“Then quit,” Jamal says. “Stop talking about going to the press, going to the cops, blackmailing a billionaire CEO. You’re hunting for struggle. You want to find out what kind of guy Ash is? Send him the recording. Decide together what to do.”
I think of Ash on his couch, our feet touching under a blanket. The way his voice softened when he said,I want to help, sounded like more than words. It was the look in his eyes, like I was someone worth helping.
I miss him. And yeah, I love him. Even now—especially now—which feels stupid, given how tonight went. I could sit here forever, mainlining self-pity and rum while rewriting the story to shift the blame. Or I can do the one thing that isn’t hiding.
My thumb hovers over his name in my messages. Before I can lose the tiny bit of courage my rum and Coke is lending me, I drop a link to the recording into an email and start writing.
Ash is the one person who can decide with me what the hell we do next.
CHAPTER 32
ASH
As one weekslips into two, relief at not getting fired hardens into an ugly suspicion that maybe Kael made Alistair into more of a threat than he really was.
But I’ve kept his email open on a separate tab the whole week. I should delete it. Or reply. Or do anything but keep it open as some landmine I keep stepping on. Instead, I just let it sit there.
The recording is scary. It may confirm everything Kael said, but it’s not enough to blow up a billionaire.
Kael’s the one who pushed Alistair. He literally shoved a billionaire onto the floor. Threats were almost inevitable after that. Empty ones, if I’m lucky.
The rest of his email contains a ridiculous list of proposed uses for the recording: sell it to the press, take it to the cops, email it to the whole company, give it to HR, and several that read like he typed “ways to blackmail a billionaire” into AI and copy-pasted the results.
It reads like a joke, one that’s almost amusing, until I remember it’s a wager Kael made with my life while lying about the whole thing.
I’m lucky to keep my job and avoid disaster by a hair. A sticky note that reads “BE GRATEFUL” is stuck to the right of the mousepad so that every time I open my laptop I ground myself in that reality.
But the work is no less mind-numbing. The hours slog by no faster.
Infected with questions Kael put in my mind, old joys like adding to my list of post-FIRE hobbies feel sad instead of empowering. If Pawpaw had a list like mine, I’d carry that, instead of his debt, as proof that work drains the soul.
That’s why I need to save, invest, and focus on my future. The market is ripping, and… and?—
Kael’s face won’t leave me alone. His smile, his laugh, the way his dimples crinkled during both. I try pushing the memories away, but they keep resurfacing as reminders I had something real.
And I broke it.
On my better days, I can admit my failure. On the rest, it’s a mistake I tell myself was never right to begin with. I need to move on.
Jenny, our podcast, and the market’s returns are the best things I’ve got left, so I throw myself into them.
In Jenny’s garage, she introduces the guest whose face sits in the center of our orange lacquered table on a laptop set between us.
“Like me,” Jenny says. “Mark Johnson is pursuing—or should I say, pursued—Lean FIRE by reducing expenses to achieve financial independence and retire early.”
“Mark!” I say, smiling at the early-forties guy on the screen who looks like he lives halfway up a mountain. “Thanks for being with us. Please tell us a bit about your journey. In particular, why prioritize reducing expenses over increasing income?”
We’ve interviewed a dozen folks like Jenny and Mark, but this time, my question is a desperate exploration into something I never imagined considering. Thanks to my own stupid decisions, my income is effectively frozen, and thanks to Kael’s, I’m lucky to have it at all. Lean FIRE may be my only hope.
“Longtime listener, first-time caller.” Mark’s scraggly red beard parts into a smile. “Look, the traditional FIRE path places a huge emphasis on getting to freedom through career advancement and maximizing income. And, I guess I should say, it’s a huge privilege to get to examine this path at all.”
Jenny and I nod, and she says, “Preach.”
“But,” I add, “not everyone who has that privilege takes advantage like you. What sparked your interest in turning off the normal path?”
“My kids, obviously,” he says. “Anyone worried about staying in your job because you want your kids to see you work, trust me, mine see me work. It just looks… happier.”
Add another tally mark to the shrine of “more time with kids.” It almost makes me roll my eyes. Frankly, I’m sick of interviewing people who agonize over one cute little detour off the normal path. Some of us can’t even see the normal path. Some of us don’t have kids and won’t have a white picket fence. Some of us don’t even have a fucking boyfriend.
