You had done the professional thing.
Because unlike HR, you actually had standards.
Your inbox contained several messages from Lujan Entertainment marked URGENT — RESPONSE REQUIRED.
You clicked none of them.
Instead, you opened your banking app.
Rent due in twelve days.
Savings enough for maybe five months if you were careful.
Student loans still waiting like a patient predator.
Your mother’s medical bill from Arizona still partially unpaid.
You should have been afraid.
Maybe later you would be.
But not yet.
Right now, your entire nervous system was celebrating the fact that nobody could call you into a 9 p.m. “quick sync” about an artist who had posted something stupid on Instagram while drunk in Miami.
You made toast.
You ate slowly.
Then your phone rang again.
Unknown number.
You ignored it.
It rang again.
You ignored it.
On the third call, a voicemail appeared.
You pressed play.
Alejandro’s voice filled your kitchen.
