“Thanks.” I roll my eyes and place my free hand on his shoulder. “I used to dance with my mom, so I’m not entirely useless.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” I smile. “She would push all of the furniture to the sides of the house so we had enough room. Then, she’d blast music or hum her own tune and spin me around like a princess.”
The rocking stops for the barest of moments before he continues swaying me with the music. It’s as if he’s picturing it. A little me dancing with her mom in the middle of her childhood home until it was turned into a hellhole. “That’s really sweet, Vi,” he murmurs.
“They’re some of my favorite moments,” I admit. “Me and mom in our run-down house.” The memory is bittersweet, leaving me nostalgic and lonely in a way that’s hard to wrap my head around.
“Do you miss it?” he questions. “The house?”
“All the time.” I sigh. “And it’s kind of crazy. Because I know I should hate it, like,hatethe house… But I’m kind of countingdown the days until my sperm donor dies from liver failure or something, and I can move back in, spruce it up, and maybe even push all the furniture aside so I can dance with you in it, too.” I peek up at him, surprised by my own vulnerability. I’ve never done this. Pictured a future with someone, especially someone like Jagger. He’s experienced a life so different from mine, we might as well be two aliens from different planets. It’s scary, but almost freeing, too. The idea of finding a middle ground. A home we could both appreciate. “I’ve never told anyone this,” I murmur, unsure whether or not I should backpedal or sweep my unfiltered thoughts under the proverbial rug.
“I like you telling me things.” He takes my hand on his shoulder and moves it to the back of his neck, pulling me even closer until his free hand finds my waist yet again. “I like it a lot, Vi.”
“Me, too.” Playing with the short strands at the nape of Jagger’s neck, I ask, “So…do you come to these things often?”
He looks around the banquet hall, then shrugs. “Not unless Titas forces us.”
“Is it a common thing?” I prod. “Your dad forcing you to do things you don’t want to do?”
“You could say so.”
“Hmm.”
He spins me around, then tugs me back into him, leading me like a seasoned pro. “It’s a little harder to do nowadays.”
“What? Bossing you around?”
“Yeah. Earlier this year, he threatened to take away our trust funds until we promised to start fulfilling the family name. When we didn’t cave to the pressure, all of our credit cards started declining.”
I scoff. “What an ass.”
“Our thoughts exactly, but instead of groveling for the financial faucet to turn back on, we took what we’d learned fromthe family business and started taking bets and making our own money.”
My brows raise. “What do you mean?”
“You know what my family’s business does, right?”
“It’s an actuarial consulting firm,” I reply. The jumbled words make me feel like a parrot after researching what the Harden family does for a living. Everyone Googles it at least once, though most have glazed eyes within the first three words defining the Harden expertise. Something about statistics and historical data and regulations, and insurance companies and profitability and…yeah. It’s a lot.
“Exactly,” Jagger confirms. “We use math, statistics, and financial theory to analyze risk and uncertainty for various companies.”
“Like insurance companies, pensions, financial management, enterprises, etcetera,” I volley. “But how did you retool everything you learned for your own profit?”
He smiles down at me. “After my mom passed, my dad became more and more controlling. He’s always been a dick,” he clarifies, “but without someone to keep him in check here and there, he kept getting worse—or maybe he didn’t,” Jagger realizes. “Maybe he stayed the same and we just grew tired of it. I’m not sure.” His hands tighten on my lower back as if the only thing grounding him in this moment is me. “Anyway, when he finally threatened to take our trust funds, we said screw it and started using our degrees to analyze risk and outcomes for sports instead of…insurance health costs like you mentioned, then brought it even closer to home with our Harden events.”
“But like, how?” I prod. I’m not stupid, it’s just…this is fascinating and so far out of my element, it’s not even funny.
A little crinkle forms between his brows as if he’s debating how to best explain everything to me, and I love that he’s willingto do so. That he’s willing to let me into his world, even the edgier side.
“Let’s see,” he hesitates. “So, with sports betting, there’s an individual called a linesman who works for the casino or betting company.”
“Okay?”
“The linesman’s job is to set and adjust the betting lines for sporting events.”
“And what’s a betting line?” I ask.
