Valentine’s Billionaire Auction

Chapter 9

9

KAIRA

I got home, feeling incredibly guilty for being at home in the middle of the day. Carla was working two jobs, and I had none.

Zero.

I was dead weight. Once again, I was unemployed. I didn’t think I was a total failure, but I couldn’t seem to find a job that worked well for me.

I changed into cleaning clothes. I was going to be the house bitch for at least a couple days. While my roomie worked, I was going to scrub the apartment from top to bottom. Maybe by then, I’ll have figured out what I was going to do.

And I would make her a late dinner. She typically got off at nine or ten on the weeknights. I pulled my hair up and started with the fridge. I pulled out a few containers of Chinese food and gave them the sniff test.

“Good Lord.” I nearly gagged. “Who ordered the poopoo platter?”

I kept cleaning and tossing stuff in the trash. By the time I finished, it looked like we were impoverished. I supposed we were.

Well, I was.

I continued my cleaning spree in the kitchen, even cleaning the dishwasher before I loaded it. The place was sparkling clean and ready to be cooked in. But it was still early. I busted out the Pledge and dusted the living room before vacuuming and mopping.

By the time I was done, I collapsed onto our couch, breathing heavily. The apartment smelled faintly of citrus and soap.

“Maybe I should become a housekeeper or something,” I mumbled to myself, eyes resting on the spotless kitchen.

With a sigh, I pushed myself up from the couch and walked over to our small bookshelf. There were a handful of dusty cookbooks there that Carla and I kept promising each other we’d try cooking from one day. Maybe today was the day.

Pulling out a book titled International Delights , I started flipping through the pages, each one containing exotic dishes from all around the world. As I skimmed through, one dish caught my eye—Spanakopita, a Greek spinach and feta cheese pastry.

“Why not?” I murmured to myself. My pencil traced down the list of ingredients I’d need. Flour, feta cheese, spinach. Most of them already in our pantry or fridge.

I put on an apron and got to work. I thought about last night. How ridiculous was it that a single stupid sneeze cost me my job? Utter bullshit.

I could not say the night had been worth it, either. Hanging out with the insufferable Roman Kelly was not worth being jobless. If he would have let me go back and apologize and fix things, I would still have my job, crappy as it was.

But there was no going back, only forward. I chopped the spinach. Carla would appreciate this meal, I hoped. It was a small thing, cooking dinner, but it was better than just springing the bad news on her.

If life kept tossing me out of jobs because of absurd reasons or bad luck intersecting with bizarre circumstances, maybe I should stop relying on traditional jobs. Maybe I could do some kind of freelance stuff.

Carla texted and let me know she was heading home early and offered to pick up pizza. I quickly replied and told her I made dinner.

She stopped almost immediately when she walked through the door. She looked around and then at me.

“Wow,” she said.

“I cleaned up.”

“Is the pope coming over or something?”

“I had some time on my hands.”

“Uh oh. That’s the face of a woman who needs a glass of wine. What happened?”

“I got fired.”

Her eyes widened. “No. Way. Those bastards!”

“It was my fault,” I admitted. I grabbed the bottle of wine from the fridge and opened it.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“That whole auction bid thing—it wasn’t a good look for the company. They said it jeopardized their reputation.”

“Ugh, reputation-schmeputation. Did you explain what happened?”

“I tried, but they weren’t hearing it. I had just started anyway.”

“Did you get severance?” she joked.

“Nope. Just my last check.” I laughed bitterly. “Guess that’ll make a nice going-away card when I frame it next to my unemployment notice.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s figure this out. How much do you have in savings?”

“Less than three thousand.”

“Rent’s due in two weeks,” she muttered, doing mental calculations. “Look, don’t stress. I’ll cover your share this month. You’ll find something by then—I know you will.”

Her confidence in me felt warm and reassuring, but it didn’t fix the pit in my stomach. “I hate this,” I said, tugging at my hair. “I hate feeling like I’m going to let you down. Or myself. I’m dragging you down. It’s wrong. You shouldn’t have to support me.”

Carla smiled. “Kaira, stop. People fall in love with you the second they meet you. Employers are no different. You’ll get a new gig, probably one that doesn’t suck. You didn’t even like that job!”

“That’s not the point,” I sighed. “Everyone needs money, and not everyone needs to like their job. Few people go to work because it’s fun. Besides, the one thing I love doing isn’t profitable.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” she said. She took a drink of her wine.

“I made dinner,” I said. “Spanakopita”

“Did you just sneeze again?”

I grinned. “Just wait. It looked good. I just hope it tastes as good.”

We dished up and chose to eat in front of the TV. After our meal, she stretched out. Her long legs flexed as she kicked one foot into the air, the delicate anklet on her ankle catching the light. Her job as a yoga instructor kept her nice and flexible.

