Page 14 of Guy (House of Frazier #4)

As soon as the phone was answered, he didn’t think it was the Frazier person he asked to speak to Amber.

Everything that he had planned out to say to her went out the door the moment she said ‘hello’ to him.

Sobbing out what was going on in his life, how Margaret was going to ruin them, he found himself on the floor in the living room, curled up into the fetal position, sobbing about how he didn’t know if he was going to make it and needed her help.

“How much do you need? I’m not saying that I’ll help you, you’ve been a right bastard to me all my life, but you tell me how much you need and I’ll think about helping you.

And for the love of god, take the checkbook away from Margaret before she digs you a hole you’ll never see the light of day again through.

” He told her that he didn’t know how much he needed, and that was the truth.

He figured that asking for money and getting it was far between, but she wasn’t hanging up on him, so he gave her a good estimate.

“That’s a great deal of money, Shawn. How did you get so far behind? ”

“I’d like to blame it all on Margaret, but that wouldn’t be true.

She’s not helping our situation, but then neither had I been.

” He told her how their electricity and cable were going to be cut off, and thankfully, the house phone was working now, or he’d have not been able to call her to beg.

And begging he was. “I don’t care about the cars getting back to us, nor about the cable.

I can’t remember the last time I sat down to watch a movie.

We need just enough to cover the basics.

Phone, electricity, and some money for food.

Though I’m not sure who would cook it. The staff left us about six weeks ago, and we’ve been living off of cereal and microwave food.

That crap is nasty. So I guess we’ve been eating out when we should have been cooking at home.

Just help me keep the power on and get our phones back to working. I can deal with not having the rest.”

“I’ll do that, but it’ll come with a cost.” He didn’t care if she wanted his left foot right now; he’d do anything to have one thing go right.

“You have to be nice to me. I don’t mean until the power is kept on, but all the time.

I’ve never done anything to you, and I don’t like the way you treat me when you feel as if I owe you something. ”

“All right. I can do that. But you have to work with me on that. I’m not going to be able to change overnight.

Please?” She told him so long as he was trying, she’d work with him.

“You have no idea how much I appreciate this, Amber. I know that we’ve been a shit to you before, but I’m going to change.

I don’t know about Margaret. She’s…I think that there is something wrong with her mind.

She doesn’t seem to understand about banks and checks. ”

He told her what she was doing again and again, and he was told to stop her. But he figured that if anyone were to spend ten minutes with her, they’d see that there was something very wrong with his twin sister.

After hanging up with Amber, with the promise to meet him at the power office in an hour, she was going to pick him up and take him there.

It was more than he could have hoped for, and he told her that.

As soon as he got off the phone, he went to find Margaret again.

Apparently, writing checks wasn’t something that she liked anymore, and she was arranging the furniture in her room.

“I have to make room for my stuff.” He asked her what stuff. “You know, stuff that I had before. The ones that we had to sell for money.”

“We still don’t have any money, Margaret.” She said that she counted and they have fifty-three checks left. “Yes, would you mind if I took over those for now? And I’ll see that these get put in the proper place for mailing.”

“Don’t forget to get stamps. I have a check already saved out for that. The one with your favorite movie on it.” He’d forgotten about them ordering checks that were movie-themed. He did wonder now why they’d done that. Just to spend money, he figured. “Are you going out?”

“I am. I have to see someone about the power before they shut it off.” He hoped they’d get there before it was turned off.

They wanted to charge him an extra two hundred and fifty dollars to have it turned back on again.

“You stay here, and I’ll be back soon, and we can order out. As a celebration.”

“Yes, because I’ve gotten us out of debt now. Silly brother. I told you to do this at the beginning.” Yes, he thought there was something wrong with his sister. “Now we’ll get our things back and go on like we did before. I can’t stand being broke all the time, Shawn. It’s not good for me.”

“What do you mean?” She told him that she couldn’t sleep at night the way that he was doing things, that she had to be in charge of something like the bills, so that they’d not be stressed out. “I was stressed out. I’m glad that you’ve taken some of the burden off my shoulders.”

He had to get out of her room. It hurt his heart when he thought of how much stress she’d been under, and his stress levels were higher because he had to take care of her.

Going to the front door to wait on Amber, he thought of all the things that he’d had planned and were now useless because he’d been…

they’d been so useless with money. What the hell was wrong with them?

It wasn’t as if they had grown up with a great deal of money.

They had a comfortable life. Had anything that they wanted, whether they needed it or not.

But after killing their dad, then their mom, they’d gotten stupider.

It occurred to him that he might get into trouble for killing them, but he didn’t dwell on it for long.

He had enough on his mind right now without thinking of going to prison for killing his parents.

True to her word, Amber came by to pick him up and take him to the electric power company.

He wasn’t thrilled that she’d brought Frazier with her, but she was doing him a favor, and he wasn’t going to complain.

While he sat in the back seat, she told him what was going to happen with the power company.

“I called, and we have to pay off the entire bill before they don’t shut it off.

That’s a bit more than you told me.” He told her how he’d only just gotten a past due notice yesterday, and that was the amount on it.

“They’re making you pay the current bill, too.

The cell service was a good deal nicer about it.

I had to pay the remaining amount owed on the phones that you both got, and then this month’s bill.

A bit more there, too, but they were kind enough not to say it would cost you an arm and a leg to keep your service on. So that’s paid.”

“Thank you.” He could actually feel some of the stress rolling off his back.

“I’ve put the checks away that Margaret wrote.

She just wrote them out for every bill that we had.

Some of them were for magazine subscriptions that I didn’t know we got, but she said that she’d done it, so I’m going to assume that they’ll have to wait a bit longer or just stop sending them to us. ”

After going to the power company and paying that bill, they headed to the cell service and had that bill changed around so that they were no longer paying on the phones they’d gotten.

Only the best was what they’d gotten for themselves, and he couldn’t remember a single thing that his phone did that he thought he needed at the time.

He couldn’t even remember the last picture that he took with it, and it was supposed to have a state-of-the-art camera with it.

He was surprised when Amber and her husband, whose name he still didn’t know, took him out to lunch.

He thought about Margaret but decided that, for today, she could eat cereal.

It was all the two of them had been eating for several days now, as the microwave stuff hadn’t been as easy as it said it would be on the package.

He was giddy to be out to lunch, too, with someone other than his twin.

“I’m going to give you some money to keep you afloat, but you’re going to have to get yourself a job.

” He nearly snarled at her that he wasn’t going to be low enough to get that when he realized that she was helping now.

If he didn’t help himself, then she’d not help him now.

“Also, the cars that have been repossessed are going to have to be paid off, too. Along with other things that you’ve gotten when you didn’t have any income. ”

He was handed a pen and a small notebook to write things down in. However, about the second page of notes, he had to stop and shove it all away. Amber and Fraizer looked at him sharply.

“I need to back off for a moment. I’m not used to…

I’m trying my best to be nice here, but it’s too much.

” She said she understood. “I don’t understand any of this.

I was just thinking before you came to get me that I don’t know where it came from in my mind that I had to have such expensive things.

And that I needed the best of the best, no matter the cost. I’d like to blame it all on you, but that’s not going to work.

You never had anything to do with us spending money like we had it.

I want to blame it all on you. I won’t, but that’s where my head is going right now. ”

He wanted to cry and had to work hard on not doing that. Shawn knew that he was a grown man and had to take responsibility for things that he’d created. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that he was where he was but himself. He looked at Fraizer when he said his name.