One
Hadley
I can’t believe they fired me. Sure, I’m one of the younger junior architects, but this came out of nowhere. I was fresh out of college, barely able to rub two pennies together to make a dollar when I landed the job at Gardener’s Engineering. I should have known it was too good to be true. Now I’m back home, a sobbing, crying, drinking mess. A home that’s not really even mine. It’s Cooper’s, and I have a feeling when I tell him I lost my job, I’ll be homeless again. I was bartending at Tyler’s bar when I was talking to him about my lease and how it was coming to an end when he mentioned Cooper had a place with two bedrooms. I looked at Tyler like he had to heads. We didn’t know each other from Adam—Cooper and I, that is. Though the idea appealed to me, it had to be better than the slob fest I was living in with the girls. I looked at Coop with hopefulness in my eyes. He was shaking his head in a no freaking way manner. It wasn’t until Tyler, my boss and friend, went up to bat for me. He literally sang my praises. Why, I have no idea. I looked up to Tyler as an older brother. He knew what my goals and dreams were. He encouraged them. I still have no idea how he got Cooper to bring on a roommate when he clearly didn’t need one.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful more than ever. My lease was up in less than three weeks, and between working, going to school, and paying bills, my bank account was rolling donuts.
Cooper didn’t need a roommate, or a friend for that matter. The way he filled out his dress shirts and slacks, wearing the finest of clothes, showed he didn’t need the first part, that’s for sure. He always came to the bar with a few guys, wearing a suit. Most of the time, the jacket would be discarded, his sleeves would be rolled up, and his tie was stuffed in his pocket.
When he first started coming in, Tyler would excuse himself from the bar and have me bartend while they’d talk and shoot the shit. I loved working behind the bar, not to mention the tips I earned those nights. Sometimes I think Tyler did it on purpose. By the time I turned in my notice when I was graduating, I bawled my eyes out on Tyler’s shoulder. I was sad to leave the bar, another chapter closing, and I was scared I’d be losing Tyler as well. In a way, he was the only family I had, something he knew because I shared when we used to close the bar down together.
Where was I living before landing in a place like Cooper’s? That was simple. Three other girls and I rented an apartment for next to nothing on the outskirts of campus. It was two girls to a room, but it was split four ways. Two of the girls I roomed with are back in their home states, and the other girl moved in with her now fiancé. It’s sad. You would have thought we’d have formed a bond living together. We didn’t though.
My schedule was beyond chaotic. Working at a bar didn’t help much either. Then, when graduation was coming up, I told Tyler I wasn’t sure what I was going to do next. He told me to sit tight; he may know someone. He offered for me to stay at his place, but he lives in the studio apartment above the bar. Fat lot of good that would have been for his busy life. He is a workaholic, not to mention I saw the women who flirted with him, how they would slide him their numbers or try to hang on him when he’d escort them out of the bar. It had me in fits of laughter. He’d shake his head and say, “You could’ve fucking helped.” I’d have been a smartass the entire time.
That leads me to the here and fucking now. I’ll more than likely get on my hands and knees to beg for my job back at Alibi.
Feeling like the idiot I am, I stopped at the grocery store on the way home and bought two bottles of wine. The cheap kind, because that’s what I prefer, now more than freaking ever. I’m silently wondering what the hell I’m going to do. Sure, I have enough money to pay my portion of rent the next two months, and my student loans are down to only a few thousand dollars. At least I was smart on this. I could always extend that, but having that debt hanging around my neck makes me cringe.
“You could file for unemployment,” I say to the outside air. Coop’s condo is freaking amazeballs. It’s in the downtown area, has all the luxuries of a home, and even has a balcony. Which is where my lonely ass is sitting, on bottle number two, when I hear the front door open. It’s a beautiful balmy seventy-five degrees in our little downtown area of Tennessee. The gorgeous view of the river, the trees rippling in the wind, and the smell of the water coasting off the seawalls. It’s crisp and cool, and I know fall is coming soon.