Raj throws his head back to laugh. I like it. Unlike Sophie or my parents, he doesn’t have anything at stake, so his opinion is real. Unlike Carmen, he didn’t forge an oath in tequila in an NYU freshman dorm room to be my best friend forever, so he won’t sugarcoat anything to spare my feelings. He could reprimand me for my callous treatment of Blake. Whatever Raj’s verdict is when I finish telling the story, I know it’ll be honest and unbiased. That sounds even more refreshing than this cold beer.

“You’re nuts,” he says finally, pushing off the bar, stunned. “But I admire your balls.”

“Really?” I ask. It’s a hair too fast. I sound desperate.

He grips the bar and leans over it toward me. “Life’s too short to play it safe. You want to win big, you gotta take risks.” He grabs my empty bottle. “Tonight’s drinks are on me.”

• Chapter 9 •

The weekend goes by in a crowded blur of customers. But on Monday, the shop is quieter than I’d like. Sitting in the back room, I can hear the blow of the air-conditioner—business is really that dead on a weekday morning. And that’s when a plan strikes me. It’s so beautifully simple, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I pitch it to my sister, who’s hunched over her desk, examining a new order of stones one by one with tweezers.

“What if we email Roy and ask for an additional six months at our current rent if we promise to renew the lease for at least the next year, and pay the new, raised rent once the deadline’s up?” I propose. “This way, he gets the money he wants, and we get a few more months to raise it.”

She looks up with a blank expression. I’ve pulled her out of her work.

“That’d give us nearly a year,” she muses.

“Right—a whole year to apply for grants, court new investors, expand our e-commerce shop, grow our following.”

“But what if doesn’t go for it?”

I shrug. “Then he doesn’t go for it. But at least we tried.”

“He won’t be mad at us for asking?” She picks at her nails at she talks, her telltale sign that she’s stressed. She hates talking about money.

“He could be annoyed, maybe, sure. But I’d rather have him feel slightly bothered by us than kick us off the premises when we can’t pay.”

“You’re so dramatic.”

I hesitate before going in for the kill, because I know this will convince her for good. “Another year at this rent means another year before we have to even consider laying off Jess or cutting our salaries.”