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A smile filled Tony’s face for the first time this morning. “It’ll be fun and you know it. Bring a little excitement, a little life to the place.”
Rhys chuckled. “Yeah. It would.” He glanced at the clock. “What time do you think her shift ends at the motel?”
Tony rose from his recliner. “Doesn’t matter. We’re going to go get them now.”
Jess peered underneath the sheet she’d tossed over her housekeeping cart to check on Jasper. He’d been out of sorts all day and she could only assume that, like her, he was finding it hard to adjust back to their shitty reality after yesterday’s brief venture into paradise.
“You doing okay, buddy?” she asked.
Jasper had declared himself too tired to be her assistant today, instead asking if she’d build him a spaceship. It was a game they’d started a few weeks ago, on another cold Sunday. The sheet provided him privacy as well as a barrier from the chilly wind, while he entertained himself with two little matchbox cars Rocco had given him for Christmas.
“Yeah. Can we leave?”
“Just a couple more rooms to clean, okay?”
“Can we go back to Tony and Rhys’s after?” he asked earnestly.
She’d been anticipating that question all day. She shook her head. “No. We’re going to sign up for a new shelter, remember? The one for people just like us. I bet there will even be kids for you to play with.”
“Okay,” Jasper mumbled, not bothering to hide his disappointment.
She’d bitten the bullet and picked up the phone to call social services this morning, inquiring about space in the local women’s shelter. The woman on the phone hadn’t exactly been warm and fuzzy. In fact, she’d been grumpy and sounded downright haggard. She’d told Jess she would need to fill out some paperwork tomorrow morning when the intake center was open, then she gave her the address of an after-hours place that might be able to set them up somewhere tonight.
The idea of returning to another homeless shelter left her with a sinking sensation in her stomach, and Jess prayed it would only be for one night. Tomorrow, with any luck, they could move into the special housing that meant she and Jasper would have their own room.
She was starting to regret agreeing to stay with Tony and Rhys last night. One night in their beautiful, safe home had ruined her. She’d lowered her guard too far and now she was struggling to pull her armor back on.
Jess checked her clipboard and sighed. She’d cleaned all the vacant rooms. All that was left was to check to see if the people remaining another night wanted their rooms tidied or fresh towels. She always left those rooms until the end of her day in hopes whoever was in them would go out. She hated cleaning rooms with people in them. Some of the men who got rooms here looked at her in ways that made her uncomfortable. She usually set Jasper up with Rocco in the check-in office with a dollar for the vending machine while she finished this part of her rounds. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a dollar today.
“You stay under there, Jasper. Don’t come out,” she said. “Hopefully, these last rooms won’t take long.”
He mumbled something that could have been okay or go to hell, for all she knew. He was taking his grumpiness to the next level.
She knocked on the first door. “Housekeeping,” she called out.
When no one replied, she knocked again, happy at the thought the room might be empty. Her pleasure was short-lived when a greasy-looking guy opened the door, shirtless. His beer belly hung over pants that were unbuttoned and unzipped, revealing far too much of his boxers beneath.
Wonderful.
The guy leered at her and smacked his lips like she was some juicy treat. There was no way she was cleaning this jerk’s room.
“Do you need fresh towels?”
The guy belched loudly, and she swallowed down the bile rising in her throat as the smell of his rancid, boozing breath filled the air between them.
“No. But you can come in and scrub my back.”
She shook her head and swallowed down the scathing reply she wanted to give him. Not that she thought Rocco would fire her for telling the guy off, but because what she wanted to say was littered with foul language Jasper shouldn’t hear.
“If you don’t need anything then,” she started, turning, intent on getting away from the asshole as quickly as possible.
“I didn’t say I didn’t need nothin’.”
The guy reached out with a quickness she wouldn’t have thought him sober enough to manage, his hand squeezing tightly around her upper arm. “Come in and we’ll have a party.”
Jess struggled against him, shocked by the guy’s brute strength, but far too cognizant of Jasper sitting under the cart just a few feet away. She kept her voice low so she wouldn’t alarm her son.
“Let go,” she spat out through gritted teeth.
