C H A P T E R E L E V E N
Holli
Each step I took on my walk to the bus from Lincoln’s house—after I snuck out with him still sleeping—off the bus to my shitty little apartment, reminded me of him. The throbbing soreness between my legs just one sign that that beast of his was inside me more times than I can count.
But it’s more than just a vague reminder.
He is still inside me. His cum is making itself known as the remnants of his multiple deposits soak my jeans.
Because he kept my panties. Took them and disappeared out the bedroom door, saying he was putting them in a special place. A place reserved just for royal princess panties.
Up three flights of steps, I shove my hip into my front door until it pops open because in this old, converted Victorian house, everything swells and shifts with the seasons, making windows drafty, floorboards creak, and doors stick.
Inside the cramped space, it’s too warm because the radiator doesn’t communicate with the thermostat properly. Yet another thing that could do with being looked at. I grit my teeth when I see the blinds, pulled half up and left at uneven angles. I hate that. Hate it even more than the sight of Angela and Cruzer in a heap on the couch.
A tidal wave of sadness hits me. On top of everything else, just looking at Angela takes me back to a place I’d rather forget. My mom. Beautiful, but lying naked in the middle of the bathroom floor, shower running, empty vodka bottle in her hand. She got sober when I was around eleven, but in the years before that, it was a rough show going on behind the cheerful red front door of our middle-class life.
I should leave, I know. I could find some other housing situation if I tried. But some days I look at Angela, beautiful and lost, and I see my mother’s eyes looking back. I guess that little girl inside me who so badly wanted to help her mother is still trying. I know that’s why I put up with so much from Angela.
They’re totally oblivious to the presence of another human being. Their heads thrown back in ignorant bliss of the shitstorm of a situation we’re all in, their mouths gaping open and snoring so loud I could hear them in the hallway as I fumbled in my purse for my key, desperately praying that I hadn’t lost it yet again.
My landlady said the next key she has to have made she’s going to have to charge me. And I can’t blame her for that—it would be the sixth one. Mrs. Templeton is a patient lady, but she has her limits.
When she called me about an hour ago, I was lying warm and safe next to Lincoln Kirk. The whole night played over and over in my head, some beautiful tapestry of moments that now seem even more distant, as if they might have happened to someone else. I mean, it doesn’t seem real. Just what was I thinking when I agreed to spend the night with him to repay my debt?
Just what was he thinking to make that kind of offer?
But could any night have been more perfect?
Then, in the midst of it all, as I watched him lying beside me, I heard the Tinker Bell tone on my phone going off. There was Mrs. Templeton on the other end, apologizing for bothering me, but letting me know the sheriff would be there to padlock the apartment door in four days and wondering why I hadn’t stopped by to at least try to talk to her about the three months of unpaid rent.
She said she’d left me notes taped to the door. And I know how much it took for her to do even that. She’s also agoraphobic. Leaving her apartment even for the simplest of tasks or nearly any face-to-face interaction with other humans can easily set her into a panic attack. And she hates talking on the phone, too. So I know how hard it was for her to call.
I had no idea what she was talking about. None of it made any sense at all. But as I listened, it became abundantly clear.
Rent hadn’t been paid. Not just for a week. Not just a moment of forgetfulness. That would have been forgiven in a heartbeat. No. A fuck-pile of rent arrears had accumulated to the point where we’d actually been summoned to court. And my stupid roommate, whose name was on the rental agreement, didn’t even bother to show up at the eviction hearing. So at this point, Mrs. Templeton had no other options. So it’s pay the full amount or we’re out.
Which sucks because she’s such a really decent person, and I’m sure if I’d been kept up to date with the facts, I could have sorted it all out. Her only income is this place.
So what could I say to her? I actually thanked her, for Christ’s sake, told her I’d be round to move my things in time and that I’d make sure the place was clean before we moved out. Then I left Lincoln where he was and headed straight over, wondering how in the absolute fuck I would sort this mess out.
It’s not so much that I need a place to live. I mean, I do. Fuck. Everything is so uncertain. The plan was to be on an airplane in four days. Pay the balance on my tuition when I got to school, as well as secure my room and board for the next year. But as it stands right now, I don’t have the balance and may need this shithole of an apartment after all.
I hate that I need Angela like this. Hate that I feel beholden to her for allowing me to live here. And the hell if I’m going to leave Mrs. Templeton hanging out to dry. I’ll pay her before I pay my tuition.
Guilt rips at me as I toss my purse on the counter.
I shouldn’t have left like that, without a word. If Lincoln had done that, I’d be burning his effigy on a man-hating pyre.
