Then again, it wasn’t my problem that they hadn’t hired enough new people. I’d seen some come in to interview, and I wasn’t sure why hardly any of them came back. Or maybe they had sensed the evil in him and not accepted the positions they’d gone in for.

“I’m sure I can find someone willing to get some overtime if you aren’t.”

Here we went again.

I kept my face blank and said, “I’m sure you can.”

Asshole.

That freaking settled it. Come hell or high water, I was going to get the hell out of this place.

I was going to find Deepa another job somewhere else. If I got bored at home, I could learn a hobby. Maybe I could learn a language. Volunteer.

Gunner grimaced, clearly irritated, and pointed at the sheets I had in front of me. “Make sure you get through that list before you leave.”

I didn’t even bother giving him a fake sweet smile, instead settling for a nod. Just one. He didn’t deserve more than that.

And, fortunately, about three seconds after he finished bitching at Deepa about keeping busy, that was when my phone vibrated with an incoming message.

I peeked at it the second he’d moved far enough away.

It was Zac. Again.

512-555-0199: You free tonight?

Tonight?

Me: Yes.

Why?

He answered my question with his next text.

512-555-0199: Can I pay you to take me to a dealership?

Frowning, I looked up to make sure no one was paying attention to me and then texted him a response.

Me: Pay me??

And why would he ask me and not Trevor or CJ or one of the other three hundred people he apparently knew?

512-555-0199: With money.

I made a face at my screen and thought about it for a minute.

Me: Get real. You’re not paying me. I can take you. Let me know when you want to go.

512-555-0199: You sure?

I mean, I wasn’t but… I was.

I could do it, so I would. If you could do something for others—at least decent human beings, not counting Gunner because he was a shithead—then you did it. It was that simple.

Me: Yes.

The snapping of fingers had me glancing up.

Deepa was glaring. “I think you’ve got some explaining to do.”

Shit.

“Hi, CJ.”

CJ full-on smiled at me as he opened the door. “Hi, Bianca.” His gaze went straight to my hands.

My empty hands.

“I didn’t bring any snacks. I haven’t filmed yet,” I told him. “I’m planning to at the end of the week.”

Because it was true.

After that last conversation with Gunner, I knew I needed to get out of the gym. I needed to get Deepa out of there. She had a good heart, and she was smart and detailed, but there were a couple people who I didn’t trust or like that she was too friendly with. She had moved to Houston for school, but I knew she hadn’t registered for this upcoming fall semester. I kept on top of her because I knew no one else other than her mom did, but….

I had to pick my battles, like I was sure Connie had to do with me plenty of times.

I knew how lucky I’d been that, even though my parents hadn’t been very active in my life, I’d had other people who stepped up and held me accountable. That rooted me. The older I got, the more I realized how important things like that were.

That was partially why I wouldn’t just leave her knowing her only family member was a few hundred miles away.

If anything, I was just so much more grateful to have something waiting for me outside of the gym.

Hating my boss was exhausting. There were good parts and bad parts about focusing all of my time on The Lazy Baker, just like with every job. People talked a lot of shit in the comments section and in social media, it was a lot of work since I did just about everything myself, and it was a hell of a lot more stressful now. It hadn’t been years ago. But that was before I’d started to see it as more of my future and less as a fun hobby I did on the side.

“There was no such thing as a perfect job,” Boogie had told me one day when I’d gotten one of the first ugly comments on my videos and he’d found me crying.

But if I was going to get pissed off, at least it would be on my own terms.

And even though I had never started vlogging with any real expectations, it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to take it to the next level if I could. You didn’t squander opportunities in life—at least I wouldn’t.

So I was going to do this shit and do it right.

Part of that was to finish putting together my recipes and finally hire a photographer for my cookbook. I also needed to see about revamping my site so I could have more space for ad revenue on it. Lastly, I needed to make more business-conscious steps too, because I hadn’t taken advantage of my reach until almost too late. I hadn’t taken it seriously enough for too long.

But that was shit to think about at work or at home. My plan B, C, D, and all the ones after that. My future.

Anyway.

I was pretty sure the man who, now that I got to see him again without nerves, had to be around my age with big, brown eyes, and a couple of cystic acne scars on his cheeks, nodded once. “What are you going to make?”

I walked in and waited for him to close the door behind me. “I’m tweaking an old soup recipe, and I was thinking about trying to make brownies.”

“Brownies?” Zac’s roommate asked as we headed toward the kitchen. He had to be five-ten, maybe five-eleven, max.

I spotted a male figure dart from the kitchen in the direction of the corner where the stairs were. Who the hell had that been? I was pretty sure I’d seen gray pants and a white shirt. Hadn’t that been what Trevor was wearing earlier? I wondered but focused back on CJ’s question. “Yeah, but I don’t want to use eggs.”

CJ genuinely “hmmed” beside me. “What are you going to use instead? A flaxseed egg?”

A flaxseed egg? How many of my videos had he seen? I didn’t use them that often. I glanced at him. “Nah. I was thinking bananas could work to hold everything together. What do you think?” I asked when we stopped in the living room and kitchen area. Zac wasn’t around. I had messaged him on the way over, thinking it was better to give him some notice in case he was busy and needed to bail on me before I got here. But he had texted me back and hadn’t said anything about being busy.

It was fine. It was cool. Maybe he was taking a crap.

The football player—I’d forgotten to look him up or ask Connie about him—planted his butt against the back of the straw-colored couch and aimed his dark brown eyes at me. “You didn’t use eggs with your banana bread recipe either, and it held up okay in the video at least. It didn’t work for me, but I bet it would hold your ingredients together.”

“It didn’t work for you?”

“I’m no good in the kitchen,” he said, seriously. “You should try bananas.”

How many things had he screwed up before? “I think I will. And I want to try not to use flour either.”

“No flour for brownies?”

I smiled at him. “Everybody uses flour for brownies. I gotta try and make them different somehow.”

“For a reason,” Zac’s roommate stated, sounding skeptical as hell.