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If my looming bankruptcy—let’s face it, that’s about what it’s come down to— wasn’t a bad enough nightmare, then this is the haunting that’s sure to drive me over the edge.
Am I just trying to keep my business alive? Or do I need to add myself to the list?
I run to the front of the store. “Where did you find this? Where did it come from?”
Jewel shrinks down in her chair. “Um, well, it was taped to the door. I’m sorry I didn’t give it to you when you first came in.”
“Fuckers…” I mumble, while chills rush over my skin.
“Who... who’s it from, Livvy?”
“Good question. I want to know who it’s from too. So I can kick the living shit out of their asses.”
Something inside me detonates and I blast out the front door, marching right over to EastSide.
I walk right up to the first guy I see, Owen, who’s talking to some diners.
“Did you see this?” I demand, holding it up in his face.
He smiles, gently pushing my hand down, and excuses himself from his guests. “If it’s what I think it is, then yes,” he says, continuing to smile. “Weston’s up in the office if you want to go talk to him. I can’t do this right now.”
He walks toward some other diners who’ve just arrived, shaking their hands and patting them on the back.
Fine. I get it. The man’s busy with lunch rush. So I storm through the restaurant and up the back stairs to Weston’s office.
I knock on the door. “Weston? You in there? It’s me, Livvy.”
“Hey, come in,” he calls.
I fling the door open and his eyebrows rise as he picks up on my sense of panic. And anger. And all that shit.
I thrust the warning in his face. With a glance at it, he nods, and picks his own up off his desk. The guys got the same exact warning on the same exact kind of paper.
I’m not sure whether I’m relieved to see I’m not alone, or sorry these guys are having to confront the same. I'm so bunged up now with overwhelm, I wouldn’t know logic if it hit me in the face.
“Have a seat, Livvy.”
I do as he says, because I don’t know what else to do.
He taps an expensive-looking pen on the desk in front of him. “Guess they don’t like how we’re fighting back, huh?” he says with a chuckle.
“Glad you think it’s funny,” I snap. “Nobody knows what it’s like to see something you’ve bled for teeter on its edge.”
Weston’s head snaps back on his neck. “Livvy, what do you think the restaurant is?” he asks indignantly.
“Oh. Well, you guys have each other. You have investors. You’re not as vulnerable as I am.”
He tilts his head. “I see. Well, first of all, I don’t think we need to have a contest over who has it the hardest here. What we need to do is stick together.”
Ha. That’sall I have to do? Dude has no idea that each bill that comes into Pawsh Pets is another implication that I have no right to be running a business. As of this morning, I’ve missed a payment to a key supplier and my landlord’s ‘friendly reminders’ of my overdue rent are becoming less friendly.
The door blows open and Owen and Enzo join us. Enzo looks at me with those same eyes he did in the alley, and I look away before I blush.
Oh, what the hell. The other guys probably know what we did anyway. They probably go over their conquests in their morning meetings.
I can see it now…
“Guys, I fucked Livvy last night.”
