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We battled for two days, and in the end, she gave me an ultimatum—abortion or be kicked out. I’d not expected that. I did a lot for the family. When I pointed out my income and all I did, Mom quickly told me a baby would take more money than I made for us and that she didn’t want it there. Even while I packed my bags and tried to figure out where I was going to go, I kept thinking Mom would change her mind. She didn’t.
While Jamaica was hysterical and crying over my being forced out, Silver called her father’s only sibling and asked her if I could stay there for a little bit. Milly agreed, and I took my last paycheck from the yoga studio and the only cash I had left in my Venmo account from the two houses I had cleaned that week to get a bus ticket to Gainesville.
My brother AJ was no help, but he was also MIA. The last time I’d heard from him was a text, telling me he had to leave town. It was the day that he’d taken Aspen from the hospital and pissed off the freaking Mafia. I knew he was alive, but the fact that he’d changed his phone number and completely disappeared was concerning. But then I’d learned a lot about my older brother that day. Things that should have been hard to believe, but unfortunately, none of it shocked me.
“Are you gonna change those sheets or glare at them?” a voice barked from the doorway.
I winced before looking at Shirley, the head of housekeeping. Her yellow hair, which clearly had come from a box, was wiry and thin, sticking up in random places, while her leathery skin stretched as she scowled at me.
“Sorry,” I replied and decided to breathe through my mouth and not my nose as I walked over to the bed and began to quickly take the sheets off it.
Images of Saxon and sex began to taunt me. Pushing those out of my mind was easier said than done. He was the first guy I’d trusted, the first guy to make me feel special, the guy I had given my virginity to, along with my heart. Somehow, he’d managed that in the span of two weeks. Along with knocking me up.
“When I hired you, it was because Milly said you were a good worker and not some prissy, spoiled ass. Don’t make her a liar,” Shirley snarled before walking down to inspect the other rooms I had cleaned so far on this floor.
Focusing on my task and not giving Shirley anything else to complain about, I hurried to finish cleaning this room and get away from all memories of Saxon. Running into him here was just life tossing me more bad luck. It had been happening since I had been born. Starting with my mother. Sadly, for a short time, I had believed the powers that be had finally given me a break when Saxon walked into my world. The joke was on me.
Once I was finished, I stopped at the door and looked inside the room one more time. It was an odd feeling. Seeing a place where the father of your unborn child had spent the night having a lot of sex with another woman.
All my life, I had promised myself I wouldn’t become my mother. I would make smart choices. I wasn’t having kids. One day, I’d own my own yoga studio and have a house in a nice neighborhood. Maybe a dog and a cat or both. A cute walkway lined with flowers. A tree in the yard with a swing on it for me to enjoy.
I never allowed myself to think about love or marriage. Watching my mother make one mistake after another with men had been enough to show me that love was a myth. That knowledge saved me from being stupid in high school. While other girls were worried about dating, boys, sex, I was worried about getting out of the life I had been born into.
All it had taken was one guy with brown eyes, dimples, and a sexy grin to snatch away my good sense.
Shaking my head at my own stupidity, I closed the door and pushed my cart to the next room. I knocked twice and waited. No one said anything. I tried again, just to be sure. My daily cleaning list said this room wasn’t checking out today. They’d be here for another night or they were keeping the room for the day. If that was the case, they could still be in there and I wanted to be sure it was empty before going inside.
Slowly, I tested the door, pushing it open, then called out, “Hello,” before I waited again.
Silence.
Satisfied that the room was vacant, I propped the door open and got my trash bag to go inside and begin cleaning up whatever mess was here first. I paused and groaned. There were two condoms on the floor and three that I could see on the bed. Yuck. At least Saxon had used the trash can. This was one of the worst parts of cleaning hotel rooms. I hadn’t even known people just tossed used condoms on the floor when they were done. I mean, really, who did that?
