Page 6 of When The Dust Settles

I rolled my eyes and left the room. She followed me into my bedroom after a minute, hovering in the doorway, afraid, it seemed, to trail me any farther.

“What?” I snapped.

Her eyes were wide and round as she caught her breath. “Do you smell that?”

“What?”

She peered around the corner. “Did you kill something in here?”

“You’re hysterical,” I said as I checked my clothes.

She put her hand over her nose and gagged.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“Are you kidding? You just sniffed that shirt before you stuffed it into that duffel bag.”

“Well, yeah,” I said absently, picking other clothes up off the floor. “I don’t know if it’s clean or not.”

She pointed at the chest of drawers in the corner. “Clean clothes go in there, boss.”

I grunted.

“Ohmygod!” she shrieked, which startled me, and I swung around to face her.

“What’s wrong now?”

“You’re a grown man, for crissakes!” She was horrified, going by seeing her nose scrunched up and her brows furrowed and the look of disgust all over her face. “We walked by a perfectly good-looking washer and dryer. Do they not work?”

“They work.”

“Well, then?”

“I—”

“Your kitchen reeks,” she said flatly. “This is your home, boss, not a dump.”

“I was fixin’ to—”

“Seriously, this house is so cute from the outside, but”—she grimaced so I couldn’t miss it—“the inside looks like ass.”

“I ain’t never here,” I defended myself.

She crossed her arms and tipped her head, staring up at me. “So how about this,” she began. “Instead of playing musical houses for Josie, maybe I should stay here and get this place shipshape. You have that apartment over the garage that could be mine.”

“It’s full of tools and black widow spiders.”

“Yes, well, the tools can go in the garage and the spiders can die.”

“Yeah, but—”

“There’s a shower and toilet up there, right?”

“Well, yeah.”

“I mean, we all saw it when you moved in.”

“I—”