“Maybe this is the universe’s way of telling you to go for something you actually want. Like, I don’t know… writing?”

I rolled my eyes. “Here we go.”

“I’m serious! You’ve been talking about writing for years, Kaira. If you’re not going to take a shot at it now, when will you?”

“Writing doesn’t pay bills,” I said, the words bitter on my tongue. “Do you know how hard it is to get a book in front of an agent? And then the agent has to get it in front of a publisher. But before any of that can happen, I have to actually write a book.”

“You wouldn’t know how hard it is. You’ve never tried.” Carla’s tone was gentle but firm, as it always was when she decided to nudge me toward a truth I didn’t want to face. “You just write these stories in your head and claim you want to be a writer. One of these days, you’ve got to take a chance on something you care about.”

“I care about being able to pay rent,” I muttered, but her words sank deep. “I don’t have time to write a book because I have to work a job that actually pays the bills.”

“You will. I’ll help you.” She shrugged like it was the easiest thing in the world. “But come on—this is your chance. Don’t waste it. Tomorrow morning, you get your ass up and start writing.”

I didn’t have a good response. “We’ll see,” I said. “I’m going to read. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I stood and retreated to my bedroom. Carla was right, as usual, but hearing it was exhausting. I felt like a loser. She saw something she wanted, and she went after it. She was fearless. Nothing held her back. I wanted to be like that.

I grabbed the book I’d been reading from my nightstand and curled up under the covers. It was a sweeping romance—the kind that made me laugh, cry, and wish I had half the talent it took to write something so good.

The story pulled me in, but my thoughts kept drifting back to Carla’s advice. My old laptop sat on the desk in the corner, its scratched silver surface practically taunting me. You wouldn’t know. You’ve never tried.

With a groan, I shoved my book aside and dragged the laptop onto my bed. It whirred to life, louder than I remembered, as I opened a blank document.

I stared at the blinking cursor for a full minute.

“This is stupid,” I muttered. But my fingers hovered over the keys anyway.

I closed my eyes and let my mind drift to that story that had been percolating in the back of my mind for months. It was the story that haunted me when I was sleeping or when I was in the shower. It was like the characters were screaming at me to get it on the page.

And then, as if a dam had burst, the words started pouring out. My fingers started flying over the keyboard.

By the time I glanced at the clock again, it was three in the morning. My hands were stiff from typing, my shoulders ached, and my thighs were numb where the laptop had been sitting. But none of that mattered because for the first time in years, I felt alive.

The characters I’d carried around in my head for so long were finally on the page, breathing and living and falling in love. I couldn’t stop. Every time I tried, a new scene or line of dialogue would pop into my head, demanding to be written.

It was the most exhilarating feeling I’d had in ages.

I knew I should go to bed, but there was a little voice in the back of my head telling me it wasn’t like I had a job. I didn’t have to wake up early. I could work all day and night.

I started typing once again. I didn’t want to think about how many typos I was making. I would fix them later. I just needed to get the story down.

The next thing I knew, sunlight streamed through my curtains. There was a horrible kink in my neck. I yelped as a sharp, stinging heat flared across my thighs.

“Holy crap!” I scrambled to push the laptop off my lap, but the damage was done. The fan had gone into overdrive during the night, overheating the machine and leaving an angry red mark on my skin.

My chest tightened as I tried to turn it back on. Nothing.

“No, no, no,” I whispered, pressing the power button frantically. The screen stayed dark.

I flipped it over, yanked out the battery, and tried again. Still nothing.

“No!” My voice cracked as I clutched the laptop to my chest. Hours of work—of magic —gone in an instant.

Carla burst into the room, her hair wild and her eyes wide. “What happened? Did someone break in?”

“My computer died!” I wailed.

She crossed the room and plucked the laptop from my arms, inspecting it like a doctor diagnosing a patient. “Did you overheat it?”

I nodded miserably.

“Well, shit.” She set it down and turned to me. “Is everything backed up?”

I shook my head.

“Kaira!”

“I didn’t think I’d need to! It was my first time writing in a while.”

Carla groaned, running a hand through her hair. “Okay. First of all, don’t panic. Second, this is why we use Google Docs, babe.”

My hands clenched the sheets, tears burning at the edges of my eyes.

“Kaira, hey.” She crouched in front of me, her hands on my knees. “It’s okay. You’re okay. We’ll figure this out.”

“I can’t believe I did this,” I whispered. “It was finally happening, Carla. I felt like… like I found something real. And now it’s gone.”

She pulled me into a hug, stroking my back. “Listen to me. You wrote it once, and you’ll write it again. You’ve got this. Okay?”

I nodded, but the sting of losing something I’d poured my heart into was unbearable.

For the first time in a long time, I’d let myself dream. Now I had to figure out if I could find the courage to start over.

The story was gone. There was no way I could write it the way I did the first time.