Losing to Win Read Online Free Page B

tone.
    â€œEr. Uh. Well. To go over your paperwork and the filming schedule?”
    This was it. I was about to sign my life away . . . literally for the foreseeable future. Opening up parts of my life I had no interest in dissecting on film. For all to see. It was a nightmare. Ren slid a folder in front of me with the Losing to Win logo on it. Flipping it open, the first thing I noticed was a check made out to me in the amount of ten thousand dollars. I picked up the check and studied it. It was drawn from a local bank. With this check, I could afford to pay Mac to finish the upgrades on my house and maybe get Ruby Ann the new grill top she wanted for her restaurant. With a few more checks, I could restore the backyard jungle into presentable gardens. Buy my mama the grand piano she’d always wanted. Maybe I’d finally lease some space for the youth center I was to open someday. I could set aside a nest egg. I could travel.
    Suddenly, I got it. My miserable existence for the next few months equated to business and money for my hometown and those I cared about. It was a chance to get out from under, a chance to get ahead. This is what they called “taking one for the team,” and I could walk away in a better place physically and financially. I mean, how bad could it really be? I closed my eyes briefly and nodded slowly.
    â€œSure, Ren. Now’s a great time. Come on in.” I pretended not to see the relieved looks my friends and family exchanged as they filed out the door.

3
    This could be my shot
    Malachi—Monday, May 23—9:27 a.m.
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    I t took over an hour to extricate myself from all the Belle Haven well-wishers who wanted to chat me up, relive old times, thank me for doing the show, and generally just have a moment of my time. Then there was the matter of a short meeting with Pierre, my best friend and agent. Pierre Picard had been a business marketing major at LSU, one year ahead of me when I showed up on campus. Originally from Beaumont, Texas, his family had deep roots in Cajun country. Pierre was also popular on campus, tall and good-looking in an old-school Billy Dee Williams kind of Idris Elba way. He was heavily into student politics and president of his fraternity. While most people on campus were kissing up and trying to be my friend, Pierre just nodded an acknowledgment and kept moving. We met the first time Carissa came to campus. I was running late, and by the time I caught up with her, she was sitting in the lobby of my dorm talking to Pierre as if they’d known each other forever. I gave him my best “mess with my woman and answer to me” look. He just laughed, thanked Carissa for a pleasant conversation, and walked away. For some reason, that impressed me. I sought him out, realized he was probably about the most business-savvy guy I’d ever met, and asked him to be my agent on the spot. He not only became my advocate in all things business but a good friend to me as well. He was the one who approached me with the idea to do the show, and though it was unconventional, I could definitely see using this as a vehicle to get back to where I wanted to be.
    By the time I turned onto Climbing Rose Lane, I was still struggling to digest all that had happened in the past few weeks.
    Regardless of some current opinions, I wasn’t a bad guy. Really. I was just a guy who had lost his way and was trying to get back on track. Everything in my world was up the air. It was good to pull into the driveway and see that some things stayed just as you’d expect.
    My childhood home had looked the same for as long as I could remember. It was a tidy-looking, blue double-gallery-style house with wraparound porches on both stories. Painted iron railings of stark white adorned the house. Large windows facing north and south gleamed as though freshly cleaned. The stucco and brick structure had outlasted many a storm and attempts at destruction by me and my younger