Crossroads/Borrowed Lives—2026-05-16 (Patreon)

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Chapter 107: TROUBLE IN PARADISE by Paul Charm

Well, well, now. My employer’s ongoing silence has acquired a new and rather irritating dimension.

Since we set up shop in Brooklyn, the Pay It Forward Society has paid next month’s rent for all the kids at 12:01 a.m. on the 15th of each month. Rebecca and I check because “making certain young people remain housed” strikes us as worthwhile.

It is now the morning of the 16th, and June rent has not been paid.

Naturally, I am less than delighted.

Silence about why we are here and what we are meant to do next is one thing. Quietly pulling the rug out from under the kids we have made promises to is quite another.

I popped in on Tom Jenkins at the end of work yesterday. He told me not to panic, which I found bold, considering I had not yet begun. He pulled up the records from Zillow, his automated rent-payment system, and found they’ve never paid on a weekend. They also paid on the sixteenth one month.

So perhaps nothing has gone entirely pear-shaped just yet.

Meanwhile…

I have decided it is time for all the Society kids and a few others at Crossroads to check in and let you know what is happening in their lives. We did this not so long ago, but time moves quickly, and there are a lot of stories to keep straight.

I will begin with a brief note and then let Rebecca take over.

We finally set a wedding date: June 27, 2026.

She may tell you how that came about, because I suspect she will make it sound far more romantic than I deserve.

We have also established—given that we have twenty-four hours in a day and only so much time can reasonably be spent mooning over one another—an online logistics consulting company.

So far, we have earned a modest sum telling people, with care and courtesy, why they are doing things the hard way.

Fancy that. I am being paid to be snarky.

In advance of the wedding, we called it Charm Consulting. It is hardly more than a lark at this point, but it has paid for groceries and the occasional meal out, so it is not nothing.

That is it from me. Watch for the others over the days to come.

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