Page 3 of The Single Father Upstairs

I checked on Indigo one last time. She’d kicked off the covers, and I pulled them up to her chin.

Trying to get comfortable on the sofa, I scrunched the pillow in half and turned to the right before rolling to the left. My mind was on that scent as I tried to fathom its origin. I could ask Jon, but he’d take a day to get back to me and then assume I’d been dumpster diving because Indigo had accidentally thrown away her favorite childhood toy.

Whatever it was, it didn’t hang around, and it was unlikely it’d be back. I had to put it out of my mind.

2

MILES

Two weeks paid house hunting and four weeks at a long-term-stay hotel when I started had sounded like an amazing deal when I accepted the job. I would start my new life, basically get a free month of housing, and then take my time to pick out the perfect apartment. Easy peasy.

I learned very quickly there was nothing easy or peasy about it.

The house-hunting trip told me that a perfect apartment didn’t exist. I told myself that was fine. I didn’t need perfection. All I needed was a place where Marmalade, the world’s best cat, and I could be safe and comfortable. No bells and whistles needed.

That, too, was easier said than done.

The past three weeks since starting work, I’d spent every free hour searching for or touring apartments, lowering my bar daily. I was at the point where barely acceptable was good enough and was striking out at that.

I just came out of the fifth showing of the day, the twelfth of the weekend, and it was the worst one yet. There was an actual pot in the closet collecting water from a leak, with no sign that theywere ever going to fix it. The walls were covered in mold, pieces of the ceiling littered the floor, and they had a plastic tarp on the floor catching the overflow.

The apartment situation was so different from where I’d come from. For my last place, I had to pay first and last, and the last doubled as a security deposit, which didn’t make sense. But when they’d said I didn’t have to pay my final month, I was grateful. That last month’s rent covered Marmalade’s boarding during the move.

The market here was frustrating, to say the least. I was filling out applications and background checks and credit checks left and right, all of them coming with a stupid fee attached, and that was only to see the place. Some rejected me outright saying I hadn’t been with my current job for long enough. Duh. It was new. Others used my salary as an excuse, wanting me to make over four times my income instead of the standard three. Not a single one of them returned my fee, which felt illegal, but I was in no position to fight the process. I needed a place… yesterday.

I still hadn’t figured out where I was going to get the first month’s rent, last month’s rent, security deposit, pet deposit, cleaning fees, parking rentals on top of all these application fees. I had what I thought was enough money saved, but after crunching numbers, I was slapped in the face with the reality that I didn’t have anywhere close to enough. Worst-case scenario I’d charge it, but that would hurt.

The one I loved wouldn’t let me keep Marmalade. Their “pets allowed” meant goldfish in a bowl, not a tank. I’d hardly call that pet friendly. There were quite a few places that allowed my fur baby, but they required large pet deposits, and in a few cases, pet rent. As if Marmalade being in the place somehow justified $250 a month.

It was getting to the point where I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.

I stood in the doorway of the building housing the free bucket with rental. The skies had opened up and it was pouring, so I decided to stay put while trying to figure out what to do next. There were no more apartments on the list. If luck was on my side, some new ones would pop up tonight on one of the listing sites I was using and I’d be able to go tomorrow after work to tour it. I wasn’t holding my breath.

This was getting exhausting.

The rain slowed, and I bolted to my car and drove back to the hotel that was mine for a little while longer. I’d inquired with them how much it would be to stay an extra week or possibly month after I toured a place where there was a communal bathroom on a different floor than my “apartment.” When they showed me the numbers, I nearly cried on the spot.

I’d asked people at work how they found their place and if they knew of any availability, and most of them either lived with family, were married, or had been in the city a long time back before rents exploded. No one had any suggestions other than to keep trying.

In hindsight, I should’ve looked into this before I accepted the position, but there was no going back to my old job now. They’d already filled the position, and at least here I had a paycheck.

Besides, I needed this new start. I’d been stuck in the same position for two years with no upward mobility available. I’d hit that ceiling and was stuck. This new place, there was a growth path I could follow, and I was excited for that. I needed to get over this bump first.

“This is what you wanted,” I reminded myself.

I tapped the key card and went into my room. The guy at the front desk teased when I first got the place that this was as nice as an apartment, or at least I thought he was teasing at the time. It had a bed, a dresser, a table that could barely hold two plates, a microwave, and a college-sized fridge. How could that be better than an apartment? But now that I’d seen what was out there? It was a warning.

I opened the little plastic door of the freezer section in the fridge. It barely kept things frozen and could only hold a couple of items. I pulled out a burrito, popping it in the microwave. Dinner of champions.

I needed a plan, a better one than whatever it was I was doing now. I started up my laptop, and as I ate my burrito, I looked at the roommate-wanted section—something I swore I’d never do. I didn’t want to live with strangers. Too many Datelines started that way, but it was looking increasingly like I’d have to, and it would suck. The prices weren’t much better than the rents I’d seen, and I’d probably need to continue with my storage unit, which was already costing a lot more than I expected it would.

The roommate listings were as bad as I feared. Two-bedroom apartments, looking for a fifth roommate. One-bedroom apartments, looking for a fourth. They had to be like a college dorm, shoving bunk beds everywhere, or worse. One stated the couch was available… The couch. No room. No bed. Just the pleasure of coach surfing for $500 a month… Ridiculous.

There were multiple that had emojis about drinking, smoking, and drugs. I appreciated them being upfront, but hard pass. One only had the room available three days a week, and one was a ten-floor walk-up, with an asterisk next to it, saying, “Or untilthe elevator is fixed.” That didn’t sound so bad until I read “RIP Elevator” with a date over three years ago.

The more I looked, the worse my situation was looking.

I’d done the calculations the night before. I could manage to stay in this hotel for another month if I had to, but it would suck up what I thought was going to be my first and last. It was a short-term solution making a long-term solution nearly impossible. Maybe there were other long-term hotels with by-the-week rentals in sketchier parts of town. The option wasn’t great, but it would do.