Chapter 7 Becoming a Gigolo (2)

• "Emily is so evil. How could she turn a proper man into that?" Keith mumbled as he walked.
• "Alright, that's enough out of you. Shut up if you have nothing nice to say. Now, get inside and remember to wash your feet," Yasmin lectured as she dragged Keith into the bedroom.
• Once the two were gone, Chadwick collapsed onto the couch and pulled out a cigarette. He wanted a smoke before he slept.
• Suddenly, an earplug fell from above, nearly hitting him as it did so.
• "What are you doing?" Chadwick sat up and roared at Keith, who was standing by the bedroom door.
• "There's an MP3 player on the dresser. Use a pair of headphones and listen to music while you go to sleep. Stop eavesdropping. I'm worried that listening to us all the time while still being single would drive you insane. Well? Aren't I a good friend?" Keith chuckled.
• "Scram! You will be found dead in bed one day," Chadwick shouted back.
• Afterward, he turned off the lights and laid back on the couch, pulling the blanket over him as he went. Then, he lit his cigarette and slowly savored it. Gradually, the thoughts bothering him the entire time began to rise to the forefront of his mind.
• Just like Keith, he had a girlfriend during university. However, she wasn't his classmate, merely someone else within his course. Her name was Emily Sutton, and just as her name suggested, she was beautiful. Everyone knew Emily as the most beautiful girl in their course. She was so innocent and pure. It took him a lot of effort to convince her to date him, and then they were together.
• They loved each other so very much. After graduation, he went back to his hometown, a county seat, to work. He became a civil officer and was assigned to work in a rural town. That was just how work was as a civil servant. If you weren't a leader or manager and just the average worker, you wouldn't starve to death, but you also wouldn't live an amazing life. Everything was guaranteed, and nothing was left to luck. However, your monthly salary would never amount to more than three thousand after all the deductions and taxes. As for Emily, she found a job working in a firm near their university before graduation. The pay wasn't bad; it was a little over five thousand a month.
• Two years later, they were finally ready to get married. Just then, Emily's father fell ill. Her mother passed away when she was a young girl, so her father had single-handedly raised her. His illness was so bad that it was essentially terminal. Of course, she couldn't just stand aside and watch as he died. She had to seize every straw of hope she could find. However, they weren't that well off in the first place. Where would they find the money for treatment? Similarly, Chadwick's family wasn't wealthy. His parents were farmers. It was an absolute blessing that their meager farms could pay for his upbringing. Even so, he had begged everyone he knew for money to pay for her father's treatments. After pleading with his relatives, classmates, friends, colleagues, and loan sharks, he had finally gathered about five hundred thousand for the treatments. But, in the end, when they had used up all the money, her father still passed away less than a year later.
• One day after her father's death, Emily suddenly sent Chadwick a message that he had yet to delete from his phone—and it read, 'I'm sorry. I'm leaving. I can't stand living a life in poverty anymore. I'm going to Millsborough. I want to live as the rich do. Forget about me. I wish you all the best.' After she sent the message, she vanished into thin air. No matter how hard he searched, he couldn't find a single trace of her. He also had a massive debt of over five hundred thousand—money that people had only borrowed because it was him who asked. Now, he didn't just owe people money but also favors. A loan of over five hundred thousand was not something he could ever afford to pay back as a civil servant with a monthly income of over two thousand.
• To pay his family and friends back and get a direct answer from Emily, he quit his job and moved to Millsborough. Keith had called him the textbook example of an idiot. Not only had he been played for a fool, but he also had nothing to show for it in the end, with no money and no wife. Even so, Chadwick never complained. He tried as hard as possible to keep earning money to repay his loans and worked at whichever jobs would pay him the best in the short term. That meant he eventually gave up on well-respected positions in big companies and became a courier. In his eyes, couriers were paid the best. In all honesty, the pay wasn't that good. The most he could earn a month was around five to six thousand. But Keith knew that Chadwick chose this job only because couriers could travel all over the city throughout the day. Hence, he would stand a higher chance of bumping into Emily.
• The next day, Chadwick woke up around six as usual but soon realized that he had lost his job. Although he didn't have anything to do this early in the morning, he still had a meeting with Samantha at half-past eight. So, after much hesitation, he decided not to find work and merely cleaned himself up before leaving on the bicycle he had parked by the stairwell downstairs.
• After he scavenged around for some breakfast, he slowly cycled over to the area Samantha lived in. By then, it was eight twenty-five in the morning. He parked his bike by the road, squatted next to it, and began smoking. At precisely half-past eight, a BMW drove out of the residential area, which he recognized as Samantha's car.
• She stopped the car next to him and frowned at him through the open window. "That's your transport?" she asked, pointing to the bike next to him.
• "What about it? After all, it's environmentally friendly," he replied.
• "Couldn't you have worn something more decent?" she asked again, noticing the worn-out clothes he was dressed in.
• "You're quite a funny person. How is it any of your business what clothes I wear? So, do you have a job for me or not? If not, I'll be going now. I don't have the time to fool around." he angrily huffed. Finally, he stood up and got on his bicycle. After all, he hadn't thought she was serious about her so-called job offer.
• "Get in!" Samantha called out after honking at him twice.
• "What?"
• "I said, get in the car," she repeated.
• "Give me a moment. I need to lock this bike up first," he replied after a moment of hesitation. He took out his bicycle lock, planning on locking it to a nearby street lamp.
• "Don't bother. No one will steal that," she impatiently ushered.
• Chadwick paused and gave the idea some thought. It was likely the truth since no one would be foolish enough to steal it as they wouldn't be able to sell it for more than twenty or thirty bucks. And so, he forgot about the lock and climbed into the passenger seat of Samantha's car.
• "Take this," she said as she drove, handing him an envelope she dug out of her bag.
• "What is it?" he curiously asked.
• "Your salary for the month. There's ten thousand. Check if it's the right amount," she calmly answered.
• When he heard that, he immediately opened the envelope and pulled out a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills.
• "Just what do you want? I haven't even done anything, and you're already giving me my salary. It's the first time I've been paid for a job I've yet to do," he commented.
• "So? Do you want it or not? If you don't, give the money back," she said.
• "Oh, no, no. I didn't say that. Who would say no to money? It's money, the best thing in the world." He let out a chuckle as he stared at the stack of money in his hands.
• When she noticed how enamored he was with the money, disdain filled Samantha's eyes. "Are you really that desperate?" she couldn't help but ask.