Page 4 of A King’s Obsession

There was no way in hell.

I didn’t have two thousand dollars sitting somewhere. I barely had fifty dollars in my purse, and twenty-six of that was about to go toward an Uber.

My eyes dropped to the purse sitting beside me on the bar. Fifty dollars. That was what I had to my name tonight, and I had just spent the last eight hours earning it. Meanwhile, somewhere between my hands and Mr. Harris’s, money I had already worked for had disappeared.

I almost dropped the damn phone.

“Mr. Harris, I’m at work right now. Let me get home and talk to her.” I tried to sound calm, but my fingers were trembling against the phone.

“I need something soon,” he replied, his voice firm but not cruel. “I been patient because I know you the one trying to keep things together over there, but I got bills too.”

“I know,” I answered quietly, dropping my gaze to the counter.

And I did.

That was what pissed me off.

He wasn’t wrong.

I couldn’t even be mad at him. Mr. Harris had actually been more patient with us than some landlords would’ve been. He knew I worked. He knew I was the one usually calling when something needed to be handled. Apparently, he also knew something I was just now figuring out—that I had been giving Mama money that wasn’t making it where it was supposed to go.

“I’ll figure it out,” I told him, forcing the words past the tightness in my throat.

I hated those words as soon as they left my mouth.

Because that was always me.

I’ll figure it out.

Mama fucked something up? I’d figure it out.

Montae didn’t come through? I’d figure it out.

We needed groceries? I’d figure it out.

Something was about to get cut off? Somehow, someway, Jru always had to fucking figure it out.

And I was tired.

Not sleepy tired. Not I need a day off tired. I was tired in that deep way that came from always having somebody else’s problem dropped in your lap and being expected to turn it into a solution.

I ended the call and immediately dialed Mama.

No answer.

I called again.

Nothing.

My jaw tightened.

That only made me angrier because Mama kept her phone close enough to damn near sleep with it. If she wasn’t answering me, either she couldn’t answer or she saw my name and didn’t want to.

Neither option made me feel any better.

“Everything good?” Tasha asked.

I looked up to find her watching me from behind the bar, the money she'd been counting forgotten beneath her hand. The teasing expression she'd worn earlier was gone.