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“So tonight. We’ll get started after work. How’s that sound?”
“I ain’t askin’ you to help me.”
She tilted her head. “Haven’t you realized yet, that is not how we work. Besides, you want me helping you. I kick ass at painting. I paint hair for a living, remember?” Her hand on my arm pulsed. “Let me help you. Come on. Let’s get that house ready.”
I breathed deep, wanting to say no, wanting to pull away from her.
I didn’t do either.
I just kept breathing.Later that night after I closed up at Whitecaps, Shayla was waiting for me at the house.
She’d gone home and changed into worn, bleach-stained coveralls and secured her hair back out of her face with a plaid bandana.
I swung off my bike and met her on the porch, where she smiled at me under the light.
“I got you something,” she said.
I watched her slowly pull her hands out from behind her back and hold up a clear bag between us.
Two goldfish bumped against the plastic.
“The fuck?” I asked, squinting at the bag.
“Now you can’t say you never had a pet.” She giggled and pushed against the plastic. “I named them already—Mac and Cheese. Since you’re a cook. This one’s…no, he’s Cheese…no, wait, uh…you know what? Their names are interchangeable. Here you go.”
She shoved the bag at me and forced me to take it.
I looked from the Shayla to the fish. She got me a pet.
Nobody ever got me anything anymore.
My hand tightened around the plastic. I didn’t know what to say to her. I could feel her staring at me, not waiting for anything in return, I was sure, but simply gauging my reaction as I studied the fish.
“They’ve been cooped up in that bag for a while,” she shared. “Don’t want the little guys getting claustrophobic…”
I met her eyes after hearing her warning, nodded once, then quickly unlocked the front door and pushed inside.
“I’m excited!” Shayla called out at my back as I went straight for the kitchen, looking around for something I could use as a tank.
I had an old, clear plastic pretzel barrel I kept spare change in sitting on the counter. I dumped the change in an empty drawer, rinsed the barrel a few times, then filled it with water and carefully dropped the fish inside.
“Here.” Shayla slipped next to me and placed a jar of fish food on the counter beside the makeshift tank. “Aw, look at Mac and Cheese. They’re so happy to be here.”
I bent down and studied the fish. I didn’t know what the fuck she was seeing. They didn’t look happy to me.
“This is for you too.” Shayla pulled one of those cards she was always giving me out of the front pocket of her overalls. “It’s from my mom. She gets high off stationery, just like me.”
I chuckled and took the card, shaking my head. “She didn’t need—”
“That’s not why she did it,” Shayla cut me off.
Holding her gaze, I nodded once and tucked the card into my back pocket. “Right.”
Shayla grinned. “Come on. Let’s get started. It’s late.”
She was right—it was late. I didn’t get home until after ten, and I was fucking tired and felt like I could drop leaving work, but Shayla was here.
Suddenly, I wasn’t that tired.
She followed behind me into the large bedroom I was fixing up for the girls. Dominic and I had knocked the wall down days ago. The spots that needed spackling or other repair work were fixed and dried.
It was ready to be painted.
“This is a nice-sized room. My bedroom growing up was tiny,” Shayla said, working on the trim on the opposite wall I was working on.
“Won’t be that big once I get furniture in here.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true. Did you find anything yet?”
I shook my head, dipped the brush in the tray, saturated it with paint, then turned back to the wall, dragging the bristles slowly along the edge down from the ceiling.
“So, you’re cool with Valerie staying a client of mine?”
“I don’t care. She’ll be a good one. Used to get her hair done every other fuckin’ minute.”
Shayla chuckled. “Sweet. She’s really nice. I like her.”
I didn’t say anything to that. My ex had a right to treat me the way she was doing. To keep ignoring me. I didn’t blame her, but it was hard keeping my anger out of it.
“She, uh…mentioned a little about the way you grew up.”
I stopped going over the pink a second time and looked over my shoulder.
Shayla was peering back at me. “What was so terrible about it?” she asked in a quiet voice.
I didn’t talk about this. I never…fucking…talked about this.
“Told you I stole food and shit,” I said, reminding her—talking about this. “I think you can connect those fuckin’ dots, yeah?”
Shayla visibly swallowed. “Your parents didn’t feed you? They didn’t give you clothes?”
