Chapter 9 - The Laundromat
The rain had returned to Queens, greasy and cold, turning the asphalt of 31st Street into a slick, black mirror.
Grant Holloway pulled the hood of his wet cotton sweatshirt over his head, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket. He stood beneath the flickering neon sign of Lombardo’s Laundry & Dry Cleaners, staring up at the second-floor window.
The glass was still cracked. The gray duct tape was still peeling at the edges, flapping lazily in the wind like a tattered flag of surrender.
His phone was dead. His cards had been declined at three different gas stations along the Long Island Expressway. His engagement to Madison was dead, buried under forty million dollars in corporate debt and a father-in-law who refused to take his calls.
He had walked for six hours through the rain, his expensive Italian leather shoes ruined, his tailored tuxedo trousers soaked and mud-splattered at the cuffs.
Now, he had nowhere else to go.
He walked over to the heavy metal door beside the laundry entrance—the door with the peeling gray paint and the brass lock that had jammed every time it rained.
He pushed down on the handle.
To his surprise, it clicked open.
The stairwell was dark, smelling of damp carpet, old cedar, and cheap bleach. Every step creaked under his weight, the sound echoing off the narrow plaster walls like a series of small, rhythmic hammer blows.
He reached the landing at the top of the stairs and pushed open the door to the small, one-room apartment above the laundry.
The room was empty.
There was no furniture. No bed. No desk. No marble kitchen island.
Just bare wooden floors, a single overhead bulb hanging from a frayed cord, and a narrow, sagging futon frame pushed against the far wall—the exact same futon frame he and Charlotte had dragged up those very stairs eight years ago.
Grant walked slowly into the center of the room, his boots leaving wet, muddy tracks across the dusty floorboards.
He looked around the empty space, his chest heaving, a hollow, bitter laugh catching in his throat.
He had started right here. With a cracked window, a secondhand futon, and a woman who believed in him when he had nothing.
And after all the towers, the mergers, the penthouses, the million-dollar boardrooms, and the glittering galas at the Met...
He was right back where he started.
May you like
Only this time, there was no Charlotte making sandwiches at midnight. There was no one polishing his shoes before an investor meeting. There was no one waiting in the dark to pick up the pieces when he fell.
He sank down onto the edge of the sagging futon, burying his face in his hands, as the rain drummed a steady, unforgiving rhythm against the cracked glass overhead.
