Home > The Sweetest Thing (SWANK #2)(7)

The Sweetest Thing (SWANK #2)(7)
Author: Maya Hughes

Hunter and I were roommates. Reluctant roommates at this point. Temporary roommates if I played my cards right over the next few months with the leveling up of my clients. The account I’d gotten had almost felt like a mistake and if they hadn’t actually sent me the sheets to photograph, I’d have thought there was a typo in the email address, but I’d still need to prove myself and stand out to be selected for the international marketing campaign and the bonus that came with it.

I clipped my hair on top of my head and set out my body wash and loofah. The stresses of the day were hard to wash away without a bath. Tomorrow I’d check on any feedback for the first round I’d sent in and get to work on making the next batch of images even better.

I was failing miserably at this whole adult thing, and thirty was right around the corner. Moving to my parents’ house in Arizona wasn’t my idea of fun. Short of buying a ticket to Moscow and curling up on Cat’s couch, I was running out of other options. A crack in the door was all I needed to get someone to look at my designs.

Less worrying and more relaxing. I slipped into the bath, moaning. The tub itself was heated, taking away from the first-touch shock. If I wasn’t careful, I’d pass out in here and he’d have a big surprise when he came home.

With all the grumbling and mumbling he’d been doing to Barbara about me showing up, he’d probably dispose of my body down the trash chute, dusting his hands off and whistling on the way back to his apartment of solitude.

The warm, bordering-on-hot water melted away the soreness. Music pumped in from my phone, and I closed my eyes, sinking deeper into the most comfortable tub in existence.

In here, there was nothing to worry about except for the water temperature and my new roommate catching me naked in his bathroom. But right now, I couldn’t even worry about that. Tension slowly ebbed from my body one muscle at a time.

When I was sufficiently pruney and clean, I flicked the stopper and climbed out of the tub while it drained behind me. Drying myself and the floor off, I stared into the still-wet tub.

My pajama sweats, T-shirt, and fluffy socks triggered my yawn cycle. It would be minutes before I fell onto the nearest flat surface and passed out.

Finding more towels in a closet in the hallway, I went to work drying down the inside of the tub. It was polite to clean up after myself and I also didn’t want Hunter to have any idea I’d been here. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. I piled everything up beside my closet to take care of tomorrow.

In bed, I pulled the sheets up to my chin and snuggled down deep in the pillow-top mattress. The thread count was stellar for a guest bedroom, not that I was being choosy. A burlap sack on the floor would’ve been enough to put me to bed. But after two nights sleeping sitting up in my car, it was nice to stretch out and relax.

Whatever Hunter dished out, I could more than take. I wasn’t moving out and running away again. Barbara had told me the invite was open for as long as I needed it. I’d plan my next steps wisely, never worrying about a place to live again.

 

 

In the morning I lay in bed for twenty minutes, straining to hear anything coming from the bedroom at the end of the hall. It felt even quieter after the rumble of music that had started sometime after two. Who felt the need to bring the club home with them? Hunter, it seemed. At least there hadn’t been any rhythmic banging noises, not that I’d have been able to hear much over the noise from his end of the hall.

Now I didn’t feel even the slightest bit of guilt for using his tub. He was lucky I hadn’t left the floor wet enough for a slip-and-slide accident during his middle-of-the-night bedroom rave.

The music had gone off at some point before sunrise. I’d fallen into a fitful sleep with my pillow over my head, so I was already in a rip-roaring great mood. Now the apartment felt eerily silent—not a creaking floorboard, a rustle of blankets, or a cabinet closing. Either he’d left already, or he had come home, cranked up the volume, and left again last night. I wouldn’t have put it past him to have put his stereo on a timer for maximum annoyance to me even when he wasn’t here.

He was probably shacked up with a woman he’d met at the club. A woman who loved a surly attitude, striking eyes, and a sneering smirk. Women proposed to serial killers in jail, and I had no doubts Hunter mopped up in the ladies’ department.

Coffee, then grocery shopping were in order, but my stomach threatened a small-scale revolt if I didn’t eat immediately. Skipping dinner had a way of turning me into a gremlin. Hunter was lucky I hadn’t scrambled up onto the countertops to tear through the cereal boxes with my teeth.

Of course, everything in his kitchen was exactly what I’d have expected from a guy like him. The jar of Nutella was nowhere to be found.

Healthy cereals less appetizing than the boxes they were stored in. At least those were all full. Bottled water in the fridge. Not even old takeout. And a shit-ton of coffee. So much coffee and energy drinks.

With this much caffeine in the apartment, I was surprised Hunter wasn’t bouncing off the walls and clinging to the ceiling.

My stomach rumbled like a speed bag in a boxing gym.

Eating the coffee grounds would be my next step if there wasn’t any milk. I triple-checked the expiration date on the barely-a-bowlful of milk then gave it a sniff test. I opened the other cabinets. The matching light green mugs were in a row with all their handles to the left. Was Hunter a little anal retentive?

I grabbed a mug from the cabinet and poured some of the milk into my mug. After a cursory sip, I was ninety percent sure it was fine to drink.

I took out one of the five hundred bags of coffee. Using my rusty barista skills, I fired up the coffee machine and dumped a heaping scoop of coffee into the filter before closing the tray and waiting for my morning ambrosia.

I sprinkled the cereal into a bowl and poured the last of the milk over it and chucked the carton. Milk was on the top of my grocery-run list, along with anything that wasn’t coffee. I mean, I loved coffee more than the next person—dark, rich, heavy enough to get me through hours chained to my desk—but I did need other sustenance.

The dire cereal situation wasn’t making me more patient for my coffee. Stale shards of bran sliced my throat. I’d have been better off chomping on some tree bark outside.

I stood at the counter and grabbed my phone, checking my messages. There was a response from a portfolio I’d sent over for a few textile designs. My spoon dropped into my bowl.

“Yes!” I punctuated the celebration with a fist in the air. They wanted to see more. They wanted to see samples. Shit, I needed to make samples. Which would cost money. Selling the current products I’d just unpacked had never been more urgent.

If I didn’t get any bites on these designs in the next few months, maybe it was a sign it wasn’t going to happen, but this was a glimmer of hope. I’d given myself the year-end deadline to try to stop myself from pursuing another pipe dream.

I had four months to finally make a name for myself in the design world and stop mooching the free housing off Barbara, or I’d pack it all up and knuckle down with a real job where I wasn’t living at the whim of bargain-hunting clients or the luck of the draw. If I sold a design, that could be a steady paycheck—or at least a big enough one to keep me on my feet for much longer than a couple months.

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