The Rent Is Due

Hazel Pov

The espresso machine screamed like it personally hated me, and I screamed back at it internally, which was the only acceptable outlet early on a Tuesday morning.

"Oat milk latte, extra shot, name's Brandon but he wants it spelled Braydyn," the barista beside me called, sliding the cup down the counter like a peace offering.

I wrote Braydyn on the cup without comment.

I have opinions about a great many things adverbs, the Oxford comma, men who explain Bukowski to me unprompted, but customer name spellings stopped being a hill I'd die on around month two of this job. I have bigger hills. Most of them have dollar signs attached.

By the time my shift ended at eleven, I'd made forty-three drinks, written zero new words, and replied to one editor's rejection email with a professionalism that cost me more energy than the espresso machine ever could.

I did my actual work, the work that actually mattered, the work I'd moved to Los Angeles for, in twenty-minute gaps like that one.

A content piece tapped out on my phone between the bus and my street. Half a paragraph of the novel I hadn't told anyone about, scrawled into my Notes app at a red light.

Five minutes before open mic sign-up closed at The Hatch, where I'd perform tonight to a room of eleven distracted strangers, on the simple, stupid hope that one of them worked in development somewhere and remembered my name afterward.

None of it paid rent. Not really. Not on time, not consistently, not enough.

I did the math again on the walk home, the same math I did every week, like maybe this time the numbers would rearrange themselves into something kinder.

Barista shifts plus freelance invoices, minus the going rate for a one bedroom in a neighborhood I could actually walk home in safely after dark. The number that came out the other end dropped my stomach the same exact half-inch every time.

It helped that I split it with Ari. It helped a lot, actually. Ari, who'd moved in two years ago with a U-Haul, a six-pack, and the simple, generous offer of I have a spare room and you have a pulse, let's do this, had been the only reliable constant in an otherwise wildly unreliable life.

I let myself into the apartment already smelling something garlic, wine, the particular chaos of Ari cooking when she had Big News to deliver, because Ari always cooked when she had Big News, good or bad, like the kitchen was a confessional.

"Hey," I called, dropping my bag. "Smells like either an apology or a celebration."

"Sit down," Ari said, too brightly, wooden spoon frozen mid-air. "Actually wine first. Sit down with wine."

"You're freaking me out," I said, accepting the glass anyway, perching on the kitchen stool with the specific dread of someone who's had landlords, exes, and editors deliver bad news with exactly this kind of preamble.

"Did something happen with the lease? Did the building sell? Oh my god, are we bein-"

"Theo proposed."

The words landed somewhere I hadn't braced for, and my face did something I couldn't control happiness first, fast and real, because I loved Ari and Theo together, genuinely, the easy way they fit and then, half a second later, a cold drop of something else entirely.

"Oh my god." I set the wine down before I could spill it. "Ari. That's...show me the ring, show me everything, oh my god!"

She thrust her hand out, glowing, and I grabbed it, examined the ring with real delight, hugged her hard enough to lift her slightly off the kitchen floor and underneath all of it, in the part of my brain that never fully stops running numbers, a single sentence assembled itself with brutal, immediate clarity.

This means Ari is moving out.

"I'm so happy for you," I said, and I meant every word of it, even as the color visibly drained from my face in a way Ari clocked instantly.

"Hazel."

"I'm fine. I'm thrilled. This is wonderful." My voice had gone slightly too fast, slightly too high, the verbal equivalent of someone holding a structure up with both hands while smiling for a photo.

"When's the wedding? Where's the wedding? Is Theo's whole insufferably attractive family going to be there, because I need to mentally prepare."

"Hazel." Ari caught both my hands, stilling them.

"I know what you're doing. You're spiraling about the rent."

"I'm not spiraling."

"You did the face. The math face."

"I don't have a math face."

"You have absolutely had a math face since freshman year. I watched you do it over a shared pizza bill in 2019. I would know it anywhere." She squeezed my hands, gentler now.

"I'm not leaving you stranded. I promise. I'll help you find someone before I go, someone normal, someone who pays rent on time and doesn't play music after eleven. We have time. Months, probably."

I exhaled, some of the panic loosening in my chest.

Months. Months was manageable.

Months meant time to save, to plan, to find someone who wouldn't completely upend the careful, controlled life I'd built inside these four walls the only four walls in this entire chaotic city that had ever felt like mine.

"Okay," I said. "Okay. We have time."

Ari's phone buzzed on the counter. She glanced at it, and something shifted across her face pleased, a little nervous, the exact expression of someone about to drop a second piece of news in the same five minutes, which should honestly be classified as a war crime against the human nervous system.

"So, funny thing," Ari said slowly. "Theo's brother is actually looking for a place in LA right now. Like, immediately. Like, this week immediately."

"Okay," I said carefully. "And?"

"And he's actually really great, you'd probably love him, very easygoing, very," She paused, choosing her next word with visible caution. "Successful."

"Ari."

"He's a model." The words came out fast now, like ripping off a bandage.

"Soon to be actor, technically he's got some film stuff coming up but right now, model. Very, very successful model. You've probably seen his face on a billboard at some point and didn't eve-"

"Ari."

"His name's Rowan." She winced, already bracing.

"And I sort of already told Theo it might be a good idea if he moved in. Temporarily. Just until you find someone better."

The wine glass had gone very cold in my hand. Somewhere outside, a car alarm went off, which felt, in that moment, entirely appropriate.

"You did what?"

***

Hi, lovely readers! 💛

This is a cozy rom-com meant for coffee breaks, subway rides, and lazy evening reads.

If you enjoy the chapter, please vote and leave a comment. Every vote and comment helps support the book and means so much to me.

Happy reading! ✨

-SS SAHOO