My Best Friend Used Me, Now She Pays novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Parking Lot

On Thursday I worked my first full shift, and at 6:15 I found Dane Seidel leaning on my car.

It was a ten-year-old Corolla with a cracked bumper, and he had one polished shoe up on the tire.

The strip mall lot was nearly empty.

A light buzzed over the tae kwon do school, and the vape shop had its neon sign on.

"Nina," he said, with the delighted air of a man who has run into an old friend. "Long day?"

"Move your foot, please."

"Of course."

He did, slowly, and kept smiling.

"I wanted to apologize for the other day. I came on a little strong. Kyla's just so frightened, and you're so good with her."

"She's fine. It's a hamstring."

"Is it?" He tilted his head. "I've coached eleven elite athletes, and I've never seen anyone read a tear the way you do. At first I thought it was luck."

"It's school."

"It's more than school."

He reached into his quarter-zip and took out a card, thick cream stock with a raised logo.

SEIDEL PERFORMANCE.

"I'm building something," he said. "A protocol. A system for coming back from soft-tissue injuries, a book, an app, maybe a certification. It needs a clinical brain. Four thousand a month, consulting, flexible hours. You'd barely have to leave your clinic."

I looked at the card without taking it.

Four thousand a month.

In my first life, he had never offered me a dime.

He had offered me exposure, and a thank-you in the acknowledgments in size six type.

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