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She laughs at my middle finger response. She’s not lying, but still.
“You should let us choose the next guy you date,” Lila suggests. “We’ll weed out the bad ones.”
“I don’t want to date anyone for a while. Things are fine how they are. I might need some toy recommendations though because I got excited when the guy at the sub sandwich shop asked if I wanted six inches or twelve.”
“I’ll make you a list,” Cara replies. Considering what she does for a living, her recommendations will be solid. “Are you going to the tenant meeting?”
“Absolutely. I’m watching him closely so I can report to the lawyer the second he steps out of line.”
“I will also watch him closely,” Lila volunteers. She and Cara exchange a smile.
“Don’t encourage her or I’ll tell Row you need your ass paddled again,” I tease.
Cara winces and shifts in her seat. “Too late. I may have said the new guy has nice arms.”
Her confession makes us all chuckle. Row and Cara were enemies from the moment he moved in next door to her, but after he talked her into a lucrative opportunity making sex videos through the Lonely Hands app, they grew close and finally got together. Now they’re inseparable.
“I have to get to work. Aren’t you running late?” I ask Lila, who has been working nights at a childcare center.
“No, I switched back to morning shift. The extra money wasn’t worth the sleep deprivation.”
They accompany me outside and I pause by my car, looking over at trailer number eighteen. Only Addington’s truck is in the driveway now. Looks like his friend or employee or whoever the other guy was left. There’s a glow from inside, likely from lanterns or a flashlight. The hole in the side of the trailer where the window fell out is covered with plastic.
He’s in for a long night.
It’s a good thing I work in town since I’m running a little later than usual. Holly pulls into the office complex just ahead of me and we park in the deserted parking lot. It’s one great part about this job. We work in pairs after closing hours so there are no people to deal with or work around. After a few years in food service and then retail, I’d rather clean toilets and buff floors than ever serve another customer. Night Brooms, the company who signs my checks—or deposits my money to be more accurate because who the hell pays by check anymore—is the only one in town that provides overnight cleaning services so there’s never a shortage of clients, even in a small town. The pay sucks but it’s low stress and sometimes that peace is worth more.
Holly’s passenger side door pops open and her younger sister, Fern, gets out. She gives me an excited wave and slings a backpack over her shoulder. It’s not the first time Holly has brought her to work but I’m surprised to see her on a school night since she’s only thirteen.
“Hey! Is it child labor night?”
“Yep. We’re going to sit around and watch her work,” Holly says, and hands me an iced coffee. After working together for more than a year, we’ve become friends and alternate who stops for coffee.
“I said I’d vacuum. That’s all you’re getting out of me,” Fern replies as we all approach the side door. Sometimes, we have a key or an alarm code, but this complex has a night guard, Louis.
Louis lets us in and goes back to his surveillance room where I suspect he spends as much time sleeping as surveilling, not that I’m judging. He works a day job as well and you have to sleep sometime.
“Cute hair. Did you do it yourself?” I ask Fern, gesturing to the pink streaks that frame her face.
“Holly did it for me this weekend.”
We stop at the maintenance closet and wheel out the giant cart with all our supplies. I set my coffee on it and push it down the wide hallway, parking it between a law office and an accounting firm. “Which one do you want?” I ask Holly.
“We’ll take the law office. Lots of carpet for Fern.”
Fern rolls her eyes and pulls the vacuum cleaner off the end of the cart. “Fine, but then I’m raiding the vending machines and watching videos on my phone.”
We split up and get to work. My earbuds are tucked into my ears with a new audiobook playing. I was always a horror and thriller reader, but last year Holly convinced me to listen to a romance she was reading, and it introduced me to a new genre. The one she showed me was a sweet romance between a werewolf and a woman, with a little open door action, but I quickly moved on to juicier stuff. What I didn’t know is that romance is a slippery slope that ends in a smut filled filthy hole that I never want to dig myself out of. They say readers live a thousand lives? Well, in the last year, I’ve been menaced by monsters, kidnapped by pirates, seduced by aliens and gotten railed by all of them.
With a fresh burst of caffeine charging through my veins and a deep, dirty talking voice in my ear, I knock out the accounting firm in record time, then move on to the next. After almost four hours, I’m finished with the offices on my side of the hall. It’s a good time to break for lunch.
Holly and Fern walk toward me, dragging the supply cart. “Are you done yet?” Holly calls.
“Just finished. You heading to lunch?”
“Yep. We’ll meet you at Four Trees Insurance.”
“No school tomorrow?” I ask Fern, nudging her while Holly puts away the cart.
