Four STARZ Members Came to Hide, Then Fell for the Cat Café Owner novel · Chapter 26 of 40

Chapter 26: The Escape Hatch

Chan was sitting on the cabin's third step in the rain when they pulled in.

He did not look up from the wet boards, and the rotten step had gone soft under him.

"She asked to speak to the others alone," he said, to the ground. "I said that was fine."

"Is it fine?" said Missy.

"It's not mine to say."

She had an ugly urge to sit down beside him and put her arm through his, and she stepped over his knees instead.

Inside, the manager sat at the husband's desk, in her long coat, with three pages squared in front of her and a fountain pen on top.

Felix stood against the woodstove with his arms folded.

Hyunjin was on the floor with his knees drawn up, and Jisung sat beside him, holding his sleeve.

"Miss Larkin," the manager said, tiredly.

"Missy is fine."

"Missy. This is a mercy, and I'd like you to hear me say so."

She turned the pages around.

"Each of you signs a waiver. Chan's renewal takes effect, the penalties lift, and the company says the cove was a rental. Monday you fly home. Nobody is fined and nobody loses a contract."

"And Chan?" said Felix.

"Chan has already paid."

"He didn't ask us."

"He didn't have to." She looked at the three of them with something close to pity. "You can spend a week being angry, or you can sign, and be on a stage by Christmas."

Minho came in behind Missy, wet to the shoulders, and shut the door.

"They don't have to sign," he said.

The manager's face did not change, but her eyes went to him.

"Who told you that?"

"A lawyer, this morning. The renewal's void unless every one of them signs, so if anyone refuses, it falls. And page nine," Minho said, "is a rider that sends Chan away from her for seven years."

Felix's head came up.

"He wrote her out?"

"In the small print."

The silence in the cabin lasted a long moment.

Then Hyunjin got up off the floor, all six feet of him, and took the pen off the desk.

He looked at it, put the cap back on it and set it down on the manager's page.

"No," he said.

"Hyunjin."

"I'm not signing. I'd rather be fined. I'd rather lose the label." His voice shook and he kept going. "I've wanted to be wanted for something that wasn't my face since I was nineteen. I'm not flying home from the first place that did."

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