That made me pause, and I furrowed my brow at him. “We don’t have investors.”
The Initiative wasn’t the type of company you invested in. We took donations, and we got local funding for running music programs for a few public schools. The rest was tuition.
Nicky shrugged. “Maybe it’s not an investment he thinks will pay off in profit as much as it will bring in more money so we don’t gotta work seventy-five-hour weeks.”
I scratched my forehead and saw where he was going with this—or rather, where Gideon was going. He and my brother were settling down together. There’d be a wedding at some point soon, and a kid or two would follow. It made sense that Gideon wanted Nicky to work reasonable hours.
Still. That kinda money… Christ. Gideon had already donated a fuck-ton of money to us.
“We’re talking millions,” I stated.
Nicky huffed a chuckle. “Look, I’m not gonna pretend I’m comfortable with it. You know me. But he knows real estate and business.”
I should hope so. Gideon’s last name graced buildings in the city. He came from a family that’d helped build New York back in the day.
There was one problem, though. Nicky and I were on the same page; we knew the key to really get the Initiative off the ground was to expand and take on more public schools. Hell, even the private schools that didn’t prioritize music would line up. But expanding and making more money didn’t mean less work for us. We couldn’t delegate everything. My brother and I would just end up with more administrative roles in order to run the whole thing, and I didn’t wanna lose my classes. I’d busted my ass through school to be the music teacher I wanted to be, the one who could apply his degree in psychology to help. To really help. And I told Nicky as much. I told him I was torn. I told him I was proud of the classes we could offer, the quality that went hand in hand with our name, because the academy was run by musicians, not suits, but that it came at a price. If we put suits on the musicians, what would happen to the classes? What would happen to us?
“You have a point.” Nicky put his foot up on the edge of the desk and tapped his chin. “Could we raise tuition?”
I frowned and shook my head. “No more than what inflation dictates. We have too many students from low-income households. No matter what, I wanna keep the classes affordable.”
“Hmm. True.” He checked his watch and stood up with a sigh. “I gotta get to my next class. I’m teaching a bunch of hormonal eighth graders to play the drums this month.”
“Sounds like fun.” I had another twenty minutes before I had a class of third graders. Thankfully, they just sang while I played the piano.
“I’ll get back to you about—you know.” He opened the door, then paused. “You got plans tonight?”
“I have no life outside of Nashville,” I deadpanned.
“Lemme rephrase,” he chuckled. “Do you work late tonight?”
“I get off at seven.”
“Cool. I’ll swing by with lasagna and a business-savvy Gid.”
Fuck yes, lasagna.
“What do you want to talk about now?” Camden asked happily. “I’m not ready to hang up yet.”
I smiled and trapped my phone between my shoulder and cheek. “You can tell me what fun you’ve planned for the rest of the week. If you worked all day yesterday, you deserve some time off, I think.”
Apparently, August and Camden had spent all day yesterday producing new cooking tutorials, so I had that to look forward to.
On the way to my truck, I listened to Camden’s plans to watch a bunch of movies and get ready for his next work project. I lost him for a beat when the call was transferred to my truck as I started the engine, and by then, he’d changed the topic to August’s next book. He was beginning his research this weekend, I learned.
Sometimes, the content of his conversation didn’t matter as much as the delivery. Camden could recite the phone book for all I cared; I just wanted to hear his voice.
I’d thought the fog would lift once I came home. Instead, I missed them more for each second that passed.
“Your turn!” Camden declared as I backed out of my parking spot. “Daddy wonders if you’re taking care of yourself properly. He thinks maybe you’re not eating well or sleeping enough.”
Holy fuck, what if it was love? I was gonna turn into a miserable bastard.
“Tell Daddy I’m on my way home right now to prepare a bunch of lunches,” I told him. “My brother and Gideon are stopping by with dinner too. Nicky makes a fantastic lasagna.”
“And sleep?” Camden prodded. “Do you get your eight hours of sleep?”
I chuckled and leaned forward, checking to see if any cars were coming around the bend. “Nobody gets eight hours, ragazzo.” No one who worked, anyway. “I go to bed around three and set the alarm for eight-thirty.”
“Daddy!” Camden yelled, causing me to flinch at the volume. “You say I gotta get eight hours, but Anthony only sleeps…two, three, four—um, much less!”
“Daddies and Littles have different sets of rules,” I heard August remind him in the background.
“Oh. Right. Cuz the world’s not fair,” Camden huffed. “Anyway. I have the most important question in the galaxy, Sir. Are you still wearing the bracelet?”
“Of course I am. I told you, it’s never coming off.” I stopped at a red light and checked the time. Perhaps I was a little behind. My last class had run late, and then I’d spoken to a parent whose daughter had bipolar and struggled to express herself in her mandatory journal-keeping. I’d suggested we incorporate her piano playing into it—anything, if it might help bridge the gap between the girl and her parents, who felt helpless when they couldn’t anticipate the daughter’s needs.
It’d fueled my thinking on alternative ideas for the
