re not all freaks about our money like you. And we’re not all uptight and controlling of our boyfriends…like you,” Bree shot back.

The money part, she was right, in a way.

I could see how other people would think I was a freak about money.

Though, my opinion was, if they could, everyone should handle money like I did. They’d be a lot less stressed out.

You see, I’d gotten my first job at age fifteen, and from my very first paycheck, I’d religiously done what I still did today (with some minor tweaks).

Twenty-five percent saved for future use.

By “future use” I meant, if my stepdad Andy hadn’t stepped up and paid for my education, I would have used it for that.

Since I didn’t have to do that, it sat untouched until I needed to invest in myself (unless I had to move it around into higher interest-bearing accounts). Be that investment in the business I knew I was going to start one day (though I didn’t know what that business was, until I did), or setting up my first apartment, or whatever.

Now that twenty-five percent went back into my business, my wardrobe or my home (like buying the kickass couch that Bryan or one of his friends stained with pizza sauce).

The next twenty-five percent was saved for a rainy day.

I’d since cut that back to ten percent because I had to feed myself, and, you know, do other grownup things like pay rent.

The next twenty-five (now ten) was untouchable, no excuses.

Unless I was about to starve or become homeless, that money was to sit until it was time for me to quit working so I could spend my days in Italy, eating and wandering on my Eat Tour (I just wanted to do that part, I didn’t have a lot of interest in the pray part, and if love happened, great, if it didn’t, I wasn’t going to look for it) or whatever struck my fancy.

What didn’t strike my fancy, when I finally allowed myself to chill out and just be (I was aiming at age sixty, but I kinda hoped it’d be fifty-five), was hurting for money when it happened.

The last twenty-five (now fifty-five) percent was for current use, rent, groceries, utilities, etc.

I had not been unemployed a single day since I was fifteen, including working when I was in university. And Mom and Andy refused to allow me to use my money for anything that had to do with college.

This meant I was sitting on some serious cash when I started my business while I was a junior at the University of Colorado. And even more cash when I graduated a year later and struck out on my own.

It was good I started early. Now I had more clients than I knew what to do with and had the happy problem of trying to decide if I wanted to work eighty hours a week rather than the sixty to seventy I was currently working, or hire someone.

I was leaning toward hiring someone.

So yes.

I could see Bree, who earned her money, paid her bills, then blew it on Gucci bags she bought retail (which was a crime, with so many resale websites out there—those were where I got my steals) would think I was a freak about money.

It was her comment about me being uptight and controlling about Bryan that was another shot to the heart.

“So you lied last week, and instead, you think I should have continued to put up with his shit?” I asked.

“I’m just saying your expectations are high,” she replied. “They’re guys. Guys are dufuses. He’s not even thirty yet. He can be trained.”

“And how much time do I invest in training him before it’s time to give up. Another year? Two? Ten?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she retorted. “I just know he’s a catch and you didn’t let him slip away, you unhooked him and threw him back, which is kinda crazy.”

“I’m not looking for a fish,” I stated. “If I spend time with someone, I expect to get some respect, or at the very least common courtesy.”