After weeks of epic partying and totally failing to budget, constantly handing my debit card over without a care in the world, I wake up horribly hungover again. I reach for my phone, my eyes straining against the bright sunlight pouring into my bedroom, finding a text from my bank announcing that I'd overdrafted my checking account the night before. God damn it. Why did I buy that chick so many drinks? She was hot and I scored, fucking the shit out of her until I busted and kicked her out of my place, but was it worth it? I literally had nothing left in my account, less than nothing now that I owed the fucking bank an extra $35. I would have paid with my credit card, but that was already long ago maxed out. I was barely making the minimum payments on $3,000 worth of debt.
As a student in a college town, a place with a relatively low cost of living, I shouldn't be struggling at all. I'm a bartender at one of the most popular bars downtown, usually pulling in $450 a week because the managers always schedule me for the prime weekend shifts. I'm one of the hottest guys they have and they take full advantage, hoards of drunk, horny chicks always ogling me all night, flirting with me as they stare up into my intoxicating hazel eyes and eagerly buy more drinks. The money is fantastic for working three 6 hour shifts a week, easily covering my bills, but I'm horribly irresponsible. Horribly fucking irresponsible. I spend like my cash flow is infinite, swiping my card without even thinking about my balance if it means I'll have a good time. That's exactly what happened last night.
Now I'd gone way too far, less than a penny to my name with just a week left until my rent is due. I'm only working three shifts before I'll have to pay. Fuck! Why did I ever sign the lease for this stupid fucking place? It's $1,000 a month, extraordinarily expensive compared to other one bedroom units in town, but I was intent on having a nice apartment near the bars, wanting my own space to bring girls back to when I got lucky. I justified the obnoxious price telling myself that living here would make it easy to get to work, but my real goal was an easy stumble home on the nights I went out for fun. Living downtown, a short stroll away from all the action, those nights had grown more frequent than they ever were before, my spending constantly seeming to get worse. I know I'm definitely going to have to crawl to my mom and dad again asking for money again.
My parents had bailed me out five of the eight times I paid my $1,000 rent, sending the difference between what I had and what I owed, sometimes just $100 and on a couple occasions half. I'd grown accustomed to the backstop, completely reliant on it to maintain lifestyle, so of course I call my mom expecting them to help me out again.
She sighs loudly on the phone hearing the request. "How much are you going to need?"
"Uh, about $600?" I guess.
My mom emits an even louder sigh hearing the amount. "Seriously, Jamie?" she grumbles, sounding more disappointed in me than ever. "That's the most you've asked us for all year! Son, we love you more than anything in the world, but what did I tell you last month?"
I'm sitting hungover on my couch with a pounding headache and a dry mouth trying to recall the conversation. The whole month was a blur of drinking and sex. "You said dad was putting his foot down and that he really wasn't kidding," I finally remember. "But he's said that before, mom! What am I supposed to do?"
"Can't you just pick up some extra shifts this week?" she suggests.
"I have class!" I immediately protest. "I can't be out until 3:00 AM every night of the week!"
My mom huffs. "You seem to have plenty of time to spend money but you expect me to believe you don't have time to make more? We can't keep paying your rent for you, Jamie."
"Mom, do you want me to get fucking evicted?" I plead.
She's silent for a few moments. "No, of course I don't want you to get evicted, but that isn't going to work this time. I agree with your dad. You need to start appreciating that your actions have consequences. We can't bail you out for the rest of your life."
"Mom, please!" I beg, trying to break her. "I won't ask again!" I can picture her shaking her head as soon as the words escape my mouth, imagining the doubt spread across her face right now.
"How many times have you told me that this year?" she asks angrily.
"Well, I'm serious now. I won't ask again," I promise, even though I'd already made that claim several times. Those $100 payments had come earlier, my deficits steadily growing as my parents continued to willingly hand me money.
"No, I'm serious this time," my mom says intently. "We've had enough, and we can't afford to keep doing this anymore. You're a 22-year-old man and you've needed our help almost every month this school year. I know you make enough money to cover your bills."
"I'll be fucking homeless, mom!" I scream into my phone.
"Then you can move back home and you won't have to worry about paying rent anymore," she says sternly.
"I'm not moving back home," I growl.
"You're not going to have a choice unless you start managing your-"
I pull the phone from my ear, my mom's voice still squawking, and hang up right there. They don't even care if I'm going to be fucking homeless! How the fuck am I supposed to come up with $1,000 in a week?
Instead of being responsible and thinking about how I might be able to pull the challenge off, I do what I always do when I'm pissed off. I suit up in my workout gear, throwing a backward baseball hat over my short brown hair, and stroll over to the gym down the street, intent on unleashing my frustration by hitting the weights hard.
At 6 feet and 180 pounds, I'm no bodybuilder, but I'm in great shape considering how much booze I chug in any given week. I have to look stacked to pull off the skimpy tank top I'm usually wearing behind the bar, my physique drawing all the sorority sluts to tip. They love my hard round pecs, blocky shoulders, and big biceps, occasionally glimpsing the faint abs outlined on my stomach when I innocently lift my shirt up to make them gawk. As much as I love working my upper body, leg day is my favorite day and it always comes twice a week. My thighs are thick, my calves sculpted, my huge glutes poking out of absolutely everything I wear. Women fucking love a man with a nice ass, they fucking love it! Squats are my favorite exercise of all time, the burn that comes with moving an impossibly heavy amount of weight almost getting me high. I punish myself hard for all the torture I constantly inflict on my body at the bars, relishing in feeling exhausted, pumped, and beastly.
I'm resting between sets on the squat machine when a guy in his 50s who definitely doesn't look like he lifts randomly walks up to me. "You have a really great physique," he compliments. He's short and trim, with neatly combed silver hair, his bristly mustache transitioning into a well-trimmed silver beard. He was obviously here to leisurely plod on a treadmill.
I can barely hear him over the music blaring in my ears. "Thanks," I answer, thinking he's going to walk away. Fucking old creep. I wear my headphones when I'm in the gym precisely because I don't want people like him fucking my sessions up.
"Any...use...extra cash?" he seems to ask more quietly, most of the words totally unintelligible.
Hearing "extra cash" instantly attracts my attention, unless the dude was trying to pick me up. I'm not a fucking escort, I'd deck him right there. I pluck the headphones out of my ears anyway, willing to listen. "What?" I say way too loudly after listening to my music for an hour.
