“Are you fucking?” Stephanie’s smirk crackles down the line.
“Would I answer my phone if I were?”
“I have.”
“Don’t need the reminder, thanks.” Her groans had me looking sideways at my phone, worried about her guts, to hear hershout, “Deeper!” I learned that day not to assume her shame has boundaries.
“Can…hear me?”
I frown. “You’re breaking up.”
A door closes. “Girl, why did I take this contract in Wyoming? They got me around nothing but livestock and trees. There are stars and shit, but where is Kevin Costner?”
I lay back on a lounger. “Why are you looking for him?”
“Isn’t he in the mountains with a cowboy hat?”
“You meanYellowstone?“ I cackle. “Wasn’t that based in Montana?”
“Who the hell knows! How’s Naples? You find an Italian to play between your legs yet?” She stresses the word “eye-talian”for emphasis.
“I’m not outside yet. I’ve been to a nearby restaurant and a florist—“
“Roses aren’t gonna fuck you.”
“Bitch, I know!” I huff, trying not to laugh at my friend doing a wellness check on my vagina. She’s eight hours behind and needs to go to bed. “I signed up for a tour tomorrow and will grab dinner at a hotel bar.”
A small group tour of Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius. Then a pussy appointment.
“Maybe you’ll meet that man from365 Dayswho will ask if you’re lost before he kidnaps you.”
“I’ll pass on the kidnapping,” I say. Stephanie has lost her mind.
Her laughter rolls through the bustle of morning commuters. The street my building is on is relatively quiet, but the surrounding area is active at eight in the morning.
“Don’t stand in the way of love, especially if he’s fine, has fat pockets, and a thick—“
“Let me let you go,” I laugh. Knowing her, she’s outside in somebody’s field about to run from her shadow. “I’ll message you with the deets the day after tomorrow.”
“Be safe and have fun, Dirty Diana!”
I jump at Stephanie’s piercing scream and clutch a titty. “What?!”
“Bitch, I think I saw a bear,” Stephanie says through gasps of air. “I… Tameka, is that you?”
“Yeah, girl!” a voice shouts in the distance.
Stephanie lets out a slow exhale. “It’s one of the other travel nurses. Looking like an offensive lineman with that housecoat on in the moonlight. Let me go see what she’s doing. Bye, girl!”
A mess!
Stephanie got one thing right: I plan to be dirty tomorrow.
One stipulation for house-sitting this penthouse is to pretend I’m Diana Peretti. I don’t know why I have to act like who I assume is the owner. Maybe the building side-eyes short-term rentals. I don’t mind answering the door for maintenance or living a double life for the front desk employees. I’m staying here for free, living my very best life on this trip.
I turn forty soon and can’t think of a better place to turn up and turn the page.
Chapter 7
