Friday morning he carefully tiptoed down the stairs and made a beeline for the front door. Sadly it seemed he had fully ran out of luck because the living room door opened and David stepped into the hall.

"Where are you going?"

"Out." He answered curtly, grabbing the door handle.

"And who allowed you to do that?"

"I`m an adult now. I can do whatever I want and you have no say in it anymore."

"As long as you want to stay under my roof, I do."

But Adlai didn`t want to stay here, he wanted to get his own place and for that he needed money first.

"No, you don`t. At least in the matter of things like going out or not, you don`t."

And before he could be faced with the rage that would surely follow his response he darted out the door making his way downtown.

He looked around for shops that were hiring, while not trying to think about the fact that the pay from such jobs wouldn`t be enough to rent a decent apartment, he would also need a position where he could start working almost immediately.

Adding to that was that he didn`t have much saved, because he had thought that he had a stable future ahead of him and Elias and he always shared the cost of the apartment.

He finally decided to stop at a nice little café for breakfast, ordering a coffee and a sandwich. 

Maybe he could look online, he realized. He could`ve thought of this sooner. He gave in to his habit of slapping his forehead, but quickly realizing what he was doing and where he was doing it. He looked around in embarressment. After a while he found a job offer by a lady named Dolly Harper who was searching for replacement for her position as secretary for the CEO of Holub Corb. He wasn`t really qualified. But it shouldn`t be too hard and he was good with computers. Seeing how desperate she seemed he could just make up a lie (because he was just as desperate) and she would believe it. She wanted someone with three years of work experience as a secretary but he should be able to solve this problem. 

Step one: Finding a company she couldn`t contact easily.

Step two: Making up a story as to why she shouldn`t call them for reference.

Step three: Getting the position.

Step four: Doing such a great job that she, or whoever his superviser would be, wouldn`t want to fire him once she found out.

He called her and arranged a meeting for Monday. If he really got the position he could start working the Monday after his interview, make enough money, move out of his mother`s apartment and rent his own and all that before his half sister came back.

***

It turned out Dolly was a kind middle-aged lady who had been given a chance for a better-paying position at an other company and she would be starting there soon but needed a replacement for her. He had decided to tell her a half-truth - or half-lie - whichever way you wanted to see it. He told her that he had a bad break-up and that this person had also been his boss at the company he had worked at for five years. and that his boss/ex-boyfriend wouldn`t judge his ability without emotion. Then came the part that was basically completely the truth: How the break-up had fucked him up, how he lost everything and how he needed this job, badly.

She told him there were a few other candidates with whom she would meet up too. And that she would call him Thursday to tell him her decision. He was pretty confident seeing her pitiful glances. But just to be sure he sent applications to two cafes nearby.