Feverish (Bullet #3) Read Online Free

kitchen. It didn’t turn on either. Just as a last
reassurance, he opened the refrigerator door and found
confirmation. No light, no fan.
    He needed to call the power company and see
if there was some weird electricity outage in his neighborhood. He
couldn’t remember where he’d put his cell phone, so he looked all
through the living room, on end tables, under furniture, inside
cushions. He’d never had a landline put in, much to Mary’s chagrin,
and this was the only time since he’d moved here that he wished
he’d done it. He considered walking to a neighbor’s house, but they
weren’t huge Jet fans.
    Finally, Clay went back in his bedroom and
looked around, but it wasn’t there either. Then he remembered. It
had been in the back pocket of last night’s jeans, and they were
still in his music room. He hustled to the other end of the house
to the most important room in it—the one that held his prize
possessions—his guitars, amps, pedals, and everything else that
went with his musical life. Carm—er, Tatiana had asked to see some
of his guitars, and she’d attacked him shortly after he’d started
playing a riff from Last Five Second’s first single. And there they
were, in the middle of the floor. Please let it be
there.
    And it was. It was even halfway charged. Then
he realized he didn’t have the phone number to the power company.
So he pulled up the browser on his phone to search the internet. He
couldn’t remember the name of the power company, though, anymore
than he’d been able to remember Tatiana’s name. In his defense,
however, the power company had been taken over by a new company
just a few months ago.
    He sighed, feeling frustrated. He knew he had
a phone book somewhere, but damned if he knew where it was. He knew
Mary would have put it somewhere that seemed logical to her. Then
it dawned on him. Their phone number would have to be on his
bill. So he’d have to go into his office where all that crap
was.
    He walked farther down the hall to the small
room he’d converted into an office. It had a desk and chairs, some
bookshelves, and a filing cabinet. That was it as far as furniture
went. He opened the door and spied the rather large pile of mail on
the desk. When the hell had it grown so large? This wasn’t
good.
    He forced himself to walk all the way inside
and sit down. Caring enough to pay bills had never been Clay’s
forte. It used to be that he didn’t have enough money to stretch,
and he’d do the best he could. Nowadays, he had plenty of money but
wasn’t organized enough—didn’t give enough of a shit, even—to make
sure they got paid. Sure, there were also flyers and magazines and
letters in the pile, but it was mostly bills.
    Shit.
    He started sifting through the pile. Mary
used to stack the mail neatly but realized that as soon as Clay got
his hands on it, it would crumble into a mess anyway, so she
stopped bothering. As he started looking at one envelope after
another, he was pretty sure the stuff on top was newest. Visa,
cable, water (he was starting to feel relief that he’d bought his
car outright), gas, and aha ! The electric bill. Oh, that
wasn’t good. The envelope looked normal, except on the front it
said, “Important Notice.” He’d been here before. Paired with the
fact that the bill peeking through the plastic window was printed
on yellow paper meant only one thing: the bill was overdue.
    Fuck.
    He opened the bill and let out a long sigh.
He felt like cursing, but it wouldn’t do any good. Sure enough,
that damned bill said that if they hadn’t received payment by April
nineteenth, his power would be shut off. It went on to mention that
he’d have to pay fees to reconnect, late fees, and the original
amount, blah, blah, blah. But maybe he still had time. He couldn’t
remember what day it was.
    He pressed a button on his phone and read the
date. Well, that had been wishful thinking. Today was April
twentieth, which meant he was officially fucked. He