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I looked at my watch in an attempt to pretend the time mattered. “I don’t know…”
“Please, Chris? It’s fifteen dollars.”
I let out a dramatic breath. “You are a force of inconvenience.”
She grinned because she knew I was full of shit and turned back around. I followed her out to my car, smiling in the wake of her perfume.
Fifteen minutes later we were in a vacant parking lot, facing a lit-up Toilet King billboard.
“This is what you have to take a picture of?” I asked.
She tucked her leg under her on the seat. “Yeah. They want a picture of it after eleven. So in ten minutes.”
“Did Tony request this?”
“No, the billboard company.”
I put the car in park and unbuckled my seat belt.
“What do you think of him?” I asked, nodding at the billboard.
“Tony? He’s a cool guy. He tips really well when he comes into the diner,” she said. “I wish Mike would work for him more.”
I looked at her. “Why?”
“It just seems more stable than the training. He doesn’t always have clients.”
I looked back out at the billboard. “How does this work exactly? Like how do we know someone else isn’t going to show up to take the same picture?”
“You claim the job. Then you have a window of time to complete it.”
“What’s the window for this one?”
“Two hours. Nobody else can claim a job you’ve already signed up for until the time runs out.”
I narrowed my eyes at the billboard. “I wonder if they want to see if the light stays on.”
“Probably. Have you ever seen a Toilet King billboard that wasn’t lit up twenty-four seven?”
I bobbed my head. “True.”
We sat there in silence, looking at Tony in his Henry Tudor costume holding a toilet plunger over a poop-filled bowl.
“Want to listen to some music?” I asked.
“Sure. What’s in your playlist?”
“Nothing I’m going to play for you,” I said, turning on the radio.
She gasped. “Why?”
“You’re going to make fun of me.”
“Awwwww, come on. It can’t be more embarrassing than stabby sticks.”
I gave her an amused look. “Why are you laughing at my trauma?”
“Well, when you say it like that, I sound like a jerk. I’m not going to stop though.”