Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Flynn
“How was your day, darling?” Monroe says in a high-pitched voice when I step into our apartment after work.
I give him the bird, and he laughs, standing by the toaster oven, waiting for his pizza to cook. He eats a pepperoni Totino’s pizza every day after work as a snack before the poop sheriff arrives and feeds him a meal with perfectly balanced macros.
“I got paid,” I say.
“Thought you got paid the other day.”
“That was my last paycheck from the detail shop. This is from the Rawlings.” I hold it an inch from his face.
He rears back, eyes bulging. “Fuck me.”
“Right?” I stare at it.
“You have to be screwing his wife. Or him. Dude, are you sucking his dick? No judgment. I might suck dick for that paycheck.”
“Nope.” Again, I hold it in his face. “This is a sexless paycheck. Although, Mrs. Rawlings made me sit in a lounge chair beside her for three goddamn hours!”
He pulls his pizza from the toaster oven. “And?”
“What do you mean, and? That’s just it. There was no and.” I steal a hot pepperoni and pop it into my mouth.
Monroe elbows me.
“Every time I so much as moved, she told me to sit still. If I started to talk, she shooshed me. No music. No using my phone. It was the worst kind of torture, and I was ready to quit, go to jail … whatever. But then I found an envelope with this check in it, shoved into my shoe by the door when I went to leave.”
After he cuts his pizza, he pulls his phone from his pocket. “Is that for one week?”
“I think so.”
“Eight-hour days?”
I shake my head. “Closer to ten.”
“Do you get paid during your lunch hour?”
I shrug. “Lunch hour? I don’t take lunch. We eat lunch, but I eat with her. There is no time clock. I don’t know who’s tracking my hours. I’m just following orders so I don’t go to jail.”
“Well, fuck you, Flynn. You steal some rich dude’s car, and he hires you to take a nap beside his wife to the sum of a hundred bucks an hour. That’s what you’re getting paid to be a dumb-ass muse! You’re moving out.”
“Because I lucked out?” I laugh.
“Because you’re making six figures.”
I collapse onto the sofa and stare at the check. “This is not six figures. It’s four.”
“It will be six if you work for them for like … six months. Probably less. And my weekly paycheck is three figures. And I’m paying sixty percent of the rent. You’re only paying forty.” He sits in the recliner with his pizza.
“You get the bedroom and closet. I have the sofa and an old chest. That’s why I’m paying forty.”
“Flynn,” he mumbles, carefully chewing the hot pizza, “you’re holding a check for five grand. You can afford your own apartment. You can afford your own fucking house.”
I twist my lips, nodding slowly. “True. But I don’t have job security. Hell, for all I know, this is my first and last check from them.”
“You gotta go. Naomi is itching for a ring. It’s time.”
“Yeah,” I mumble. “Give me a bit to figure something else out. I floated the idea of living with them, but Mrs. Rawlings ignored me. Granted, she wasn’t having the best morning, but …”
“I don’t think they’re going to pay you this kind of money and let you live with them. That check isn’t a living wage, it’s a thriving wage. Hell, in our corner of the world, it’s rent plus a little FU money.”
I internally laugh at his FU money reference after hearing Rupert’s speech.
“I’m talking two-ply toilet paper and fancy coffee drinks every morning,” Monroe continues. “You can have literally any streaming service your heart desires. NFL ticket? Don’t even give it a second thought. Boom! It’s yours.”
I shake my head and chuckle. “I might even start taking my own bags to the grocery store.”
“Put money in the red bucket at Christmas,” he says.
“Tell people to keep the change.” I lace my fingers behind my head.
Sure, we joke. But I really don’t know what this check means or if I’ll see another.
In fact, having this money is already making me uneasy.
I hate how it’s giving me an unexpected high, which feels like the first step to being out of touch with the morals I swore I’d never compromise.
The next morning, I sleep in until my roommates wake me with their extracurricular activities.
It’s Saturday, my day off, so I don’t have to rush my shower.
In fact, I use some of Naomi’s fancy bath gel to shave my face to match the rest of my cool, rich man’s vibe.
Then I head straight to the bank to cash the check before Rupert changes his mind.
I still don’t want to be wealthy, but I’m okay with not being dirt poor for a few seconds.
With two fancy coffees stacked on top of each other, I ring the buzzer to June’s building.
“Yeah?” her roommate answers.
“It’s Flynn,” I say.
“Juju’s at work. Sorry.”
My momentum for the day dies, even though the “Juju” part makes me smile. “When will she be back?”
