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“Who says I’m lying?”

He points up and over my shoulder. “The pile of overflowing notices you have looks like an art installation.”

“Harold.” I singsong his name. “You flatter me. Art truly is my calling. Thanks for noticing.”

He sighs, unimpressed and equally irritated. “Don’t you work with video games?”

Now it’s my turn to look unimpressed and even more irritated. “Yes. It’s an art.” You fucking moron.

“I hate to sound insensitive.” That’s a lie. This is coming from the guy who knocked on Mrs. Torres’s door telling her to keep her crying down the day after her husband passed away because it was distracting his weekly poker gathering. “But you should really be embarrassed.”

I quirk a brow, crossing my arms. “Of?”

He points to the garbage can again.

I can’t help but scoff. “If you ask me, you should be the one who is embarrassed. Look at how many trees you contributed to killing.”

He rolls his eyes. “Well, here I am now, killing one less tree by knocking at your door, delivering one final message in person.” A pitiful look stares back at me, making my stomach churn. “All jokes aside, no one hates having to do this more than I do. But you are late on your rent.”

That’s an understatement. Harold knows it as well as I do.

Hell, the garbage can even knows it. She’s living proof, for fuck’s sake.

In a rare occurrence, Harold is being nice and downplaying just how late I am. Maybe I underestimated him. Perhaps he’s not a total piece of shit.

“Which is wild to me. You’d think boning Kent Duran would’ve meant you’d have some spare pocket change. Or, shit, I don’t know, a ring on your finger and not having to live in this shithole.”

I stand corrected. He’s an even bigger piece of shit that I gave him credit for.

Not finding it necessary to divulge the downfall of my most recent relationship, I decide to speed this up a bit. After all, the mounting pile of unpaid bills I have aren’t going to pay themselves if I don’t get to work.

“I’ll be sure to catch up on the rent for the last few months when I pay this month.”

“Few? You haven’t paid rent in almost five months.”

Damn. I didn’t realize it’s been that long. Time sure does fly by when your life as you know it is falling apart.

Somewhere in between being overworked and underappreciated, dealing with the aftermath of the breakup from hell, and grieving a loss that seems to hurt more with time, paying my rent wasn’t at the top of my priority list…sue me. Or technically evict me? Either way I’m fucked. I can’t afford legal fees or a new place to live.

“If you’re able to pay all you owe me by the first of the month, I won’t have to evict you.”

I can’t help but cackle. “Don’t you think if I could pay, I would have? It’s not like I’m rolling in the dough.” I mean, once I hopefully get the promotion I’ve been waiting patiently for, I can work in either level or narrative design, then maybe in two months’ time, with the pay increase and holiday bonus, I could catch up on rent. I’m usually not so presumptuous, but given how I have a BFA in game design and am stuck in quality assurance, I’m more than qualified. We’re having a meeting to go over the details this…

Oh my god.

I glance down at my phone’s lock screen for the time. “I’m going to be late!”

“To what?”

“Work! What do you think?”

Harold should take that as his cue to get out of the way, considering that work is how I make money, and money is what he needs from me, but somehow that would be too easy. He remains in front of me, unmoving. I try motioning for him to move as politely as I can, but after the third time, I’ve lost all patience.

“Want to know the fastest way I can pay you?”

Dumbfounded excitement blooms in his eyes.

Fucking idiot.