The Escape Collection: (The Escape Collection) Read Online Free PDF Page A

wouldn’t be a good idea to start anything with Whitney Monroe anyway. Not if they were going to be roommates.  
    He pulled out of the parking lot and shook his head. Obviously Hazel hadn’t mentioned anything to her granddaughter yet, and he couldn’t be sure how Whitney was going to react. If he had to guess though, she didn’t seem the type that would appreciate having such major information dumped on her without warning. But that wasn’t his fault. Hazel told him she would take care of things on her end.
    And hopefully she would since he’d already told his landlord he’d be out at the end of the month, and that was tomorrow. Up until a week ago, Reid didn’t know where he was going to go. Meeting Hazel had come at exactly the right time. She was a sweet lady, and she reminded him of his own grandma, which was the entire reason he spent his Thursday afternoons singing the Golden Oldies. And just like Grandma used to say, “Things had a way of working out if you let them.”  
    Grandma had almost always been right, and damn, Reid hoped that would continue to be the case. He couldn’t afford for things not to be okay, not since he’d quit the agency to go solo. Writing commercial jingles freelance wasn’t a bad deal. Especially since he had more time to work on song writing. But things never worked out the way he’d planned them and when Lizzy, his little sister, had called in tears three weeks ago, he knew what he had to do, even if it couldn’t have come at a worse time. Family came first. No matter what.  
    Reid tried to clear his thoughts as he drove the few minutes to his apartment. “What the hell?” he said, as he pulled into his space. Tom, Reid’s landlord, was standing on the sidewalk with a few boxes stacked behind him. Next to him was a suitcase that looked familiar.
    He jammed the car into park and flung open the door. “Tom, what the hell? Is that my stuff?”
    Tom pushed his glasses up his long, narrow nose and sniffed. “You said you were moving out,” he said. “You gave notice.”
    “For the first. It’s the thirtieth. I have one more day.” Reid looked up and down the sidewalk, looking for the rest of his things. “You can’t just haul my shit out to the curb.”
    Tom sniffed again and crossed his arms. “I was hoping you’d leave early.”
    “Early?”
    “I’ll give you fifty bucks.”  
    “To leave early? What are you talking about?”
    Tom peered from side to side and leaned in as if he had a big secret to let Reid in on. “I know about your sister,” he said. His breath was foul and Reid had to force himself not to pull back. “You need the money. Take it.”
    Reid looked at the fifty dollar bill wadded up in Tom’s sweaty hand.
    “I have nowhere to go.”
    “I’ll give you another fifty to keep your furniture.”  
    “Fifty? For all my furniture?” He tried to sound outraged, but even Reid knew his old thrift store stuff wasn’t worth a whole lot more than fifty dollars on a good day.
    Tom didn’t respond, only added another few bills to his hand and thrust it toward Reid again.  
    One hundred dollars wouldn’t normally be a lot of money for him. Even as recently as a month ago, Reid would have laughed in the weaselly man’s face and rejected his offer for what it was, an insult. His underarms felt damp and his t-shirt stuck to him, even in the cool September air. He felt his gorge rise and hated himself when he reached out to grab the money.
    Instead of releasing the bills, Tom held tight, met Reid’s eyes and said, “I knew we’d have a deal.”
    Reid tugged the money free and pushed it into his pocket.  
    “Sucks about your sister,” Tom added.  
    Reid clenched his hands into fists, stared him in the eye and took a deep breath before getting into his car and squealing out of the parking lot. He wasn’t worth it.

    ***
    “What do you need to talk to me about, Grams?” I flopped down on her bed and grabbed one of her many throw pillows to