Ruining His Summer

Chapter Six: The Complications of Too Much 48 Hours Mystery

I don’t care if I’m technically working with Elsie and a couple other grubby guys on yards in the afternoons, sweating my body weight, pulling stupid stumps; I’m getting my old job back.

Maybe if I could prove to Norman that I could get my own job—and be paid too—by myself, he’d let me out of this little arrangement.

And the plus side was that Abe is still picking up after jocks in bathrooms and sweaty locker rooms, and although he was being tight lipped about it, I saw the way he grimaced when Mitch mentioned an abandoned pair of briefs. He was just as sick of this as I was.

But I was just pulling stumps, for now.

I sat in the waiting room of the acupuncture clinic, waiting to for Laura. I was going to kiss her rear all she wanted until I was back in that gray, cushioned chair, telling patients where to go to get stuck with needles.

AC and money is way better than humidity and free labor. 

After about fifteen minutes, Laura came out of the hallway, holding a folder in her perfectly manicured fingertips, and when she glanced up, she spotted me.

Her eyes widened and then her pupils darted around the room, like she was afraid anyone would see me and know I used to work here.

“Silvia?” she asked, almost as if she was hoping this was just someone who looked like me. She forced a smile, shaking her head in surprise. “I just can’t . . . you’re here.”

I nodded, mentally puckering my lips for the butt kissing. “I am,” I told her, legs crossed with a magazine on my thighs, “and I’m here to get my job back.”

Laura’s blonde little head flew right and left, like a kid being told to look both ways before crossing. The nervous smile on her face shone like a hotel sign, one letter flickering.

“You . . .” Inside her mouth, her tongue continued to dance around her mouth, despite not saying anything. “. . . Want your job back.”

This wasn’t a question. It sounded more like a concern.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Well, you see. . .” As you can tell, Laura had a hard time continuing sentences without pausing nervously or maybe it was just my presence. “That kind of raises a problem.”

I almost said because I’m an ex-convict? but I held my tongue. “And what would that problem be, Laura?”

Laure just sighed. “We’ve already replaced you.”

As if on cue the door opened and that cheesy bell rang. Laura said she liked it because it let her know that there was a new customer, but it drove me insane, like an alarm clock.

I turned my head because Laura seemed to react to this. Like the person walking here was making her nervous. Like the person had replaced an ex-con’s job and the ex-con was sitting right there.

When I saw who it was, I had to admit, I was shocked.

Maybe stunned even.

It was Pamela.

Her wavy dirty blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail, and her dimples were showing when she took off her sunglasses. “Sorry, I’m late,” she announced, sticking one of arms of her sunglasses in her mouth. “I had to. . .”

I did a small wave when she looked at me, and her sunglasses fell on the ground.

I nodded to the sunglasses, one arm folded and the other outstretched. “Your sunglasses fell,” I told her, just in case she was too busy gaping to notice.