He told me he doesn’t sleep, that he would just watch me all night, but I guess I must have tired him out because he didn’t make a sound while I took the call from Mrs. Templeton. I even managed to slip out of the bed, unwinding myself from his arms and legs like satin ribbon, and fumbled to get dressed in the half-light without him missing one smooth, steady, sleeping breath.
Anger flares up again when I spot the eviction notices now stacked on the counter in full view. Clearly, even Angela realized it’s time to come clean.
“Hey, babes.” Angela finally stirs, her eyes bleary as she coughs until she gags and then rakes her hands through her hair. “You gotta pay that old bitch today, you know. She said she was gonna call you.”
My fists ball at my sides. “I’ve got to...? Where’s all the money I’ve been giving you for rent?” I snap, watching Angela immediately raise her hands in annoyance.
“I had an emergency. Fuck.”
“For three fucking months? You haven’t paid the rent for three months!”
I’m annoyed at myself, too. I shouldn’t have trusted Angela. It’s my own fault for not delivering the money to Mrs. Templeton myself. Instead, I just believed Angela when she said the landlady only wanted it from the actual leaseholder, and the fact that I was even allowed to live here without being on the lease was her doing me a big favor.
So much for my ironclad people-reading skills. I doesn’t help that I have really no one else in this world. Both my parents were only children, so I have no other family. I’ve never been particularly good at any kind of relationships. And clearly, that shows with the dysfunctional pseudo-friendship I have with Angela.
“Hey...” She rolls languidly on the cushion to look my way, her face screwed up in an expression that’s somewhere between annoyance and vague confusion. “I don’t need any more pressure right now. I’m going through a really hard time.”
Cruzer groans, and his hands go up to rub his face. They both look like hammered shit. There are empty beer cans and an empty bottle of Popov vodka sitting on the coffee table.
The air is stale, making the temperature only feel more oppressive. A slight sweat is gathering in the indent of my spine, and Cruzer’s gray T-shirt shows dark circles under each arm. Takeout containers from the Thai restaurant down the street are strewn on the counter. The contents are spilling out, and a troupe of happy ants travels in an organized line to and from the buffet of spoiled food which frames the stack of eviction papers.
“You make your own hard times,” I mumble as I work my way over to the small dresser that holds most of my stuff here. I’d love to scream at her, but right now, I just want to get back out of here as quickly as I came in. Where I want to go I’m not sure, but I’m not staying in here with them.
Believe it or not, this living room is also my bedroom. Because it’s Angela’s name on the lease, not mine, and of course, she wanted the bedroom.
I’d like to say I don’t know how I let myself get so intertwined with her, but it wouldn’t be true. I’m a sucker for a sob story. Especially one that tugs at certain heartstrings, and boy does Angela have stories. We met at the laundromat, of all places. She was there with Cruzer, so I got a two-fer one deal on the closest thing to friends I have by meeting them.
One thing led to another. I was getting kicked out of the room I’d managed to end up renting for the last couple of years, a tiny wooden box above an illegal chop shop, and Angela said she needed a roommate. Yeah, right. Roommate. Someone to pay the bills is more like it. But she had a place, a lease, and I was looking down the wrong end of homeless, so I figured it was just for a year until I left for Utah and my future, so what the heck.
“Don’t judge me.” She’s on her feet, wobbling a bit before she gets her bearings.
I take a breath, trying to settle the rage that’s bubbling just under the surface. She really knows how to push my buttons. I honestly don’t care if she gets evicted. I mean, I was planning to be on a plane in four days to start the next, and hopefully better, part of my life. But now, without the five thousand dollars I lost last night, even that dream is in jeopardy. I needed that tuition money and broke my one rule about never touching school money for a hustle.
So much for that rule.
“I’m not judging you. But she needs the money. You can’t just not pay her.”
“You coming home empty then, I take it?” Cruzer is up and moving on the couch. His gray sweat-soaked T-shirt also has what must be sauce from the Thai food dribbled down the front, and the ink that covers him from neck to wrists shines with perspiration.
“It did not go as planned, no.” I snort, shaking my head at them both.
Cruzer doesn’t look all that upset. Or surprised.
I mean, granted, this isn’t his apartment. He should probably pay rent, as much as his butt sits on our couch, but apparently, he has a place of his own. But he sure seem to enjoy our place.
I pull open a dresser drawer to grab clean clothes.
He shrugs. “Just a bad night. You’ll do better next time.” Cruzer lifts himself with a grunt off the deep indentation he’s made on the end cushion of the couch. “As a matter of fact, I can get you into another game. Friday night. It’s a big one, though. Another ten to get in.”