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That, and the staff seemed restless. I know the mood in the office has been shitty all week, so I bought the office pizza for lunch today and handed out hundred-dollar preloaded credit cards to everyone to thank them for being so helpful as I’ve bombarded them all with questions for my audit.
This perked the mood up and got them buzzing with activity to the degree that the noise got to me.
I walk into the apartment and there’s music playing. Shitty pop music. I’m a classic rock guy. The smell of lemon hangs in the air and I see a burnt-out candle by her laptop there on the granite island. Beyond the scent of the candle, there’s another smell. I smell something good.
Jada’s bedroom door is open. She’s not in there. The bathroom door is open. I peek into the laundry room and finally the master bedroom and bathroom. No Jada.
I check the oven. Whatever it is, it’s on warm. I lift the corner of the foil over the long casserole dish and it’s looking like enchiladas. My mouth waters. I lift a lid on a pot on the back of the stove and there’s a pot of Spanish rice with beans.
My stomach growls.
This girl can cook.
I haven’t had any complaints since the food poisoning, other than that she hasn’t made me fajitas again yet. The fact that I’ve been at my desk so many hours a day and not doing enough working out, I am gonna need to take time this weekend to find a local gym to join because my quick nighttime bedroom workouts aren’t gonna cut it with these menus. This girl is gonna get me fat. It’s like she’s killing me with food. In the best way. She hasn’t cooked the same thing twice. Some of the best meals I’ve had in years have been in the past week. She’s packed me leftovers for lunch a few times too, and I’ve not been disappointed yet. I should probably tell her to cook leaner food for me, but I’ve been enjoying it too much.
I wonder where she is.
I’m starved and this food is ready, so I decide to serve myself.
Once I’ve washed my hands and loaded my plate up with two big enchiladas and rice as well as gotten myself a beer, I sit it down at the island.
I don’t bother to change my clothes, today is casual Friday so I’m in jeans and a black Bob Marley concert t-shirt with long white sleeves.
I dig into the food while scrolling on my phone.
Something catches my eye. I’ve grazed her computer keyboard with my elbow and the screen has come to life.
It’s her desktop I’m looking at, and unlike how she has her life – organized (even her room is clean, not that I’ve gone in but today I was pleased, for some weird reason, to see from the doorway that it’s tidy) but this desktop is a fucking mess.
Doesn’t she know that having all these files saved here will slow her system down? Every inch of the desktop screen is filled with icons, thumbnails, and shortcuts.
Why wouldn’t she organize it into subfolders at least?
I don’t know why I’m irritated by this.
She’s got pictures, PDF files, software shortcuts, and a whack of Excel spreadsheets and Word documents on here.
I see a spreadsheet named, Austin Carmichael Expenses.
Shit. I have to pay her today. I wanted to watch her actions closely so emailed Alice and told her to take her off payroll and let me handle the weekly deposits, that I’ll add them to my expense report. Looking at my phone, she emailed me last night with the details of her expenses. I also got a credit card for her, too, today at the bank when I picked up the loaded Visa cards.
I take a bite of rice. It’s good. It’s fucking good. And then I dig into the enchilada. Beef and beans. With vegetables and mounds of cheese. It’s delicious. I take another big bite and scroll the spreadsheet of her expenses on the phone. I don’t see the cab fare for when she brought lunch on that first morning. The grocery line item is also too low for what I’ve been fed this week. The fridge is full. Is she being some sort of martyr?
I pay her with a bank transfer from my own account and I add on an extra three hundred bucks for the food and cab fares and then take another bite of food.
Her screen goes dark again. I run my finger over the mousepad and it comes back on.
And then out of annoyance and my mild OCD tendencies, I lean over and right click her mouse and tap ‘sort by’ and then select name.
The screen rearranges into alphabetical order and my eyes land on the Austin Carmichael Expenses spreadsheet. Next to it, there’s a Microsoft Word document and it’s called Austin Smut.
