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“Please tell me that Hayden doesn’t know anything else.”
“Well, kinda…I also told him how you took a one-hundred-thousand-dollar loan from me and turned it into a multi-million-dollar beauty brand in months. He’s as impressed as I am.”
“Speaking of that loan—” I paused. “I need a lot more time to pay you back.”
“No rush. Just keep my name on the ‘Investors Who Love Me’ page and pay it back when you’re beyond profitable. At the rate you’re going, you’ll be there before you know it.”
“Penelope, look. The truth about my business is…” I stopped talking.
Penelope was snoring, fast asleep.
I sighed and covered her with a blanket, vowing to serve her the truth on another day.
* * *
That evening
I flippedthe light switch in my condo, but nothing happened.
I flipped it a few more times, and the darkness remained.
Shit.
Using my phone’s light to walk into the kitchen, I eyed the bills I’d become an expert at rotating and half-paying. The one on top, a final notice for the electricity, sported a due date from weeks ago.
Sighing, I opened a cabinet and pulled out candles, setting them on surfaces all over the room. I opened the living room windows to let in the night breeze, and stared at the calendar that hung from my hearth.
An upcoming date was marred with the ugliest words I’d ever written:Eviction process starts today if rent isn’t paid.
I didn’t have a landlord to talk to—only a cold automated call system, and I’d exhausted favors from every person I knew.
Taking deep breaths, I weighed my options.
I could restart my TikTok account and try to go viral. Then again, my previous six months of crafting creative videos three times a day only netted me seventeen followers and comments like “Make $1M in a week fast! Like this comment for a chance.” (I liked every single one of those and never heard back.)
There was the option of begging my bank for a cheaper monthly payment, but they’d already lowered it three times. Any lower and they’d assume I wanted it to be free.
Pushing my coaching services and requesting speaking gigs via skating organizations was a possibility, but those opportunities were few and far between.
Tears welled in my eyes as my latest client’s words played in my mind.
Become a world champion, all to end up coaching like you?
I refused to allow those tears to fall.
Instead, I racked my brain for more options, and as I contemplated four more, my phone rang with an unknown number.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Hey there, sexy,” a familiar deep voice said. “Miss me yet?”
“Huh?”
“It’s me. Dennis. I miss you, and I hope you’re missing me.”
“We haven’t talked in forever, Dennis.” I wasn’t sure why he still had my number. “What do you want?”
“To check on you and see how things are going in your life.”
