Plus, I wasn’t going to give up cleaning the building; I liked it too much. I was so used to cleaning boring office buildings that having a facility with weight rooms, a huge kitchen, multiple lounge areas, and an office space for all team operations felt fresh and exciting. And getting there early meant that I got to watch the sun rise through the building’s big windows, slowly filling the rooms with daylight. Straight up lovely.
I cleaned six sections a day, five days a week, and took at least two evening shifts, plus fill-in weekend shifts at other buildings when I could. I needed the money. Badly. There was this goblin creature in my stomach that was growing into a one-day angel baby, and my savings account wasn’t as healthy as the mommy blogs said it should be. Quite the opposite.
Tech writing paid better, but it was soulless.
None of the team staff came in before seven, so I had hours alone to play music as loud as I wanted, which was almost meditative. I changed all the trash liners in my sections, scrubbed the toilets and counters—mopped four times a week—cleaned the locker room, the showers, and the weight room, then did the admin area before making my way to my favorite place: the large lounge where I supposed the hockey players…watched TV or something? I didn’t know fuck all about what they did, but there were TVs and couches and long tables. A dream to clean.
Beyond being perpetually sick and exhausted in my first trimester, pregnancy didn’t slow me down too terribly after week fourteen. I had to start wearing this belly band four months in because who knew that growing a baby was a major strain on one’s back? At first, there was the nausea and vomiting,so much vomiting, and the second trimester was better, except I was still exhausted constantly. Now that I was just starting my third, my body was more uncomfortable than ever, but again, at least I wasn’t losing my life force sitting in a cubicle writing marketing copy for the AI company that laid me off in April.
I usually ended in the lounge because it had the best couches, and I could sit on them for the last bit of my shift to regain some energy before packing up and going home. Even when the players and staff started trickling in early, they usually didn’t start in the lounge.
The couch in the corner farthest from the door was the best of them. Leather, but not the kind of leather that you have to pry your skin off of. Buttery leather, rich, and the cushions were better than my bed, so I finished the surfaces quickly and vacuumed around the room and beneath all the chairs before finally plopping down there for a brief rest.
I thought I’d just sit, scroll a bit, chill, but then the sleep demons came for me and I decided a nap was in order. Just a short one. No one could see this couch from the hall, it would be fine. By the time I woke up, my shift would be over, and maybe the kitchen staff would let me take a smoothie on my way out.
As I closed my eyes and sank further into the couch, I set a timer for twenty minutes—who could fault me for twenty minutes? I’d rest, then I would get up and wheel the vacuum into its closet, clock out, and head to the bus. Easy.
And it was; I woke up to the alarm no problem, but when I rubbed my eyes and sat up, I gasped at the sight of someone sitting on a coffee table across from me. I thought for a second I was having that dream again, the one with the sexy rude billionaire, but in that dream, I was always wearing something muchnicer than the bleach-stained Harvey Janitorial polo I wore to clean. So it had to be real.
The manseemedvery real, and his eyes were locked directly on my stomach, which was so round that the polo stretched thin over the middle.
I recognized him immediately.
It wasBarry. Barry who lived in Columbus, Ohio, kissed like it was a life-extending act, and liked matcha-flavored ice cream. NHL player Barry Wright. Barry who was?—
“Hannah, right?” he asked, though he knew. I knew, we both knew. I nodded. He pointed at my stomach. “Is that?”
“No,” I said, way too fast. “Why would you think—no.”
I stood up then, but I hadn’t eaten enough before my shift, so I had to sit back down until the gray orbs circling my vision subsided. When they did, he was still sitting in front of me, now looking shockedandconcerned, body poised and ready to brace me if I toppled over.
“How did you find me?” I asked because he had to have come looking for me. There was no other explanation. He had found out about the baby and tracked me down to chastise me, or to take her away from this life of generational janitorial work.
How did he find me?
“What?” Barry didn’t sound defensive like I had figured him out, he sounded very confused.
“Who told you?”
“Who told me what?”
“About the baby,” I said. “Why else would you be here?”
“Hannah—”
“Did my mom call you? That is so not okay, actually.”
“No, Han?—”
“Am I dreaming? You are not here.”
This was a strange dream. Definitely. Or a guilt-fueled hallucination for never calling. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to pull myself awake. It worked sometimes if I really focused, but after a good twelve seconds of this, my stomach growled, and itseemed that in fact this was not a dream at all but some cruel, bizzarro reality.
But Barry lived in Ohio, right? He totally did, he played on the team there, so what was he doing in Utah at—I peered at my watch—8:44 a.m.?
“How are you here?” I asked.
Barry’s eyebrows shot up on his forehead. “In Utah? Or in this practice center?”
