The Fourteen Day Soul Detox by Rita Stradling Read Free Book Online Page A

surrender. “And, Melissa’s good. She
wants to wait to get married until we both graduate. She’s
actually been bugging me about bringing you and Sarah over for
dinner.”
    “I’d love that. But, we’d
probably have to meet at a neutral location, or at my house. Melissa
just has way too much nice stuff for Sarah to knock over.”
    “Oh, she’s not worried
about that,” he said, waving a hand in the air.
    “Just you wait until Sarah tries
to do a handspring on your coffee table. Trust me, it’ll be
better at my place,” I said.
    “Whatever works,” he
shrugged.
    “Well, if you’re determined
to stay until we close, mind covering the front while I check through
the papers in the office? I’m hoping to find a couple more
exemptions before I take the shop’s papers to my tax advisor. I
was thinking that if we got enough of a refund, I could hire someone
else on, maybe keep the shop open on evenings and weekends like the
old days. What do you think?”
    “Like I told you last week,
Jamie, I think… you should take that offer and sell the shop,”
he said.
    I blew out my breath, shaking my head.
“You’re so eager to be out of a job, are you?”
    “We both know I wouldn’t be
out of a job for long. I’ve been working here since the day it
opened, and I’ll be here until the day it closes. Businesses
love that stuff. And you’d give me one hell of a reference,”
he said, giving me a smile.
    “You think so, do you?” I
said, throwing my towel at his face.
    He caught it out of the air.
    “I don’t get it, Chris.
You’re the only one who loves this place more than I do.”
    “I’d miss this place like
crazy, but you should sell it,” he said. “Aren’t
you tired of paying off a property you’ve already paid off
after years of working your ass off? And it’s a mean lien the
court put on this place. At our current earnings you’ll be
paying it off for another ten years. And, I know you’re paying
yourself minimum wage.”
    “That’s why I think we
should hire someone. We miss out on a lot of the business on the
evenings and weekends,” I said. “We could do open mics
and stuff like that.”
    Chris shook his head. “The time
is right now, Jamie. You might not get an offer like this again. That
offer was for more than what you owe. You and Sarah would even have a
little to start over. Put a down payment on a house or something.”
    I touched Chris’s arm. “You’re
a good guy, Chris,” I said before turning toward the back
office.
    “I was here in the beginning,
Jamie. I remember, it was his big dream, not yours,” he said.
    “It was both our dreams,” I
said, not turning around.
    “Wait, no, I can prove it,”
Chris called.
    Rolling my eyes, I turned around. “You
can?”
    Chris grinned widely, held up a hand
and walked backward to where we always stored our personal stuff. He
pulled a small square present out of his old, worn satchel.
    “What’s that?” I
asked.
    “Your birthday present,” he
said, his grin growing even wider. He handed it over.
    “Why am I scared?” I asked
him, smiling.
    The moment I pulled the blue wrapping
paper away from the CD, I started laughing. “No way! Where did
you get this?” I asked.
    “eBay. I had to get a bunch of
other early 2000’s pop CDs with it, but it was worth it.”
    “I think that this might be the
best present anyone has ever given me,” I said, meaning it. “I
lost this, you know, with everything else.” I held it up.
    “You were pretty hot back then,”
he said, looking at the picture on the cover of the CD.
    I smacked his arm. “Back then?”
    “Jesus, you don’t need to
get violent. Okay, fine, you were hot back then, but now you’re
gorgeous,” he said.
    “Better,” I said.
    “And wowza, look at Susan and…”
he paused, looking up at me with a grimace.
    I swallowed. “It’s okay,
you can say it, Vanessa was super hot back then too.” I looked
down at our picture. Our blonde hair was up in pin-up girl