Last year marked the first when I didn’t have to prioritize the bills that came in. It was an indescribable relief to be able to pay everything right away, but there were still a lot, and balancing our budget was a monthly struggle.

Nicky turned to me with a frown. “I was blind as a bat when you helped me with Gideon—when I thought he didn’t want me—so I’ll cut you some slack for not seeing the solutions. But we can always make compromises, Anthony. Don’t forget that you’re not alone at the Initiative anymore.”

“You’re already working full time,” I pointed out.

“And?”

Didn’t he fucking see? And he called me blind. “My hands are tied,” I grated out. “I can’t work less. You can’t work less—but hey, if you think you’ve got everything figured out, please enlighten me.”

I knew that came out bitchy, and his look told me he knew it too.

Mannaggia.

I groaned and scrubbed my hands over my face.

“All right,” he responded casually. “I’ll fuckin’ enlighten you. Just off the top of my head—and this is about saving time and money so you can make room for a relationship, yeah? You can trade your rusty gas-guzzler of a truck for something cheaper that you can still transport gear in. You can stop turning to takeout as soon as Nonna’s leftovers are gone. I can take some classes from you if you take over my paperwork duties, shit you can do from home. And next semester, we can schedule your classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, which would leave you with Thursday and Friday to work on your goddamn couch. Or in Nashville. You can also quit tying yourself down every Saturday when you repair instruments for no money at all. It’s become a dumb-ass chore. You barely even like it anymore.”

I blinked.

“Last but not least, we can squeeze in another contract with one of the public schools in our district that already wanna transfer their students to us,” he said. “You know we’re sitting on a gold mine, Anthony, especially with our credentials and the quality of our classes. If there’s one thing schools like, it’s to make budget cuts. But if they send their students to us, they can slash their own music programs and still boast about a fantastic opportunity for anyone who wants to learn an instrument. And for every school we take on, our income becomes a little bit more stable because of government funding. If we expand and open a second location—madonn’, we could be running all the Park Slope schools’ music programs.”