Page 39 of The One I Hate
“Whoa…” I throw my hands up and shake my head. “I feel like I missed about sixteen steps here.”
Emmett laughs. “I can see that. Let’s talk specifics.”
He talks about a two-year lease with my thirty-five-hundred-dollar rent paid monthly. He slides to me the stipulations and legalities in a manila folder, but I’ll have to go back and read those later. Right now I can’t focus. This is too good to be true.
Which means it likely is. I’m missing something.
“So what do you say?” Emmett asks. “Want to open your restaurant?”
My mind is racing, and I don’t know what to say. My gut is telling me to say yes because this has to be a dream and I’m scared I’m going to wake up. Or that Emmett is drunk at eight in the morning and he doesn’t know what he’s agreeing to.
But the other part of me, the responsible part of me, is telling me to say no. This is crazy. I know what my budget is, and that thirty-five hundred was what I could afford if I only ate Ramen for a year and slept in my office. I still need a place to live, and I won’t have Connor to help me with rent. He has a steady job in Nashville, and I can’t ask him to give that up.
Plus, can I move to a town where I know one person? Okay, two people, but one of those people I hope falls in a sewer.
No. I can’t do this. Even if it feels like I’m throwing away my only chance at making my dreams come true.
“I appreciate this, Emmett. I really do. And you seem like a great guy…”
“Why do I feel like you’re breaking up with me?”
I chuckle. That would be a first in the history of my lifetime. “Seriously, I appreciate you saying that. About the price, that is. But I threw that number out almost jokingly. I really can’t afford that. I mean, I can, but it’s my max budget for a spaceandsomewhere to live. It would be straining me to a point where I wouldn’t feel comfortable starting a business and a new life. I hope you can understand.”
I let out a breath. There. All said out loud. I’ve officially let Emmett, and Whitley, down easy. All that’s left is for me to now feel horrible about saying no to the perfect place.
“Nope! I refuse to accept this,” Whitley says. “You’re going to move in with me. I’ll pay half the rent here. Whatever you need.”
I shoot her a look. “Whitley. I can’t move in with you. And you aren’t paying any of my rent.”
“Why? I have the money. And we have space. And it wouldn’t be forever. Just for a few months until the restaurant is up and running and you’re a little more liquid with money.”
“Thank you, but I can’t ask you to do either of those things,” I say.
“You didn’t ask. I volunteered,” she said. “I refuse for that to be the reason you don’t open your restaurant.”
It’s not the only reason…
“I appreciate you.” I put my hand on top of hers. “But I don’t want a handout. I don’t like feeling like I’m accepting charity.”
“What if an apartment was included?”
Whitley and I both turn to look at Emmett. “Excuse me?”
“There are vacant apartments upstairs,” Emmett says. “The owner doesn’t have any immediate plans for them.”
“I couldn’t?—”
“You could,” he replies. “The owner gave me a base price on what he would accept. Thirty-five hundred was it. So consider it done.”
“I—” I lose my words. Then again, that implies that I had words. Because I don’t. This is the perfect restaurant and an apartment for a price I can now afford when they are together? It’s a dream come true.
“What’s the catch?”
“No catch,” he says.
“I don’t live in a world where there aren’t catches.”
“Welcome to Rolling Hills, the land of no catches.”
