I scratched at my eyebrow. Ivy shook her head emphatically. Ivy’s room was in desperate need of wall art or flowers, anything to give it more life, but the fees alone took every one of my extra jobs. She spent her life helping generations of Slippery Slopes students and deserved more than this.
I sighed, avoiding her gaze.
“Triple. Holiday pay,” I said.
After yet another long beat accompanied by an even more dramatic sigh, he said, “Fine. But only because I feel festive. But you better bring down whoever is up there. I’ll make them pay for ruining my holiday. They’ll find out who they’re messing with. They wouldn’t pull this shit with my dad?—”
“I’ll call you when I find out what it is.”
I ended the call before he could dive into the injustices of his inherited properties. Poor, poor rich guy.
I pulled on my heavy winter coat and hat.
“I know you aren’t still working for that bonehead,” Ivy said. “At least his daddy ran these shops honestly. That man only cares about get-rich-quick schemes and taking advantage of tourists.”
She wasn’t wrong. But Benny Jr. was my boss, and my résumé wasn’t fit for anything else.
“It’s that or sell my body, Ivy,” I said as I wound the scarf she knit me around my neck. The dread of going out in the cold already made me cranky.
“Like you wouldn’t make a killing,” she said.
“Now, who’s the dirty flirt? You shouldn’t objectify your students.”
“Former student. I think that statute was lifted with my retirement party two decades ago.”
“Dirty old woman.”
“You should be so lucky,” she said.
We both broke our glares. I bent to kiss her forehead. “Happy New Year.”
She held my gaze a beat too long, and I felt her gearing up to ask me something personal. “You need to take a finance management class,” she said.
I frowned at her with narrow eyes.
“You have to be making good money with all these side hustles you do. Where does it all go? You have a secret gambling addiction?” she asked with a teasing tone, but I could see the worry that laced her words.
I forced a casual half grin. “I told you just a few more hands of online poker, and I’m really gonna turn my luck around and hit it big.”
She rolled her eyes but patted my cheek, not yet letting me pull away. “I have money, doll. You’re welcome to it. You know that.”
My knees went watery as they did any time she mentioned her money. My stomach tightened worse than the thought of the death trap that was the tram. Ivy didn’t have a penny to her name. Her asshole son made sure of that when he took off with what was in her accounts and stopped paying her bills last year. Until I was able to square things up, there was no use in letting her know how her only family royally screwed her over.
“One day, I’ll take you up on that. You can take me on a cruise around the world,” I said.
“Pfft. Like either one of us would like that shit. Nah, we’ll go out in style. Buy a bunch of fireworks and make them blow up that damn tram.”
“Now you’re talking. Don’t stay up too late. I’m going to go freeze my balls off.”
“There’s no better way to ring in the new year!” she called after me as I closed the door on my way out.
I still wasn’t convinced it was more than bad weather that had knocked out the camera, but life-threatening storms aside, it would be easy money. Nobody was ridiculous enough to go up the mountain in the middle of the night.
Chapter 3
Bee
If ever mygig at Grizabella’s Café didn’t work out, I could totally make it as acatburglar.
