We laughed, and he shook his head.
“The trick is to find the one you can’t go fifteen hours without. When that shit happens, you get all messed up. Before you know it, you’re buying rings and talking about the future. “
I snorted. “Nah. I’m good. I’ll leave that family shit to you and the rest of them. It’s not for me.”
“If you say so.” He looked down at his phone and shoved it back into his pocket. “Shit. It’s time to get back to the front. This place ain’t going to clean itself.”
I was exhausted.
The last thing I wanted to do was more cleaning, but it made the time go by faster.
We left the kitchen and walked toward the front of the building. Before getting back to work, we stopped at the front desk to check the cleaning schedule. I was looking over the sheet when Jermaine nudged me.
“There she is, man,” he said, poking me with his meaty arm.
I looked around, unsure of who he was talking about.
“Who?”
He nodded in the direction behind me. “Her. She comes in here like once or twice a week. All curves and pretty green eyes.”
I turned around and saw the girl from Lilly’s party walking toward us. A grin pulled at my lips. I had hoped I would run into her again, and there she was, turning down the exact hallway I was supposed to be headed toward.
“You think she’s hot?” I asked.
I’m not sure why it mattered, but knowing another man thought she was sexy was important to me. Almost like it made it okay for me to be attracted to a woman with a little extra meat on her bones.
“Hell, yeah. Look at her ass and curves. I have a thing for thick women. More cushion for the pushin’,” he joked.
I shook my head.
“But I think she might like women, too. Every time I try to talk to her, she blows me off.”
I shoved him in the arm. “Dude, why are you chasing women? You’re married with kids.”
“I wasn’t. I was just trying to talk to her, but she wouldn’t give me the time of day.”
I sniffed. “Speak for yourself. She’ll talk to me. I’ll get her to,” I said confidently.
And I could.
Of that, I was sure.
Jermaine laughed. “You’re full of shit, Matt. She wouldn’t give you the time of day either.”
A challenge.
Why was I so into being challenged?
It was like all the other corrupt things I was into.
Racing my car on the interstate.
Gambling.
Anything that gave me a rush.
“Five hundred bucks says I can,” I bet.
He looked at me like I was stupid. “Hell, no. That’s a week’s pay, and I have a family to support.”
“What’s wrong? Afraid I’ll win?”
“No. I’m not stupid enough to take chances with my rent money. Not everyone has Momma footing the bill.”
I sighed.
“Fine. Loser mops the main hall?”
He laughed. “Now that’s a bet I can wrap my head around.”
SIX
SHANNON
LEAVING MY GRAMMY AT THE NURSING HOME was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. She literally had nothing since everything had burned in the trailer, and with the exception of me, no one else gave a damn about her. Knowing she only had me made it even harder to leave the building and go to my car.
A few months at Twin Oaks was paid for in advance, thanks to some savings Grammy had and a small insurance claim on her old trailer, but I knew how quickly time would fly by. I needed to be able to cover the costs once the payment was due again. I had no idea how I would do that, but it wasn’t as if I had a choice.
A second and a third job might be my only options.
I knew Lilly’s family had money, but I couldn’t find it in myself to ask her. I was too proud. So instead of even mentioning it to Lilly, I tucked the stress of money down deep and worked whenever Mrs. Franklin needed me to work. On slow days, I would sit at the front counter and search for jobs on my phone, hoping to at least snag one more that paid decently.
The good thing about Lilly having a new boyfriend was she worked less, using up tons of vacation time she had accrued. Not that I didn’t want to be around her, but the less she worked, the more hours I got. The more hours I got, the more money I brought in.
So that was what I did.
I worked and visited Grammy whenever I could.
With Lilly being gone a lot, it wasn’t like I had anything else to do anyway. The rest of my friends had jobs and lives, and I didn’t want to bring them down with my drama and depression.
On my next day off, I stopped by Maribelle’s, a café close to work, and got myself a salted caramel Frappuccino. Located in North Charleston, Twin Oaks was much closer to my job and apartment than Somersby was. Instead of driving an hour to visit Grammy, she was only twenty minutes away.
I sipped my Frappuccino on the ride over to the nursing home and tossed the empty cup in the trash can by the front entrance of Twin Oaks.
My boots clicked against the floor as I made my way to the front desk.
“I’m here to see Mrs. Iris Daniels,” I told the young girl behind the front desk.
She looked about my age, maybe a year or two older.
“One second,” she said with a smile as she turned and grabbed the sign-in paper, setting it on the counter in front of me.
She was pretty, much skinnier than I was, and her brown hair was perfectly curled. Her makeup was gorgeous, and I imagined she spent a ton of her downtime making YouTube videos about makeup application.
Scribbling my name on the sign-in sheet, I handed the paper back to her.
“Room three hundred. Turn down the first hall on your right and it’s about ten doors down.”
I already knew that, but still, I said, “Thank you.”
I tapped the top of the counter before turning toward Grammy’s room.
The long hallways of Twin Oaks were brightly lit. While the place had a somewhat comfortable, homey feel, the smell of antiseptic still stung my nose. A sage green decorated the walls, but the tile floor was still hospital grade and ancient.
The place used to be the old hospital before the new one was built. That was before I was even born, and while they had upgraded and renovated, you could still feel the age of the building. It was that way with a lot of Charleston buildings. The places were old—rooted—stained with the past and wrinkled with time.
Old beauty.
It was the only way to describe Charleston.
My boots squeaked with my steps as I moved into a part of the hallway that had recently been mopped. A tiny yellow sign warned me the floor was wet, and the smell of bleach stung my nose. I smiled, thankful the place my grammy was living in was at least clean.
As long as I pointed out the good things about Twin Oaks to myself, I could almost forget how badly I felt about leaving her in a nursing home with a bunch of strangers. It was a last resort. One I hoped to rectify at some point when I could afford to do so.