It was my formal eviction notice.
“You’ve got thirty days to come up with the outstanding rent, or you’ll have to vacate the premises. I’ve tried to be reasonable here, son, but I’m not in the landlord business out of the kindness of my heart. I’ve got kids. I’ve got a wife. I’ve got shit to pay for. So you’ll need to cough up the cash or find somewhere else to live,” Mr. Reese said gruffly.
I opened the envelope and looked down at the overdue amount that I owed him: fifteen hundred dollars. Shit. Shit. Shit. There was no way I was going to come up with that kind of money.
I had used the rest of my paycheck from the coffee shop to pay my electric bill and to take Landon out to dinner. I had stupidly bought him the controller I had promised, refusing to think about the thousand other things I had to pay for.
Because it had made my brother happy, and that was something I wasn’t willing to pass up.
“I get it, thanks for bringing this by,” I said with sarcasm.
Mr. Reese smoothed his greasy comb-over and grimaced. “Look, you seem like a nice kid, Maxx. I hate to do it to ya, but like I said, we all have bills to pay.”
He wasn’t telling me anything that I didn’t already know.
After Mr. Reese left I sat on my sofa feeling numb.
What was I going to do?
I was failing.
Miserably.
And worse, I was disappearing in the process.
I had been forcing myself into becoming a changed man to the point that I was beginning to lose all sense of myself.
What the fuck was I doing?
I was in a pretty bleak place. Imminent homelessness will do that to you.
“Yo, Maxx! Open up!” Marco’s voice yelled from the other side of the door sometime later.
I thought about ignoring him. But knowing Marco, he’d just stand out there making a racket until I let him in.
Stupid bastard.
“What the hell do you want?” I barked, wrenching open the door.
Marco held his hands up. “Dude, chill out!” He shoved a wad of cash into my hands.
I looked down at it in surprise.
“Now smile, because money puts everyone in a good mood,” Marco said, pushing past me like he always did.
I stood there in the open doorway and counted the money: five hundred dollars.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
Marco rolled his eyes. “Have all those drugs addled your brain? It’s for the scouting last week. I told you I’d be bringing it by. You ready to go do it again?”
I stared down at the money in my hand. Five hundred dollars was a lot of money, but it wasn’t nearly enough. I thought about my dead-end job at the Coffee Jerk and knew that I’d never be able to survive on what I was making.
I thought about Aubrey and all her talks of our future. I thought of Landon going off to art school next year.
I needed more.
A hell of a lot more.
