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Gone to a strip show? Check.
Had sex with a younger man? Check.
Complicated the crap out of her life? Most definitely check.
Seven
Sloane woke up naked, momentarily disoriented. She wasn’t used to her new apartment with its boxy rooms and low ceilings. She really needed to unpack the rest of her stuff but not today because today was her first day at her first job in ten years. She was going to learn how to be a dog groomer, which was a temporary solution to both her financial problems and her missing her dog and animals in general. She loved anything furry on four legs.
Unfortunately, this was not the day she really wanted to be starting a new adventure. She had a slight headache from the tequila and a burning desire to poke around on social media and stalk the hell out of Rick.
Rick.
Damn, she felt her nipples tighten and her inner thighs grow warm as she remembered everything he had done to her. The man had some serious skill and she wanted to spend the entire day torturing herself with memories of it while eating ice cream and seeing if she could figure out how many other woman he’d slept with.
That was how she wanted to spend her Sunday.
Instead she was going to go downstairs and learn how to wash a dog.
“Let’s do this,” she told herself out loud, climbing out of bed for coffee. “You’ve got this.”
She really didn’t but it was a lie she was willing to tell herself.
There really wasn’t much choice but to put one foot in front of the other and rebuild her life. Only she couldn’t find the coffeepot in her disaster of a kitchen, which seemed like an ominous sign. She had boxes everywhere and very little cabinet and counter space. After resorting to licking dried grounds and chasing it with water in the hopes it would help her head, she stumbled down the hall to take a shower, which didn’t help either.
Fortunately, the groomer’s shop was right downstairs on the street level floor of the apartment building. So after dressing in jeans and a T-shirt Sloane pulled on sneakers and opened the door to her apartment. There were flowers on the floor with a note. Not flowers from a florist, tidy and crisp and beautiful. But a somewhat wilted bunch of purple wildflowers she couldn’t identify. Gardening had never been her thing.
Bending over to pick them up made her head feel like all its contents were pushing against a brick wall with a ten-ton force. Afraid it all might explode, she stood back up quickly. Too quickly. She saw spots and went dizzy. Her stomach churned. “Oh, dang,” she murmured out loud.
It had been a long time since she’d been hungover and she remembered now why it sucked.
Holding onto her doorframe she plucked the note out with trembling fingers. The
slight shake was either from lack of coffee, lack of sleep, or post-drinking dehydration. Or all of the above. Either way it was a visible reminder she was a mess.
The note said, 30 looks good on you. Thanks for a fun night. Rick.
It was sweet. Yet she had no clue what that meant. Was it customary to leave a floral offering after a hookup? She couldn’t even ask her friends because she wasn’t sure she wanted any of them to know about her and Rick and their naked tango. She glanced over at his apartment door. Behind that door he was probably sleeping. Naked. He was very comfortable naked, which she did appreciate.
How had she not known Rachel was his sister?
She was a self-absorbed idiot. If she had known, she might not have wanted this apartment.
But then again, the price was right and it was very convenient to the groomer’s. What difference did it make if Rick lived across the hall?
Other than it was weird he was her landlord. And probably would be bringing a parade of women home with him since according to Rachel his “body count was gross.” Did that matter? It shouldn’t. She’d been warned. But it was one thing to know it in theory but another to see it happening. God, she hoped the walls were as thick as the Great Wall of China. She didn’t need to hear any wallbanging.
After dropping the flowers back in her kitchen, she crept down the steps like a cat burglar, not wanting any of them to creak and a naked Rick to pop out of his apartment.
She wondered who the other two neighbors were and if they were the kind to read the card on a bouquet of flowers left on someone’s doorstep.
When she got downstairs she winced at the bright morning sun and quickly shielded her eyes before taking the five steps down the sidewalk to Paws and Effect. Winnie Schwartz, the owner of the pet salon, and younger than Sloane, not that she was counting, was leaning against the reception desk and swearing softly at the coffeemaker.
“Why isn’t this damn thing working?” she asked.
Her words shattered Sloane’s soul. No coffee here either. This was not good. “Good morning,” she said, trying to drag up a smile from the depths of her cheerful reserve.
“Hey,” Winnie said, turning and waving. “Oh, God, you look how I feel. I saw you at Tap That last night. Happy Birthday, by the way. I take it you had a good time?”
