4th & Girl

“Mable called me earlier this morning, actually,” I said and flipped the bread in the pan. It sizzled, and butter bubbled up around the edges. “I’ll be handling packing and shipping for a small store in Brooklyn.”

“What kind of store?”

I shrugged. “They either sell stationery or crafts.”

“I’d rather gouge my eyes out than do that job.”

“Tell me about it,” I agreed. “But beggars can’t be choosers. The pay is pretty good, and it’s a steady job for the next three months.”

“Christ, Gem.” She snorted, and I looked up at her.

“What?”

“You do realize you’ve had more random jobs in the past two months than I’ve had my whole damn life, right?”

“Considering you hardly work and I’m still trying to figure out how you pay your freaking bills, that’s not a fair comparison. I know how you afford food, though,” I said pointedly and jerked my head toward the box of vanilla wafers—my box of vanilla wafers—in her greedy hands.

A smile and a little shrug told me my accusations, true or not, didn’t concern her.

I really didn’t know how Abby paid her bills. Besides her occasional, pretty much whenever-she-felt-like-working job at a coffee shop called Cool Brew, the girl’s ability to pay for anything was a goddamn mystery. And whenever I asked about it, she brushed it off with a simple, “I have a little money saved up.”

If I didn’t know her penchant for lazy firsthand, I would’ve thought she was a high-priced hooker. But even Abby Willis, escort extraordinaire, wouldn’t keep any damn clients with her laissez-faire approach to work.

“But seriously, Gem, you can’t deny you’ve had a lot of jobs.” She snorted again and started ticking off my most recent jobs on her fingers. “Dog walker, maid at a bed-and-breakfast, server for a catering company, salon assistant, a receptionist—”

“I get it.”

“I’m not even half done. And let’s not forget about your one-day stint in piss collection.”

Okay. Yeah. So I’d had a decent amount of jobs in the past few months.

The dog walking gig was only temporary, and I had actually been pretty good at it.

The Millers were a rich family in Manhattan and had three adorable corgis named after the Three Stooges. I’d loved those fucking dogs, but sadly, the Millers had relocated to Atlanta and taken my furry friends with them.

Being a maid hadn’t been a good match. I mean, I could hardly keep my own apartment clean, much less clean up after other people.

Working at the salon had gone tits up when I’d accidentally refilled one of the dye bottles with the wrong color. To say Mary Lou had been a little pissed that her hair had turned out far more blond than the auburn glaze she’d been going for would be an understatement. She’d all but threatened my life, and the salon owner had to kindly ask me to leave before her client resorted to actual murder.

And the other jobs? Well, they’d all kind of ended the same way. Clearly, none of them was right for me.

“All right, all right,” I said and raised my spatula hand in the air. “So I’ve had a decent amount of jobs in the past two months.”

Abby grinned. “A decent amount? More like a ridiculous amount.”

“I just haven’t found a good match.”

“Because you’re in the wrong damn business, honey.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not the whole music thing again.”

“Yes,” she said. “But only because I think you’re crazy talented, and it’s your secret passion that you haven’t realized is actually your soon-to-be career.”

I slapped two hot pieces of French toast onto a plate and shoved them toward her. “Just go eat your French toast and stop talking like a crazy person.”

She glared as she walked away, all the way to the little kitchenette table I had set up just outside the kitchen.

I loved music, I really loved my new guitar, and I might’ve spent most of my free time writing new songs and finding open mic nights throughout the city.

But it was a hobby.

It didn’t pay the bills, and it sure as shit wasn’t a career path.

I looked to Abby as her harping ran through my head and careened into the barrier of practicality every time. Even, let’s face it, when it came to her. With a pseudo-squatter in my apartment who wouldn’t stop eating my food, I needed a steady income to pay the bills.

Hell, from what I could tell, and the frequency of her visits, if I didn’t keep up with the rent, we’d both be out of a home.

Okay, so that might’ve been a bit of an exaggeration, but the cold hard truth remained, paying bills with my music wasn’t an option.

I mean, I came from a family of go-getting engineers.

From childhood on, it’d been all but pounded into my head to stay far away from creative jobs like music or writing or photography because they were too unstable and unpredictable to build a secure future.