Page 50 of Liquids

I close the door and lean back against it. Holy shit. I don’t think I could strip, but why didn’t I think of waitressing and tips? I could slot in extra hours. It’s not any kind of dream, but I need to deal with the rent before I can move on to a dream. Maybe I don’t want to work for Marco and Angelo, but an idea is percolating in the back of my mind.

17

SOLUTIONS

When I go back to Callahan’s that night, I order a beer and pluck up the courage to ask Stu whether he needs any help behind the bar, because that’s way better than working for Marco, right? But he just smirks at me and says, “Is this really the best place for you to be workin’, darlin’?” And I curl in on myself and think about what an asshole he is as I sit in the corner of a booth and nurse my beer for an hour. For fuck’s sake, I don’t drink that much.

There’s no sign of Rig, and eventually Marni flounces in and says that she’s heard he’s gone back to work on the rigs, clearly assuming that I already know. He did say he was only here for a few days, but what with that, the conversation with Stu, and the fact I still have to conjure up two months’ rent, my heart tightens like a fist in my chest.

“Has Angelo ever asked you to work for him?” I say, and Marni snorts. “He stopped by to check I hadn’t had any more trouble from the goons and offered me a job,” I add.

“Seriously? Take it, hon. Those girls earn good money.”

“You haven’t been tempted?”

She gives me a sly smile. “I get looked after in other ways.”

I bet she does.

“What did Rig say?” she says, tapping a long nail on the tabletop.

“Say about what?”

“Working for Marco.”

“I haven’t told him.” She frowns at me and I suck in my cheeks. “I told him we should just be friends.”

“What! What the fuck did you do that for?”

I scowl at her. “I didn’t think being with him was helping my self-esteem.”

“Self-esteem? You can get a ton of self-esteem from having a huge fighter on your arm with a body built like a tank.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Did you ask him about Sadie?”

After I fill her in, she curls her lip and mutters about how I should have been jumping all over him, not pushing him away, and then launches into a diatribe about how I’m passing up on a good man, and, even if he wasn’t a good man, how he treated me well and fixed my apartment. She grumbles on about how guys like Rig are like gold dust, and how I’ll never find another one in this shithole. Somehow, the fact that I’ve let Rig go knocks all her normal optimism right out of her.

And I can feel heat rising through my chest because I’m fucking trying to fix my problems and not get distracted by wide shoulders and amazing sex. “Why are you so disgruntled? Make your mind up. Last time we talked you were going on about assholes who never tell us the full story.”

“Yeah, hon, but I thought you’d straighten things out with him, not pass him up!”

“You should be pleased you’ve still got me to hang around and drink with.”

She scowls at me. “Girl, I was living vicariously through you. If you can’t land a guy in this town, the rest of us haven’t got a prayer.”

“What does that mean?”

She waves at me. “You’re a good-looking girl.”

That’s the first time she’s ever said that. “I’m pretty frayed at the edges, Marn.”

“Aren’t we all?” she mutters into her wine.

And suddenly I feel flattened. I didn’t think I’d miss him as much as I do. “I thought your mantra was that there’s no point in trusting guys.”

She glowers at me again.

The next few nights I chill at home, because I can’t fucking afford to be in Callahan’s night after night. I can’t face Stu, and I don’t need to be listening to Marni’s rants or watching the door every time it opens, even though I know he’s not going to suddenly appear. And it’s in the middle of all this dissatisfaction that I get a call from a recruiter who tells me that the hospital is looking for qualified nurses and asks me if I’ve still got my license. And I’ve been hanging on to it because my pride wouldn’t let me give up something I worked so fucking hard for. When I tell her I’ve got problems with the hospital, she says to come in and have a chat regardless, that there’s always work, and someone who comes recommended can’t be all bad. I stare at the dreadful paneling in my apartment and ask who suggested she contact me. She says Dr. Moreno, and my mouth drops open. What makes him think I did well enough at the fight to recommend me? I’d been drinking vodka, and I was so nervous treating the fighters that my hands were shaking.

But it’s a potential job and money, and I’m so fucking thrilled that my hands are sweating when I arrange an appointment to see her the next day. The hospital won’t take me on given my history with the place, but she might have other jobs, and who needs days off? With a bit of negotiation with Luis, this could solve everything. And I’ll have no time to drink or think or whatever else I do to while away the time. The debt payment on my cards has also gone south. The reality is that I’ve paid off next to nothing because paying ten dollars a month on a $10,000 debt gets you nowhere, surprise, surprise. All the payments just keep stacking up. I’m one bad decision away from sleeping with Luis. Ugh. I head through to the closet and dig my old nursing textbooks out of a box.