Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Flynn
“Last night you said you had to be at work by six this morning,” Naomi says, turning on the kitchen light because she’s pure evil.
I lift my head and squint, reaching for my phone. It’s dead, so I pull on the cord, but it’s not plugged in. “What time is it?” I mumble.
“Six fifteen.”
“Shit! Motherfucker!” I throw the blanket onto the floor and bolt off the sofa, snagging one of the shopping bags of clothes on my way to the bathroom. I’m royally screwed and probably going to jail.
Less than a minute later, I throw open the door, grab my phone and charging cord from the coffee table, and hightail it out of the apartment with the echo of Naomi’s annoying cackle and the aroma of her vanilla coffee behind me.
My piece of shit brown Ford Taurus gives me fits when I try to start it, but after banging the palm of my hand against the steering wheel and the dash, it rattles to life. The AC doesn’t work, so I crack the windows.
The Rawlings are twenty minutes from my apartment, and that’s with no traffic. I’m hitting rush hour.
Thirty minutes later, I jog toward the house from my crappy parking job across the street; I tuck in my shirt and run my hands through my hair. There’s a slight minty taste left in my mouth from the toothpaste I squirted into it while taking the world’s fastest piss earlier.
“Please be in a good mood. Please …” I mutter while ringing the doorbell.
The solid wood raised-panel door opens slowly. Rupert eyes me with a blank expression as he tightens the sash of his maroon robe over his navy pajamas.
I open my mouth to spew my excuse, and he slams the door shut.
Gulp.
“I’m an idiot,” I say, scrubbing my hands over my face. I desperately don’t want to go back to jail.
The door clicks open again, and I quickly drop my hands and compose myself.
“Make it swift, honest, and good if you don’t want me to call the police,” Rupert says.
Swift, honest, and good?
“Uh …”
He closes his eyes and shakes his head half a dozen times. “Your reason for being late,” he says impatiently.
“My phone is my alarm, and it was dead because I thought the cord was plugged into the wall. It wasn’t. I’m sorry.”
“Are you drunk?”
“What? No.” I blow in my hand and smell my breath. Why does he think I’m drunk?
“High?”
“No.”
“Were you with a woman last night?”
“No. Why? Want some tips?” As soon as those words leave my mouth, I internally cringe. As if I’m not on thin ice already, why did I say that?
“Is that all you offer? Just the tip?” he asks.
“It’s usually all they can accommodate,” I say because I’m incapable of not saying stupid stuff.
Rupert lifts his chin and scratches his neck, and he does so with a grin. “You’re an arrogant little shit.”
“Why are you so certain my dick is small?” I step inside without waiting for a formal invitation. “Yesterday, you suggested I keep it in my ‘trousers’ so I don’t embarrass myself. I’m not embarrassed. And I’ve received nothing but compliments. If you know what I mean?”
He closes the door and slides his hands into his robe pockets. “What do you have going on here?” He nods at me, eyes focused on my clothes.
I glance down. “Uh …” I smooth my hand along the button-down shirt. “Mrs. Rawlings bought these for me.”
Rupert steps closer, trapping the jeans tag between his fingers and giving it a yank.
“Stop!” I say a half second too late.
He raises an eyebrow at me.
“I can’t take it back without a tag.”
“You’re wearing it. Why would you take it back?”
“To pay rent if this job doesn’t pan out.”
He slips the tag into his pocket. “I thought we discussed this. If this job doesn’t pan out, you won’t be renting anything.”
“I’m keeping your wife inspired.” I offer a toothy grin as if he’ll pat me on the back for knowing what “muse” means.
“So I don’t think you’ll be sending me to jail.
” I roll the waist of the jeans to remove the safety pin and string that remains from the tag.
The safety pin is bent open, ready to jab me in the side.
Maybe I should let it. Then I can sue him.
Rupert grunts and turns, heading up the stairs. “So far, she’s not impressed. Do better. Start with coffee. She likes it in the form of herbal tea with a slice of lemon and a few drips of honey.”
Coffee. Herbal tea. Lemon. Honey. Got it.
I rummage through the kitchen. Thankfully, there’s already a pot of hot coffee.
I pour it into a mug and deposit a bag of organic herbal tea into it.
Then I cut a lemon and squeeze half into the coffee with some honey.
I’m not sure how many “drips” because honey runs more than it drips.
Feeling confident and successful with my first task of the day, I carry the coffee to Callie’s bedroom and knock on the door.
When she doesn’t answer, I ease open the door and poke my head inside. She’s on the floor by the window, legs crisscrossed, hands on her knees.
“I have your coffee.”
She opens one eye.
“Well, it’s tea, too.”
