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You know, the soccer mom who’d just found out her husband was going at it with the gym teacher.
But okay.
So, after leaving Elijah’s place, I made one more pit stop. I already knew that pit stop would become my sleepover for the night.
Chelsea was ready with our armor. And by armor, I meant a good, strong coffee that could knock my socks off.
I sat in the living room, Rain sleeping soundly at my feet, letting Chels fuss around me like a little grandma. I didn’t really need the coffee or the extra gentleness with which she buzzed around me—but hey, it helped.
“Why can’t I have something normal for once in my life?” I asked her, biting down on a butter biscuit. It was past one a.m., and I was on my sixth one.
In my defense, these had jammy, gooey centers that exploded in your mouth. So they were gone before I could figure out how I felt about them.
Chelsea sat down beside me, a curiously maternal expression on her face. I knew what that meant. She was going to launch into some life-story or the other. Most likely in third-person.
I gulped the coffee, bracing myself.
“Just last night, Padford called me to look at her toilet once more.”
“Oh, hell no.”
Ms. Padford lived two doors down. She was a sweet old lady, God bless her soul, but to all the young tenants living in Building 20, she was also the broccoli monster.
So, the main culprits here were her two grandkids. They came over every week or so, mostly on Sundays.
Cute kids, if colliding headfirst into a wall and seeing stars in your rear vision could be labeled cute. My first introduction to them was about six months ago, when I’d rented a flat two floors above Chels.
It had been just another day of me wallowing over my sketchbook and coffee. I was already in a bad mood because I’d sipped the swill from my paint mug instead of the coffee one.
I heard a loud crash coming from upstairs and immediately knew what it was. Padford’s grandchildren, up to their usual shenanigans.
Now, if my life were a horror movie, I’d be that simpering female who had to stick her nose in the most dangerous places.
Like, you know, you look at her going head-first into a house with a serial killer inside and think, “No, you dimwit, go the other way!” Frustrating, right?
Yeah, that was me. I was the dimwit.
Anywho, I decided to investigate and marched up the stairs. When I got there, the door was open. The two little devils—quite adorable with their red cheeks and bright eyes—grinned at me, surrounded by a sea of shattered glass.
I saw the bat in one of their hands. Baseball in an apartment. What could possibly go wrong?
Timmy was the most notorious of the lot—possibly a future Bratva leader, or he could become the next president, no in-between in this country. He looked most pleased with himself.
“Hey, lady from downstairs.” He bared his little teeth at me. Two were already missing. Could be the tooth fairy, but the likelier probability was they’d been knocked out by his brothers. “Wanna see my home run?”
“Hell n—” Before I could even reply, he swung the bat and hit a ball into the ceiling. There was a loud thud, followed by a long, creaky groan. Oh, the poor, poor apartment.
That wasn’t the worst of it, though. Water began dripping from the ceiling onto my head. And the flat upstairs? That was Chelsea’s. They’d aimed the hit right at her bathroom.
A minute later, Chelsea marched down, her face furiously red. So red it almost made me think of marinara. I wanted to laugh, but I knew that would get me in trouble.
“PADFORD! YOUR GRANDKIDS ARE DESTROYING MY APARTMENT!”
The sweet old lady had given up on her front room long ago. She was actually hiding with her crocheting needles in her bedroom. She came out, timid as a mouse. “Oh, heavens. I am so sorry, Chelsea. I promise, I’ll call the plumber, I—”
“I HATE THIS PLACE!”
Chelsea had grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the room, both of us dripping wet, only one of us fuming.
