80
“He kept your Valentine?” Amanda asked. “For six years?”
“Yeah. So what am I supposed to do?” I asked. “What does that mean?”
Amanda and Jordan sat on her couch, sampling the chocolates I had brought for show-and-tell.
Jordan was there having lunch when I showed up around noon, and I tried to wait him out, but it didn’t look like he was leaving. Besides, I needed Amanda’s advice more than I needed my privacy.
“These are excellent,” Amanda said, biting into one with a caramel filling. “I say we give him another chance.”
“You’re reading it all wrong,” Jordan said. “This wasn’t an advance, it was debt.”
Amanda and I gave him equal looks of “Huh?”
“An advance,” he said, taking another chocolate. “Like getting paid for something you write before they publish it. I’m saying he wasn’t
