I stuck my tongue out at her. “All right, I get it. I’m just waiting for the call from Dare for the bill. What’s one more thing to add to my crushing debt?”
“Did you talk to your landlord?”
I winced. “No, I have a meeting with Deb, our property manager, after work.”
She gave me a painful smile. “Maybe it won’t be so bad.”
“Maybe I’m screwed. Do you think they’ll evict me?”
“Probably not, but they may make you rehome Gizmo.”
“No! I can’t do that.” I snatched the framed photo of my cat and clutched it to my chest. “Would you be willing—”
“Nope!” Avery stood up. “I love you, but there’s no amount of Zyrtec that will stave off my allergies to your cat.”
I sighed and put my frame back where it belonged. “Okay. Maybe I can get Shelby to take him for a little while.”
“With the two dogs?”
I tipped my head back. Bad idea. “No, Gizmo is a menace with dogs.”
“Sorry, babe.” She flipped her long, thick mane of a ponytail over her shoulder and holstered her shears. “I’m off to the Jefferson’s house to finish excavating. I’m sure you’ll figure something out. You always do.” She slapped the doorjamb then waved before she sailed out the door.
Yes, I did. I was one of the best problem solvers in our firm. As for my own life? Not so much. That was absolute chaos compared to my business acumen.
Unfortunately, Gizmo had stolen my heart within the first twenty seconds after finding him behind a property we’d been renovating.
He’d been scrawny with matted fur, plus half-starved—and yet he was still so dang sweet. I couldn’t resist taking him home. He’d been the perfect cat, until I found out about his penchant for turning on faucets.
There were a lot of untils in my world.
I picked up my phone and idly checked the HEA dating app. “Oh, that’s great.” Derek had blocked me.
Maybe it had been him in the street last night and he’d witnessed me losing my damn mind and attacking that dude’s truck.
In fact, clearly, I couldn’t be trusted at this point when it came to the opposite sex. Period.
I logged out of the app and uninstalled it from my phone. Someone else would have to write the strongly worded email about some of the men double-dipping on the app. I’d be too busy working to pay for my idiocy.
Both for the truck and possibly my apartment. Maybe they’d take my security deposit for the damages.
I leaned forward and thunked my forehead on my desk again. I was so screwed and the stupid headache from all that tequila wasn’t helping.
I dragged my phone over and glanced at the readout for the time. At least it was lunchtime. Perhaps a trip out to the lake to see my dream house would help perk me up. It had been a minute since I’d been out there and right about now, daydreams were far more welcome than the reality of my life.
I picked up my cherry-red bucket bag with the cute black and white polka dot scarf I’d tied to it. It matched the black pencil skirt I was wearing and red halter top in deference to the May heat. Summer was starting earlier and earlier these days, but I didn’t mind it. A welcome sunny day was better for my mood, anyway.
If I’d been thinking ahead, I would have brought a pair of tennis shoes to wear on the craggy beach rather than these heels, but I didn’t need to get out of the car.
I just needed to see my house.
Well, not mine. That would be a feat. The old Victorian mansion was well out of my price range unless I suddenly won the lottery.
I shouldered my bag and sailed out into the main part of Designing Women’s office. It was my favorite part of our building. The old storefront had been a plain box when we’d bought it. The smarter move would have been renting, but the four of us had gone all in on the business.
And owning the building meant we could make it ours. From the vaulted ceiling to the huge picture window with detailed casings that allowed the sun in to highlight every square inch, all of it was the definition of our brand. Half of it was made into a gallery with gray walls on discreet wheels that could be moved around to highlight whichever project we were most proud of at the time.
Instead of artwork, we had professional photos of the properties and rooms we’d designed mounted on raised glass plaques. On the backside of the movable walls, we had our look books tacked up with fabrics, paint chips, and samples of wood. For many people, seeing the hows and the whys of how we built a space often stimulated their own creativity.
Not to mention how much it helped to spotlight that some people needed a little help with bringing their own vision to life. And because I was all about online galleries, as well, there were tiny QR codes that went to our website with before and after videos of the final spaces.
I was pretty sure a third of my debt was because of that aspect to our business. While the visuals were important to me while I was creating a vision board, I also knew that design programs on television had helped create the need for the bells and whistles. We needed people to believe we were capable of renovating, remodeling, or simply decorating a space. That came with proof of purchase, so to speak.
And those were the things I needed to remember when I was mired in the minutiae of my own problems. I’d worked my ass off to create this space with my best friends. And that legacy was my focus, not these stupid setbacks.
I glanced across to Shelby’s office, but she was still out with a prospective client. TJ was on the phone, her eyes closed, and her buff-colored Timberland-clad feet propped on the conference table as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “I know, George. But I don’t have a three-week opening in my schedule. What are my other options?”
The joys of working in a design studio also meant we had to juggle ordering and installing furniture, kitchens, or in TJ’s case, ordering lumber for her one of a kind built-ins. She was our in-house carpenter and was generally in high demand.
However, things had been in a bit of a lull as we dug out of a lagging spring. A three-week wait also meant a three-week wait on money coming in.
Normally, we could juggle a few different projects when we had unruly wait times.
Right now? We needed all the jobs we could get.
I pulled out my phone and sent TJ a text that I was stepping out for lunch and asked if she wanted me to bring her anything back. I slipped out without waiting for her to get off the phone. She’d be annoyed to have to hold down the fort, but I needed a few minutes.
I stopped in at the deli across from our storefront and treated myself to a ham and Swiss on fresh rye bread with a shitload of spicy mustard. And because Jamie, the owner, loved me, he gave me an extra three pickle spears. With my sandwich in hand, I hopped in my car for the fifteen-minute drive out to Crescent Lake. I rolled down the windows and turned up my music to blow the rest of my headache away.
