He cleared his throat, glanced at Gam, and then nodded. “Yeah.”
Gamble had been the star QB of our team until he’d broken his collarbone on the second to last game this last year. So Hamilton had needed to step in and bring us the rest of the way to the national championships. We all knew it bothered Gamble because he hadn’t been able to play that last game, and he’d lost his shot to try out for the pros. Even though he said he was happy settling down here with his woman and taking care of his three younger siblings—whom he’d taken away from his mother after she practically abandoned them—we knew it bugged him.
“Aspen find a job yet?” Ham asked him, hopefully.
When Gam looked up, we knew she hadn’t from the tightening in his jaw. “No,” he muttered.
She’d been unemployed for going on a year now, ever since she’d been fired for starting a relationship with him. Which brought up another sore issue with Gamble. He felt like a personal failure every time she applied for a new job and wasn’t hired. But then he wouldn’t even let her apply for jobs that he found “beneath” her. If their money was as tight as I knew it had to be, you’d think he’d just suck it up and let her be...well, whatever, for a while. But nope. He stayed stubborn. And she knew how much it would bother him if she “lowered” herself, as he called it, so she stayed unemployed and they just kept scrimping along. And I kept pretending it was my turn to pay for all our Saturday morning drinks at the coffee shop. And Gamble just kept letting me.
I knew Caroline offered him money on a regular basis. She’d gotten a little nest egg last year—though I never learned just how many eggs—after she’d gotten involved with that rich prick from her hometown and his parents had paid her off. But Gamble adamantly refused to touch a cent of that money.
I think each and every one of his rejections tore off a piece of her soul and left her bleeding a little more each time. She’d gone through a lot of bad shit to get that money; she should get to spend it however the fuck she wanted to. And if she wanted to help her family with it, her big brother should let her. That was one of the reasons she’d taken it in the first place...because of Gamble and their two younger brothers.
Gamble forcing her to spend it on no one but herself killed a part of her, and sometimes, I just wanted to wrap my hands around his throat and shake some sense into him, force him to accept some of her money already. It would’ve made her happier.