Ben
There was one thing I hated more than people.
Christmas.
The sight of Christmas trees springing up around town was enough to bring my skin out in hideous hives, and every time Christmas songs played from a car or a shop, they grated on me like nails down a chalkboard.
Fortunately, I could ignore the damned daythatfell every December 25th, but I couldn’tignore people. I needed them to keep my business going and make me money. And I needed those people more than ever.
Since my business partner, Jake Morley, died a few months ago, the business was struggling badly. I knew why too. Jake was the face of Morley and McScroodge Properties, the one who schmoozed potential tenants into signing contracts to rent one of our many properties across the town of Henderson.
I preferred my role. The only time I had to talk to people was when tenants fell behind in their payments, and I had the job of evicting them. It had beenthatway since we started the company fourteen years ago, when we were fresh out of college and determined to make a better life for ourselves.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t thoroughly enjoy my role; people’s sob stories about why they couldn’t pay their rent for the month never worked on me. The way I saw it, if people couldn’t pay their rent, why should they be allowed to freeload off me?
After Jake died from lung cancer—I’d warned the idiot time and time againthatsmoking would kill him, but he never stopped chain-smoking—I was left to deal with both sides of the business, but I quickly learnedthatschmoozing wasnotmy forte.
Jake had a way of getting people to eat out of the palm of his hand within seconds. Tenantsoften overlooked the finer details of the contract, thanks to Jake’s charm offensive, and missed the crucial section in the contractthatsaid there were no warnings if they failed to pay rent. One missed payment, and they had twenty-four hours to get the money together or get their shit out of the apartment.
A rule weneverdeviated from.
I, on the other hand, couldn’t remove the permanent scowl on my face, warning people to keep their distance. It was a habitI couldn’t, nor wanted to change. I didn’t like being around people; it was as simple asthat.
But in doing so, I’d lost a bunch of potential tenants, and for the first time since starting the business, I had a record number of vacant properties across the townthatIjustcouldn’t rent out. Something my account’s manager, Rob Crutchens, often reminded me of during our monthly financial meetings.
Rob joined the company about a year after the business started, when it grew too big forjustJake and me to manage. Despite Rob being employed by us for the last thirteen years, I knew little about him, other thanthathe was married and had a son and twin daughters.
I planned to keep itthatway too. Rob was nothing but an employee, and as long as he did his job, I didn’t give a fuck about his personal life. The same with my personal assistant, Alice. She’d worked with us for a couple of years, but most days, I barely rememberedthatthe timid woman was employed by me. Still, she got her job done, and on time, too.
My morning started the same way most Sundays did. It was the one day of the weekwhen the office was closed, but I didn’t take the day off to relax like most did. Once I’d made myself a coffee, I settled into my home office and loaded up my computer.
Flicking the radio on, the channel set to the classical music stationthatI listened towhenever I needed to concentrate, soft piano music flowed from the speakers, and my shoulders relaxed at the calming tones. Until the music stopped, and the presenter harped on about how November was at an end, meaning Christmas was a day closer.
I clenched my teeth and switched the volume right down, cutting his words off. I didn’t need to hear him drone on about how exciting it wasthatChristmas was only a few weeks away, nor did I want to hear him wish his listeners a Merry Christmas.
Merry fucking Christmas. What a joke. It was as if people thought all their problems would disappear because of the festive cheer and good wishes. In my humble opinion, Christmas was nothing but bullshit, and if I could have found a way to sedate myself from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day,thenI would have done it,justfor the peace and fucking quiet.
After a few minutes passed, I turned the volume back up on the radio, relieved to hear astring quartet playing a gentle melody. Letting the peace the music brought wash through my body, I clicked open my emails to see if there had been any enquiries for rental properties overnight, sighing when I discovered the mailbox was empty.
This time of year was always hard on business. People preferred spending money on buying shit for Christmasthatwould inevitably end up in the trash months later. In recent years, the cost of moving had soared, too, so whenever this time of year rolled around, people stayed put in their homes instead of forking out the expense of moving.
I’d never had to worry in the past; we always had money in reserve for the Christmasperiod, but this year,thatreserve was getting smaller and smaller, and I was having to use my personal funds to keep the business afloat.
Thatwas fine for now. Unlike Jake, I invested a lot of my money and was sitting on a pretty fortune. But if I kept pumping it into a failing business, it wouldn’t last long.
Clicking out of the emails, I opened up the company accounts. I usually went throughthem with Rob, but given today was the one day of the week he had off, I figured I’d get a head start on them. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do.
Althoughthatwas a blatant lie. I’d lived in the house for over a year now and hadn’t bothered to do anything to tidy it up, except for the roomthathoused my home gym. Throughout most of theproperty, paint was falling from the walls, the carpets needed replacing, and the kitchen had seen better days.
There was plenty to do, and I could have made an effort to do some of the work myself, butthatinvolved going to the DIY stores and having to deal with salespeople trying to sell me shit I wasn’t interested in.
I’d considered hiring a company to get the work done, but after getting quotes from local companies, I’d decidedthatI would rather leave the house as it was than spend the money the greedy fuckers wanted for sprucing the place up. It wasn’t as if anyone else lived here, nor did I have any visitors, so who gave a fuck if the place was a little…run down?
I would get round to it one day, but untilthen, it could wait, especially when I had better things to do, like making money.
Casting my gaze down the screen, I read through the names of the tenants currently renting one of my properties, ensuring they’d all paid their rent for the month of November. My eyes snagged on a familiar name, finding the word‘OVERDUE’in bold, red font.
I clicked into the account of Bella Matthews, the face of the girl fluttering to my mind. Ididn’t often remember the faces of tenants, but Bella’s stuck in my head.
