Page 89 of Sweet Ruin

“Those are the only kinds of questions you ever ask me!” she teases.

I lob a stale bread roll at her head. She ducks it, giggling, then turns around, props herself against the counter, and crosses her arms in the classic Priyanka Osborne way. It always makes me feel like I’ve been sent in for a scolding from the world’s kindest elementary school principal.

“I’m kidding,” she says, just in case I’d forgotten she’s the nicest person alive. “I’m always here for you, sweet cakes. Lay it on me. What’s up?”

I take a deep breath.

Okay. Here we go.

“There’s a… situation. With the building,” I say.

“What kind of situation?”

“Connor did… a thing.” I start to nervously peel at some flaking paint on the rim of the coffee cup. “He borrowed money. A lot of it. And he put up the bakery as collateral if he doesn’t pay it back.”

Priya’s arms come uncrossed and her jaw comes unhinged. “He used—Delilah. He put up this? The building? Your building?”

“I didn’t let him, just to be clear,” I hurry to clarify. “He forged my name to do it. I’ve got a lawyer and she says he can’t legally do what he did.”

Pri exhales and eases back. “Whew, okay. Well, that’s good. I mean, court’s no fun, but at least— Oh. Oh, no. I don’t like that look on your face at all, hon.”

I wince. “She also says proving it runs two hundred grand and takes a year, and I have neither.”

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my God.” She starts to crack her knuckles, one of her anxious habits. “When did you find this out?”

“Christmas Eve.” I hear how that sounds. “Well. Some of it came before that.”

“You’ve been sitting on this since Christmas Eve?”

“I’ve been sitting on a lot of things since Christmas Eve. It’s been a full week.”

“Okay, well, keep going, tell me everything! What happens now?”

This is where it gets tricky.

“The… lender… came to see me,” I say evasively.

She frowns, eyebrows coming together. “Like, someone from the bank?”

I shake my head. “Not a bank.”

“Then who?”

“It’s a—how do I say this?—a non-traditional lender.”

“Uh… okay…” Thankfully, she doesn’t pry further on that point quite yet. “I’ll spare you the inquisition for now. Go on.”

“He offered me an arrangement,” I say. “If I do what he wants for the next few months, he’ll forgo the collateral and the building will stay mine. If I don’t, he takes it on the 15th of January.”

The V in her eyebrows points more downward. “Well, what does he want?”

And there it is. The hardest part of this whole really hard conversation.

“I can’t tell you that.”