and down, and it dawned on me that I was still wearing my black silk dress.
Overdressed for a Thursday night? Me? Maybe a little. . .
As the two guys turned down the sidewalk, I glanced around and there were no police cars in sight. Also, music was coming from Phillip’s apartment. Very weird for someone about to be arrested and kicked out of his rental unit. Since the door was still open from the two guys who had left, I went in and found my stepbrother in the kitchen.
“Sis! Want a drink? I’m celebrating.”
“I came as quickly as I could, Phillip,” I said, glancing around the kitchen but nobody else was in there. “Where is your landlord?”
“Hugo left when he heard you were coming over to help me out again,” he said, taking a swig from his bottle of beer. “You’re supposed to go to his unit to work out the details.”
“Is that so?” I asked, shaking my head. He would be drinking with friends, while I solved his financial problems, even though I had been yanked from my evening with the most interesting man I’d ever met? What was wrong with this picture? I blew out a breath, crossed to the living room and turned the music off. “You said that the police were coming, Phillip.”
“That’s what Hugo told me. Guess he was bluffing,” he said, looking me up and down. “What on earth are you wearing? You look like you’ve been going through Mom’s closet.”
“I was attending a fundraiser event at the Geoffries hotel until you called me away.”
“Uh-oh. You sound upset,” he said, grimacing.
“No, I’m furious.” I put my hands on my hips and tried to keep calm by counting to ten, no twenty. No wonder Mom had cut him off after his dad—my stepfather—had moved away.
Phillip had been down in the dumps since the divorce when his dad left two years ago. In all honesty, I felt sorry for him. I remembered how I felt when my parents divorced and it wasn’t fun. Although Phillip was only three years younger than me, at twenty-five he still hadn’t gotten his act together financially. It was one of the things my mom and stepdad had argued over.
When Phillip found this apartment six months ago, I had co-signed on the lease so he could get back on his feet again. This was something I’d regretted many times since.
As I walked back toward the kitchen, I noticed a pile of shopping bags stacked on an accent chair, bearing names from some of the most exclusive stores in Sacramento. Was this where Phillip’s rent money had gone? A designer shopping spree?
“Um, not to rush you but you might want to go to Hugo’s sooner rather than later. He was pretty heated earlier.”
“Yes, I remember the shouting,” I said, shaking my head. “The party is over tonight, Phillip. I’m serious.”
With a sigh, I went upstairs to the landlord’s unit and learned that Phillip owed him ninety-eight hundred dollars in back rent. I managed to smooth things over by offering him a thousand dollars upfront, which was the entire sum of my savings account. Then I negotiated a deal with him to pay the balance by the end of the month. Phillip (or rather I) had just over two and a half weeks to come up with the rest of the money.
When I returned to Phillip’s apartment it was empty except for him, sitting alone at the kitchen table. He looked up expectantly. “All sorted out?”
I nodded, feeling exhausted. “You have until the end of the month to pay him eighty-eight hundred dollars, or you really will be evicted. I just paid him a grand to buy you some time.”
He pulled on the label of his beer bottle. “I’ll pay you back this time. I swear.”
“That would be nice since that was all my savings. If you can’t come up with the rest of the money you’re out on the streets because I have no money left to give you. It’s time you grew up, Phillip. Yes, your dad left. Yes, he dropped all of us. But at some point you need to stand on your own two feet. You don’t want to go through your life like this, do you?”
“You’ve always been the good kid in the family. I don’t know how you do it,” he said, tears filling his gray-blue eyes that were just like mine. “You always seem to land on your feet. Nice apartment, money to spend, fancy parties