Page 30 of The Promise Of You

“Dude, what are you doing?” I close my email icon, trying to get past the fact that my tenant is trying to get an extension on their rent. After what they did to me, they have some nerve.

“I’m banking on a bunch of losers to help me find Alexandra,” Chris says, talking straight into the camera. That’s live, too, as my phone screen attests a split second after he talks.

It’s time for an intervention, so I talk him through what he’s doing. Meanwhile, the email icon lights again. Another pushback from the new manager at the restaurant.

Really? The woman has no shame. I type a quick response and clear my mind by bombing Chris’s video, my head over his shoulder as he talks.

Chris finally gets the idea that he’s not going about it the right way, and he logs off.

“Hey, man, when are you going to reopen the bakery?” I ask him when he puts his phone away.

“Not ’til I get Alex back.”

I sigh and cross my arms, feeling his pain. I’m about to try and talk some sense into him, but he says, “What’s up with you? You look like shit.”

“Nothin’,” I lie. He sees right through it, so I offer, “The restaurant has a new manager. She’s busting my balls about the rent.” I’m not going to tell him I’m bent out of shape over Clover. And if this Chloe Sullivan keeps at it like that, she might become reason enough for me to be pissed all day, anyway.

“What about the rent?”

I tell him the situation in a few words, then move onto the real reason I’m here: talking my friend into reopening his bakery, into getting his life back on track, but before I can get too far, my phone rings. Haley. This should be quick, so I pick up. “Whassup?”

“Hey, so… the lady from the restaurant is here?”

You gotta be kidding me. “The fuck does she want?”

“Um… to talk to you?” She lowers her voice. “She’s really nice, and she wants to fix up the restaurant. I think you should talk to her.”

That’s not going to happen. “They want to fix up the restaurant on my money so they can sell it at a premium.”

“What do you mean?” she whispers.

“They’re late on rent.”

“Yeah! Like half the country,” she hisses.

“Three months, going on four, and asking for more.”

“Oh.”

Yeah, oh. Does my sister really think I’d be an asshole for one month late? “Why did you let her in?”

“She was super nice.”

More like, super pushy. “Really.”

“Yeah, really,” Haley insists, still whispering but in an angry way. “What do you mean about the selling stuff?” she whispers.

I can’t believe they’re actually hoping I’ll give them another extension so they can sell the restaurant instead of just folding like he should have ages ago. The guy was a permanent insult to me. To this whole town. After everything he did, I couldn’t believe he had the balls to stay in town, when he didn’t even live here. No wonder none of the locals ever went to his place. They knew the history. No matter how good his food was—when he was able to keep a decent chef around—they weren’t going to give him their business.

“What’s going on, man?” Chris asks.

I cover the phone’s mic. “The restaurant’s new manager, Murphy’s niece. She’s at the pub. Pain in my ass.”

He lifts his chin. “Shit never ends, does it.”

“You got that right.”

“Runs in the family. Nip it in the bud,” Chris says just as Haley tells me, “What do you want me to tell her?”

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