Page 15 of Crazy Thing

Finding her after all these years was surprisingly easy. I’ve looked her up on social media a few times over the years. Okay, fine—waymore than a few times. Anyway, all it took was a quick phone call to my private investigator to pin down her current location.

And seriously, though—what’s the situation with her finances? Is it really as dire as it appeared?

I don’t think she would have reacted so…violently if this was nothing.So that tells me it has to besomething.

On a whim, I pull up her boutique’s public records and find the name of the man who owns her building, the landlord who’s basically evicting her. I don’t know a thing about the guy but instantly I don’t like him. Which is completely hypocritical of me, I’ll admit. How many of my own tenants have I kicked out on their asses for owing much less in unpaid rent?

Before I even know what I’m doing, I’m finding the man’s personal number, calling him up, and reading my bank card information over the phone to arrange payment for all of Ziggy’s back payments.

What the actual fuck…?

“Y’know what? While you’re pulling that transaction, how about we just go ahead and pay off the next twelve months of her rent as well?” I hear myself saying.

“Um…the next twelve months?” The man sounds just as shocked as I feel right now. I don’t even recognize myself in this moment.

“I expect that this payment will secure the renewal of her rental agreement?”

“Y-yes? Of course. Yes!” he says brightly.

“So make sure to put that in writing.” I spout off my email address and he repeats it back to me, confirming that he’s jotted it down correctly.

I hang up, practically banging my head on the surface of my desk.Why the hell am I even doing this? The woman hates my guts!

Seriously. There is no way in hell I would just pay off some random woman’s debt. That isn’t something I’d normally do.

I’m not in the business of giving handouts to strangers. Sure—I take care of my family. But that’sfamily. I don’t even go around giving handouts to my friends.

Truth be told, I don’t have friends. I have business associates. And they’re all as rich as I am, so they don’t need my handouts anyway.

The point is—why the hell would I do something this crazy for Ziggy Beaumont?

I tell myself that my moment of insanity is just because I’m still feeling guilty over insulting her. And maybe a little bit for the way I treated her all those years ago.

So, that’s mywhy. That’s my justification.

It’s definitely not because I like the woman now.At least that’s what I tell myself tonight.

Dammit. What am I doing? Ziggy doesn’t deserve my help. The woman chased me with a witch’s broom.

But deep down, I think I…I think I liked it.

7

ZIGGY

New day, same story.

After another long and unprofitable day at my shop, I head out the back door, lock up, and climb onto my bike. It’s one of my most prized possessions, a bright yellow retro bicycle with super high handlebars and an oversized basket on the front. It gets me where I’m going whenever I don’t want to drive my big bus around.

But even with the nice breeze blowing my messy pink hair, I’m already regretting this particular bike ride.

I have been meditating all day at work—I had plenty of time since my only ‘customer’ today walked in to ask for directions to the coffee shop—and despite the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I know I have to do this.

Putting on a brave face, I coast out of the back alley and bike across town. I’m on my way to confirm with my landlord that I will not be renewing the lease and that I’ll begin packing my shop up to vacate the premises this weekend.

My brother, Timothy, would probably tell me to just say sayonara by moving out without giving my landlord the courtesy of a heads-up. But despite the man’s unwillingnessto allow me any more time to come up with my overdue rent payments, my landlord has always been a nice guy. So my gut is telling me that coming here today is the right thing to do.

But when I park my bike on the sidewalk and amble into my landlord’s dark, shoebox-like office, he greets me with an oddly large grin. He’s grinning so big in fact, it looks like his face is about to split in two underneath that bushy, gray mustache.

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