“I’m not sure. She had a few errands to run after work, so it depends on how long it takes to get a ride.”
“K,” I mumble before heading back to my car, realizing what must be done. Time to shop.
After four stops, a few negotiations that turn into arguments, and a little frustration, I get what I need. Then I head back to June’s apartment and hit the buzzer. No one answers this time, so I wait on the bench across the street in front of the gallery.
I wait over two hours.
Could I text her? Of course. But I want this to be a total surprise.
When she steps out of the black SUV and heads to her door with her arms full of grocery bags, I jog across the street.
“Hey, don’t I know you?” I say.
June bobbles her keys, and they clink on the ground as she twists her neck to look at me. “Hi!”
I eat up her grin, that look that says she’s happy to see me. It’s not a look I see very often. I pick up her keys.
“It’s the dark gold one,” she says, nodding to the keys.
I unlock her door and then take the grocery bags from her.
“How long have you been here? Why didn’t you text me?” She leads the way up the stairs.
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“Oh?” She giggles. “Why is that?”
“Obviously because I have a surprise for you.”
She unlocks the apartment door and holds it open for me. “I assumed you were the surprise.”
“Juju, I felt you up yesterday. It can’t be a surprise that I’m back for more.”
She shakes her head and grins as I pass her to set the grocery bags on the kitchen counter. It’s not really why I’m here, but now that I’ve said the words out loud, I’m getting an erection. Maybe the real surprise can wait.
“Why did you call me Juju? And how long have you been waiting?” she asks, unpacking the groceries.
Dang. She eats healthy shit. Fruit (not in a can). Veggies (also, not in a can). Things with “organic” on the label. Grass-fed. Free-range. Shit. I bet she hated the chicken and fries date. There’s not a bag of chips or frozen pizza in sight.
“Flynn?”
“Huh?” I drag my attention back to her. “Oh. Your roommate called you Juju.” I chuckle. “And uh … I haven’t been here long,” I lie.
“That’s good.” She buzzes around me, putting things where they belong.
I step out of the kitchen because it feels like I’m in her way.
“I had to work, and then run errands. Did you have the day off?” she asks.
“Yeah. I don’t work weekends.”
“What did you and Callie do yesterday?” June folds the paper bags and slides them between the fridge and the counter as I rest my shoulder on the brick wall just beyond the kitchen threshold.
“We stared into space for three hours in silence.”
“Is that code for you took a nap?”
“I wish. I’m not a good napper.”
She shrugs off her Billy’s Bike Tours shirt, and I hold my breath for a second at the idea that she might be stripping for me. But she has a sports bra on underneath it. Still … more skin.
“I love naps,” she says. “In fact, I was going to take one after my errands. But you have a surprise for me, so it can wait.” She pulls her hair tie free and unbraids her hair.
She’s so gorgeous.
“So what is it? My surprise?”
I forget about the surprise when she steps into my space, tipping her chin up as if she’s asking to be kissed.
“You could nap, and I could watch you.” The second the words leave my mouth, I regret them.
“Sounds … creepy.” Her forehead wrinkles, but she keeps smiling.
“Sorry.” I slide my hands to her ass and squeeze it. “That was a really bad way of suggesting we hang out in your bed this afternoon.” Ducking my head, I kiss her neck.
Her fingers thread into my hair. “Just hang out in bed, huh?”
“Yep,” I mumble before teasing her ear with my teeth.
Her shoulder jerks upward. “That tickles.”
I turn to adjust myself as conspicuously as possible. “Come on. The surprise is waiting.”
“I like surprises,” she says with a giddiness that makes me want to puff out my chest and talk in a deeper voice.
“Good.” I playfully smack her butt as she steps into the hallway.
She turns and catches me off guard, throwing her arms around my neck and pulling me down for a kiss.
“After—” she tries to speak, but our lips crash together again—“you—” more kissing—“left yesterday—” the dimly lit space outside of her apartment fills with the sound or our lips smacking—“I touched—” we stumble to the side a bit—“myself.”
All the words piece together in my head.
After you left yesterday, I touched myself.
My head rears backward as she rubs her lips together, cheeks red and breath labored.
“June, you can’t say that to me.” I rake my fingers through my hair.
“I don’t know what to do with that … that …
information.” I shake my head. “Cuz I just want to rip off your clothes and screw you right here at the top of these stairs. But I know that’s not right.
And I don’t know what I’m doing, which means I’ll probably mess it all up. ”
Her idleness slays me. How is she so calm? Nothing more than a hint of tension along her forehead and the twitch of a grin at the corner of her mouth.