Chapter 18 #2
“Fuck,” I cried, burying my face in my hands and sobbing.
Guess I could have told fucking Kingmaker. But like hell I trusted him. Besides, I’d kind of… gotten used to… doing well and proving I was on the up and up.
No. I’d just make it tonight. Tomorrow I’d go to Housing Court, whatever the hell that was, and do… whatever I was supposed to do now. I’d get it solved. Cleared up. Tomorrow. I just had to make it through the night.
Just one night on my own.
I let myself have one more feral, angry scream, muffled into my hands, before, shaky, my head spinning, I stood up.
Amber had told me I could use the studio outside operating hours.
They’d never let me use the space again if they caught me sleeping in it, but I’d at least have a roof over my head for the night.
I stumbled through the streets, suddenly panicked someone was going to jump me off every corner—I walked these streets alone at night all the time, and I was savvy, but I suddenly felt so weak and helpless that I almost cried in relief when I made it in one piece to the studio, using Amber’s key to get inside the building and shut myself inside the recording room, and thank god it was empty and soundproofed, because then I broke down crying loud and ugly on the floor, clutching at my hair in both hands.
I didn’t know how to handle a court case.
And how was I supposed to do it while I was living on the street?
Maybe I should have just gone back to Missouri.
I’d bitched and moaned a lot about this city, but in the end, I’d gotten really fucking lucky with all the things I’d pulled off despite not having a clue what I was doing.
And Helena was the best thing that had ever happened to me.
Hell, maybe it was for the best like this.
I could tell her the truth about me and then disappear.
Liv could probably handle the rest of the event for Jewel.
I’d done the legwork of getting people signing on, and she could handle the rest. Krysten had a whole good team of people a whole hell of a lot smarter than me.
I didn’t mean to fall asleep in the room, telling myself I’d just sit down on the floor with my head against the wall and process my thoughts, but I jerked awake in a panic somewhere around two in the morning, gasping back out of a surreal dream and patting myself down.
For a second, there was a wild hope that everything was a dream, that I hadn’t really been kicked out onto the street, but I pulled up my phone and saw the texts with the fucking landlord, and I felt sick all over again.
Paced the room, trying to stay awake—I didn’t know if one of the staff might have come in overnight, like everyone connected to the place did sometimes, and I didn’t want them to catch me sleeping on the floor—and I restlessly pushed piano keys to keep myself occupied.
Then I was looking up what to do with the Housing Court, even though I was desperately tired and my eyes glazed over trying to parse a text that I wasn’t even sure if it was relevant, and furiously, I banged on piano keys in a way that sounded more angry and desperate and sad than they did musical.
I drifted around the room like a lost puppy for the restless hours of the night, and I alternated between playing instruments, writing bitter song lyrics on scraps of paper, pacing the room, and sitting on the floor trying desperately not to fall asleep.
Five was late enough. I still felt horrible, like I’d rolled down a hill face-first, every part of me aching and my brain throbbing with distracted pain in my skull, but I pulled myself together and left the studio room to go start a new fucking day.
A day to get my court case figured out. Or to leave this stupid fucking city.
It was almost June. If my asshole landlord hadn’t guilt-tripped me into staying an extra month, I would be leaving soon anyway. I guess everything came full circle in the end.
I stumbled out into the streets as dawn slipped its fingers through the buildings around me, and even though I was so tired that my skull was throbbing, I checked in on the stupid delivery app and got on my stupid moped and consoled myself that at least if I died in a crash then I wouldn’t have to deal with what came next.
But I didn’t die in a crash. Maybe it was the stress that made me alert right now, and I drove just fine as I made early-morning deliveries to some people and late-night deliveries to some people, and by eleven, I had enough pocket change that I could justify grabbing a day pass at a gym and using the shower there.
And buy some new clothes to change into.
And find a place to store my old clothes.
Shit, I was homeless. Like legitimately homeless.
My pride broke, and I texted Kingmaker.
JULIE
I need to talk to you about something, can we meet?
He responded much too quickly.
KINGMAKER
I know you do
Meet me at the office
Well, back to the studio. I dragged myself back feeling like all my bones were broken, and I slumped up the stairs to get to Kingmaker’s crappy little office space, where I knocked on the door.
“Come in,” he said, his voice sounding less like the stupid Kingmaker act and more like a frustrated man. I opened the door.
“Hey,” I said, and he looked up from behind his desk.
“Siddown.”
“You already know?” I said, and he folded his arms.
“You shoulda just told me.”
“Look, I was panicked. But I’m here now.”
“So what are we gonna do now?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you, dude. I don’t… I don’t fucking know.”
“I told you not to do this,” he said. “Can’t keep coaching you if you ain’t gonna listen to me.”
“Listen to you? About what? Dude, I’ve been doing what I can. This was just bad fucking luck. It’s been two years, and it couldn’t have waited another month and a half?”
“That’s exactly what I wanna know. You couldn’t keep it in your pants?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“You and Helena Warrick. How long you been sleeping with her?”
“What?” I shook my head, the pain in my skull sharpening into a blade point behind my forehead. “Dude, what the fuck… that’s not what I’m here about!”
“I told you not to get involved. Like I said, can’t keep coaching you if you ain’t gonna listen to me.”
“Listen, that is not important right now.”
“So you finally admit to it.”
“Dude, I just got kicked out of my home. All my fucking stuff is in there, too. I’m broke and homeless and I don’t have anything except for what’s in my day bag.”
He hesitated awkwardly. “What the fuck did you do to get kicked out?”
“Nothing! Literally nothing! But it was always an illegal sublet, and they just happened to catch on yesterday, and my landlord changed the locks, he’s ghosting me, the police told me there’s nothing they can do.
Fuck, dude. I’m fucking screwed,” I said, my voice thick, and he shifted uncomfortably.
“You, uh… I don’t know what to do with that,” he said.
“Seriously?”
“I don’t get involved in shit outside the law.”
“It’s not—it’s not my fault!”
He shook his head, hands up. “Better go to the courts or whatever, I dunno.”
“Seriously?” I gasped, clutching my hands in my lap. “Now that it’s come to this, you’re just fucking blowing me off? What happened to success guaranteed?”
“It ain’t… it ain’t guaranteed if you won’t participate in it.”
“You fucking—this is because I hooked up with Helena, you don’t give a shit if I’m out on the street?” I stood up, my eyes burning now. “Why are you so fucking mad about it, anyway?”
“I told you it ain’t right for the mission, and you just fucking blow me off for some hot piece of ass just because you got lucky enough she’s there at this event paying attention to you? And I’m the one who got you there, and you won’t even tell me about it?”
“What the—” I put my hand on my forehead. “Dude, are you serious?”
“Why don’t you go ask her for help instead?”
“You’re fucking jealous that I slept with Helena and so you’re just putting your hands up while I’m out on the fucking street?”
“It ain’t like that,” he shot back heatedly, rising from his seat. “You don’t fucking get it!”
“Fuck,” I said, snatching my bag back up off the seat, “you, Kingmaker, you fucking—” I whirled on my heel, storming back to the door.
“Sleazy-ass fucking con artist, stupid lying piece of shit, posing like you know what you’re doing when you’re just some asshole in a pizza parlor, pretending you have clients when you’re the hopeless loser, and you get so fucking sore about it that you don’t even want me to succeed, so fuck you, fuck you—”
I stomped out and slammed the door back behind me, buried my face in my hands, and I screamed.
I was getting the fuck out of this fucking city.