Chapter 1 #2
My phone buzzes against my leg. I know without looking it’s either Mom with an update or my manager cutting my weekend shift. Either way, the night’s young and these idiots still need their ringleader, so I decide to ignore the phone for now and give myself one moment of respite.
“Victory lap!” I bellow. “Shots for the conquered and water for the winners—we’re sportsmen, not savages!”
They surge forward like I’m dispensing communion wine. And just for now, just for tonight, their laughter’s almost loud enough.
Almost.
Forty-seven dollars to my name, and my sister’s wheezing through another night.
Fucking spectacular.
As soon as my apartment door thuds shut behind me, it’s like someone cut my strings. All that top-shelf bravado I’ve been pouring down my throat at O’Neil’s burns off faster than money at a strip club, leaving me leaning against the wall, considering exactly how fucked I am.
No roommate to cushion the bills.
No furniture worth selling to get in front of my credit card statement.
There’s the Craigslist couch—forty bucks and a tetanus risk—that still reeks of its previous owner’s life choices. The coffee table that tilts where the duct tape surrendered last week. The TV that only works if you hit it just right. And, as if on cue, the fridge contributes a death rattle.
Jesus Christ, stop being such a pussy.
The thought arrives in Dad’s voice, even though he’s never actually said it. He never needed to, because the Hamilton family assigned roles at birth: Chloe drew “sick kid who needs everything,” and I pulled “healthy kid who should shut up and be grateful.”
Twenty-two years running, and I’m still nailing my performance.
With a lengthy sigh, I shove off the door and stumble kitchenward, legs wobbling and mind grinding through the math. Three bucks a beer at O’Neil’s means I literally drank dinner tonight. And tomorrow’s breakfast. Hell, at this rate, I drank next month’s… uh…
Shit.
When your brain can’t even finish the joke about rent, you’re properly broke.
Well, there’s always protein shakes. The hockey program provides those for free, and I haven’t yet found a limit. Because nothing screams “living the dream” like powder mixed with water. It does raise the question of when I last ate actual food.
I should order food, but that would involve figuring out if I can fit rent and a grocery order into my rapidly dwindling resources. A paycheck from Pizza Plus went in yesterday, but I also flicked my mom a fifty to help her out, so who knows where things stand after my night at O’Neil’s.
Check it tomorrow , my mind tempts me.
But Chloe’s face keeps flashing across my brain. Pale, exhausted, the mask making her look like she’s drowning in oxygen while her big brother’s drowning in beer and self-pity and debt. The guilt hits sudden and brutal, completely deserved.
Check the goddamn phone, you coward.
I dig it out. Open the app. The number appears: $47.23.
I stare at it, waiting for a miracle. For the digits to rearrange themselves into something less pathetic. But math doesn’t give a fuck about my feelings. That’s it. That’s what Maine Hamilton—senior, NHL left wing prospect, three-time O’Neil’s karaoke champion—is worth.
“Damn it,” I mutter.
The reality hits, burning through my drunken buzz like napalm. I’ve got 800 in rent due in a week. Since my housemate left last semester, I’ve been desperately trying to find another, but everyone I’ve tried is either crazy, as broke as I am, or a risk to murder me in my sleep.
Savings, a credit card, and extra shifts got me this far.
But now?
I might as well owe eight million.
I get scholarship money, and I’ve been working my ass off at Pizza Plus, but it’s not enough. Hell, any chance I had of meeting rent vanished with one phone call from my mom a week ago, just a week after I’d returned to Pine Barren after the semester break.
“Sweetie, I hate to ask…” she’d said, in that particular tone that means she’s been crying again. “Chloe’s new inhaler… insurance is being difficult…”
I transferred it before she finished explaining. She asked if it was a problem, and I told her I won it betting on the Rangers. She believed it because she needed to, because the show must go on, and we all know our assigned parts by heart by now.
My phone buzzes against the counter. It’s a message from my landlord:
Rent is due Monday. You were late last month. Any delay, and we’ll need to discuss other arrangements.
Other arrangements. That’s landlord for “pack your shit and don’t let the door hit your broke ass,” wrapped in niceties.
But I can’t be mad at him, because Gene’s been decent.
He ignored the hole Rook put in the wall, kept my rent reasonable when everyone else jacked theirs, and handled one late payment.
And this is how I repay him.
The panic arrives in courses. First: chest tightening like someone’s sitting on my lungs. Second: copper flooding my mouth, pulse hammering in my teeth like they’re trying to escape my skull. Third: the sweats, cold and clammy, my body’s way of saying, “Hey, asshole, remember consequences?”
I can’t be homeless. The thought crystallizes with high-definition clarity. The guys would see the wizard behind the curtain.
Can’t move home, either. That’d take me too far away from Pine Barren to keep up with hockey, and I can’t afford to transfer schools and lose my scholarship. Besides, my parents don’t need their healthy son’s eviction notice added to their collection of bad news.
Time’s up, asshole . My mind is in a cheery mood tonight. You’ve got one option, extra shifts and a roommate, and you need to stop being so goddamn fussy.
Tomorrow.
I’ll figure it out tomorrow.
I pocket my phone and shuffle to my bedroom, past the bathroom I’ll be sharing with some stranger who’ll wonder why I’m singing at 4:00 a.m. and eating protein shakes for every meal.
Then past Chloe’s school photo—the one where she’s grinning around her breathing tube, still managing to look happier than me.
Tomorrow.
And with it will come the resurrection of Maine Hamilton. The life of the party, the guy who’s figured it all out and doesn’t need anything from anyone, and who’s definitely not measuring his life in hours until homelessness. The mask always goes back on, so I’ll just have to figure out a way.
But tonight, alone in this shithole I’m about to lose, with forty-seven dollars between me and disaster, I let myself feel the full weight of how completely, utterly, spectacularly fucked I am.
And then, another phone buzz later, the app helpfully tells me that the bank’s one-dollar monthly fee has been subtracted.
Forty-six dollars now.
Because even my poverty’s got a cover charge.