She squints that one eye.
“Herbal tea. Honey and lemon.” I grin triumphantly.
When she crooks her finger at me, I step in front of her.
“Where’s the belt?” she asks.
My grin fades. “The belt?”
She nods.
“Oh.” I glance down at my jeans, minus the belt. “I was in a rush this morning. It wasn’t in the bag I took into the bathroom. I’ll wear it tomorrow.” I set the mug on the table beside her throne-looking chair.
Callie points to the coaster, so I move it onto the pink and white marble coaster. She stands with ease, not like an old lady lumbering to stand, instead, graceful in everything she does. Bending forward with her arms crossed, she inspects the drink before wrinkling her nose.
“What?” I ask.
“It’s black.”
“That’s the coffee,” I say.
“I don’t like coffee.”
“Mr. Rawlings said you like your coffee as herbal tea with lemon and honey.”
She looks at me, and after a few seconds, the corner of her mouth bends into a tiny grin. “You steeped my tea in coffee?”
“Well,”—my gaze ping-pongs between her and the mug—“yeah.”
Her shoulders bounce with a little chuckle. “What he meant is I don’t drink coffee. He calls everything coffee. I like tea instead, not too.” Her eyes narrow as she picks up the mug and reads the tea tag.
“It was the first box I found that said ‘herbal.’”
She hands me the mug. “Smooth Move tea has senna. Do you know what senna does?”
“No.” I take the mug.
Callie returns a tight-lipped smile, and I wait. But that’s all she offers, so I guess I’ll look it up.
“Want me to get another tea? Not steeped in coffee?”
She slowly nods.
With a controlled sigh, I turn and head downstairs.
“How’d you do, son?” Rupert says, now dressed in black joggers and a crisp white tee, drinking a glass of something green while staring at his phone, back against the fridge. It smells like Pop-Tarts.
“I steeped senna tea in coffee and added honey and lemon.”
He snickers while I pour the concoction into the sink. “There’s a glass electric kettle in the pantry,” he says. “Use it to heat the water. On the shelf above the kettle, there’s a copper-colored tin with peppermint tea bags. Senna is an herbal laxative.”
“Shit. You know, you could have told me all of this earlier.” I open the pantry door that matches the cabinets.
It’s basically a second kitchen with another fridge, a counter, stove, sink, and a floor-to-ceiling wine rack behind a glass door.
Fucking rich people. I wonder if they ever lose sleep thinking about people living on the street with cardboard for a bed and a sandwich from a dumpster that will serve as their only meal for the day.
“I didn’t tell you earlier,” he says, “because I wanted to see how savvy you were.”
“And?” I call from the pantry.
“And what? I think we know the answer. Do you really want me to say it?”
Something clicks to my left. It’s the toaster … and Pop-Tarts.
After I fill the kettle and plug it in, I return to the kitchen, pulling my phone and charging cord from my back pocket to charge it on the counter. “Say what? That you think I’m an idiot?”
“Do you think you’re an idiot?”
“Nope.” I pluck a new spoon from the drawer for the honey. “I think you’ve set me up to fail at this job, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“The only way you can fail is by not trying.”
“Try what? I don’t understand this job.” I head back into the pantry to fill the mug with water and grab a tea bag.
“You’ll figure it out,” he says when I come out of the pantry.
“Why can’t you be her muse? What’s wrong with you?” I ask. “Besides the obvious.”
“What’s the obvious?” He eyes me with distrust before drinking the rest of his green beverage.
“Your age and you wear pajamas with a robe and slippers. You’re not horribly out of shape.
You’re acting healthy by drinking that green crap, but you have Pop-Tarts waiting for you in the toaster.
” I bob the tea bag in the water. “Maybe things down below aren’t working like they used to.
I don’t know, and I don’t care. Maybe you should try a little harder.
And don’t people like you have servants or something to make tea? ”
“Servants?” He laughs, passing me to retrieve his Pop-Tarts. “I don't believe that's a common term anymore.”
“You know what I mean.”
“We have employees, like yourself, who do things for us. A housekeeper. Someone who washes windows. But that’s about it.
We cook our own food. Launder our own clothes.
Now, my neighbor? The asshole who bought the house I wanted?
He hired a homemaker. That was her title.
She wore 1950s housedresses and heels. She gardened.
Baked me a pie for my birthday, and did God only knows what else.
” He returns, holding his Pop-Tarts by the edges.
“Yeah.” I toss the tea bag into the trash. “That’s weird shit. Unlike hiring a muse.”
“Touché, Flynn.” Rupert sets the Pop-Tarts on a plate, then rinses out his glass. “But I didn’t actively look for you. You sort of stumbled into this job.”