My blood runs cold.
Amy.
My fist clench, my jaw tightening and I take a step forward. “You stay the fuck away from her,” I warn.
“Careful now, Logan. I’m giving you a chance to get me my money, but I can always change my mind. Like I said, you have exactly a week or I’m coming back here. Your little girlfriend won’t be touched as long as I get it. Call it an incentive, motivation to get me what I want. I don’t like being let down and made a fool out of, Logan. Keep that in mind. Do I make myself clear?”
“Crystal,” I force out through gritted teeth.
He smiles. “Good. See you around Logan. I look forward to hearing from you.” He claps me on the back as he walks past me, and disappears around the tall hedge that line the bottom of my front yard.
I head inside the house, locking the front door and leaning back against it, sliding down the cool wood until my ass meets the floor. I draw my knees up and rest my forearms on them, my head hanging low.
My heart is racing, my breathing becoming fast and uneven as I struggle to catch my breath.
I’m losing control and I have no fucking clue what to do.
Where the fuck am I gonna find sixty grand in seven days?
I have at most ten grand to spare, but what about the rest? I could sell my truck, but it still won’t be enough.
“Fuck,” I mumble, my voice fading into nothing in the dark, quiet house.
I could call Dwight and ask for a loan... No. I’ll be fucked if I’m reduced to begging my best friend to bail me out of a grave I dug myself, but if I don’t, I’ll be the one buried in it.
Robbing a bank actually seems like my only option right now.
God, how I wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole. But then what would happen to Amy?
They’d go after her, and I can’t let that happen. I have to protect her, and the best way to do that is by keeping my distance.
I can’t involve her any further into this mess I’ve created for myself.
On reflection, helping Amy fix up the GTO was a bad move, it was time and energy I could have spent at the shop, figuring out how to find him his money, but I couldn’t let her down. Being with her was a distraction, not the best decision I’ve made, but that time with her was enough to distract me from my fucked up life, the same way I was her distraction from thinking about her father.
Yeah, it started out that way, but it soon turned into more.
Love.
I fucking love this girl and I’ll be damned if I let her get hurt because of me and somethingIdid.
No. As much as it kills me, I have to stay away, for now at least until I set everything straight, and afterwards we can go back to normal.
Well, if there is an afterwards. If I don’t pay up in seven days, I’m as good as dead, but I’d rather it be me than Amy.
I’m in some serious shit, and I have no idea how to dig myself out of it.
∞∞∞
I’ve barely fucking slept. I spent all of last night tossing and turning, wondering what the fuck to do about the money, thinking up a million different ways I could get it. Sure, eighty percent of my ideas were illegal and there’s no way in hell I’m going down that road, but aside from that, I’m coming up short.
I’ve been sat on my couch, staring at my laptop since seven am, my first search being,‘how to make money fast’, and all of the answers were stupid, one that stuck out as an option was gambling, but do I really wanna go down that slippery slope? Do I really have a choice?
I look up the current market for my truck, trying to catch an idea of the sort of money I could get for it, but even with that, I’m still not even close to reaching what I owe him.
“Fucking hell,” I mumble to myself, just moments before there’s a knock on my front door and my heart lurches.
Is it him? Has he changed his mind about giving me the extension? Who the hell am I kidding, Donovan isn’t polite enough to knock.
