Loan Shark Love

The Goblins charge way more than I do, and their penalties are almost always life-threatening. The Goblins are a family in Brooklyn whose surname is actually Godwin, but the Goblins are what their clients call them, which describes them well. They are ruthless, no matter what people say about me.

They aren’t a family to be messed with easily.

There are a few smaller rackets that someone could borrow from in the city, but they don’t deal with the money I make.

It all started in college for me.

The entire school was always preoccupied with the antics of the football team or the latest scandal. So much so that they didn’t pay attention to what else was going on.

Back then, I preferred to hang out with my best friend, Sam Brantley, and it was he who discovered the hole in the financial sector that my expertise could fill.

People needed money, they always needed money, and someone could make a fortune by providing it. Luckily, I had inherited a decent amount of money that my parents had left me. I made use of it the best way I knew how to.

With Sam’s help, I discovered how to put the money to good use for me.

We started out by just giving out quick and quiet loans to the broke students of the college we knew, and of course, they had to sign the contracts that Sam made. He had been good at that.

He had been so valuable that I had once agreed to split everything fifty-fifty with him. He declined, though, deciding that the business was becoming too dangerous for him to stay.

He graduated and had plans to start a family and live a nice, quiet life. I couldn’t deny him that, but to this day, I still think of Sam and how he had helped me start my business.

Spring has started to bloom, and I watch the flurry of birds as they sail across the blue sky. Flowers curl and sway over the hillside, coloring the green grass.

I yearn for Rose as if I’m some lovesick romance novel caricature of a man.

Without much thought, I bring up my laptop from under the desk. Maybe it’s not the smartest way to go about approaching my feelings for her.

But I feel invigorated, though, as I search through the various social media profiles and find the one I’m looking for.

I wonder for a second if what I’m doing is odd, but it’s a public profile.

Rose’s pictures are like little snippets of who she is. There’s a snapshot of her with a woman who must be her grandmother. The picture below it has Rose with a cat snuggled into her arms.

Oddly enough, there are no full-body pictures of Rose.

The closest one is just one of her half-hidden behind a pillar at some pretentious-looking club, smiling with round, white teeth but looking nervous.

It’s a club I’ve frequented before, and I wonder if we’ve ever brushed arms or crossed paths. Had we come in contact and I not noticed.

I couldn’t imagine not noticing a girl like Rose. There is just no way I wouldn’t.

I spent most of my life wrapped up in my business ideas and my own career path. I wanted money, and I wanted the safety that came with it.

When my parents passed, I could only think about getting out of the emotional hole their absence left me in.

There was really no time for relationships then.

I have never been someone who was interested in connecting with someone else. I don’t have time to be intimate and reveal my true feelings. Love is messy, and I don’t have the time or the resources to clean up that mess.

Then what is this feeling?

I close my laptop with a quick, annoyed snap, nearly cracking the screen in two.

I stand and lean against the window of my office, letting my hands rest on the polished wooden walls on either side of me.

The warm brown color makes me think of Rose. In my mind, she’s become my Rosie. I close my eyes and see her walk into my office, straight to me.

Damn our ridiculous age difference.

She has the draw of someone much older than her years, and her eyes are like windows to an old soul caught in a young body. Despite this, I know the truth.

Rose is young and still so new to the world around her.

I want her to feel like she’s fulfilled with me. I want her to feel like she belongs in this with me.

Would she even be interested in a man my age?

Or my profession?

The man who had just brought even more stress into her life might possibly not be the man she wants to marry.

The thought of that is too devastating for me to bear.

In the warm recesses of my mind, I belong to her, and she belongs to me.