The Things We Do

Chapter 2

By the end of the day, I’d seen Ryker twice more, but I kept the fantasizing to a minimum since it was Friday and everyone was a little impatient to clock out and start the weekend. I was kept busy handing out paystubs and dealing with clients on the phone, as well as walk-ins.

Spring had officially begun earlier in the week, and now the days were a mixture of warm and cold. It would get above sixty degrees on Saturday, which meant lots of outdoor activities.

Gavin had already gone for the day, and at seven o’clock, when the business closed, I was the only one remaining. I shut down the office, locked up the supplies, and did a last count of keys to make sure they had all been returned. I might have been a tad obsessive about that, but losing keys and having to reorder them was a pet peeve of mine.

Satisfied, I headed out of the building and locked the office door behind me, walked to the metal gate that surrounded the complex and entered the code to secure it, then sauntered to the nearby bus stop to wait for my ride. My car had been totaled a year ago, around the time I bought my house, so the funds weren’t there to get another one for the time being.

I put buds in my ears and cranked up some hard rock to keep me going until I got home and crashed. I nodded at Bart, my regular bus driver, and tapped my transit card before sitting in the usual spot behind his chair. It was the normal crowd, the bus not being as full since rush hour was over, which typically made it a fairly quiet ride.

People knew not to talk to me, and even if they didn’t, they figured it out fast because my glare could kill at ten paces. Before I knew it, the thirty-minute trip was over and I was walking the half-mile to my little spot of paradise at the end of a cul-de-sac. I had gotten the two-story fixer-upper for a steal, and kept working at it little by little, making it into my dream house.

I couldn’t see the color in the dark, but the sunny yellow walls were always cheerful in the daytime, which even I would admit, and the planters I had placed around the house made things even more vibrant. It always made me happy to come home—one of the few things that did.

Erasmus, the black cat that had turned up on my doorstep one day and decided to stay despite my efforts to get rid of it, twined around my legs as I stepped into the foyer and hung my light jacket on a hook near the door. I turned on the light to the living room and admired the half-finished space. It was coming along nicely.

“Hey, buddy,” I said, bending to pet my spoiled rotten feline, then heading to the kitchen to get some kitty food. I poured his dinner in a bowl and gave him some water. “Here ya go, Mussy.” The cat ignored me, as was typical, and focused on the chow. I rolled my eyes. “You’re welcome.”

I put my keys and cell phone on the table, then got the day-old casserole from the refrigerator and heated it while I took a quick shower. Cleaned and dressed in sweats and an old T-shirt, I grabbed a beer and ate my food.

Halfway through my meal in the kitchen, my cell phone rang. I sighed. There could be only one person calling me after eight on a Friday night.

“No,” I said before the caller could speak. “No, I’m not going out with you to the newest, trendiest, ‘it’ bar or club that you think we should try.”

“But where’s the fun in that?” my pain-in-the-ass friend Titus said, and I could almost hear the grin in his voice. He was one of the few people who braved my prickly nature, and I let him. “You work at least twelve-hour shifts six, sometimes seven days a week. You need to unwind, buddy.”

“I am unwinding. I’m having dinner. Mussy is on my lap being petted to death. And I’m going to bed with a book soon because I have to be at work by seven in the morning, as you well know. If I go out right now, I’ll be dead on my feet.”

Titus huffed. “Who cares? That’s what coffee is for. Life’s too short to be sitting at home on a Friday night molesting a cat and watching TV.”

“Grinding against a guy I don’t know in a hot, sweaty, and loud environment that always gives me a headache isn’t my idea of fun.”

“This is why you don’t get laid.”

I grunted. “I don’t want to get laid.” Unless Ryker offered…I shook off that thought and got real. “No one wants to kiss the ‘metal mouth,’” I snapped, “and guys can’t see beyond that for some reason. Hand jobs in dark corners got old.” I doubted things would change once the braces came off, but I wasn’t worried about it.

“I’m coming over.”

“Titus…” I started to say, but he’d already hung up. I sighed and finished my meal, moving a disgruntled Erasmus off my lap before standing and cleaning the kitchen.

It would take Titus half an hour to get here, assuming he came straight from his apartment, and he would be relentless in his pursuit of getting me out of the house. I was thirty years old. I could handle my own love life, or lack thereof, thank you very much. And if by “love” I meant unrequited lusting after a certain co-worker, then so be it.

I would stay at home with a book and my indifferent cat. And that was final.