He struggles with the words, “All of those.” Micro-expressions, twitching eyebrows… he’s lying.
“Go to hell.” I storm out, slamming the door so hard, one of the pictures falls off the wall.
I spend the rest of the day screaming in my head. I lost my friends, my not-grandmother, my dream man Nico, and my dignity all in twenty-four hours. But I did gain a group chat.
Me: How pissed should I be if someone violated my privacy and made assumptions about my wealth, but they thought they were doing something nice and they’re going through a tough time?
My phone rings within seconds of hitting send. “What the fuck did Joey do?” Alana asks, but her voice is all echoey. “I swear to God I’m going to kick his ass.”
I don’t know how much to say. “He, um, refunded me a membership.” I think that’s good enough.
“Ohhhh!” Alana says. “That’s where I recognized you from. I’ve been trying to put it together all day.”
Oh. I whisper, “You’re a member of Club Midnight too?”
“Yeah,” Alana admits. “I like to control how and when I fuck, and it’s always on a night when Joey or Dimitri aren’t there. And now that Waverly and Lukas started taking classes, it’s cutting into my time too. Hmm… I haven’t been there in over a year, either. Why didn’t Joey refund me? Cheap-ass bastard.”
Izzy grumbles, “Because now that you sold off thirty percent of Grasshopper, you’re a multimillionaire.” She’s not as loud as Alana, so maybe I’m on speaker phone. A little warning would be nice, I mean what if I said something even more inappropriate than I already have?
I don’t know or understand what the hell they’re talking about. “Whatever. I should be pissed, right? I’m not sure which level of pissed I should be though. A little pissed and I can be won over with cupcakes? Or should I slice his tires?”
“He’s second in line for the Italian mob, I’d be careful about any property damage,” Izzy says.
That’s the second time they’ve talked about organized crime. I thought it was a joke at first, but now...
Whatever, again. Because my focus is locational and compartmentalized, the instant I enter the office, my brain goes into work mode, and I do my very best to be a functional adult for a little while. I spend the afternoon updating our company newsletter and creating a new coupon for referral bonuses. I have a meeting with the accountant to make sure our quarterly taxes are ready to go. Stupid boss stuff that does not hold my attention very long. But the dogs are fun, so I flip through the client files, mostly to update the pictures and to check the shot records.
Kingston is flagged as overdue for his Bordetella, and he’s due for his rabies. That’s probably something Jerkface Joey needs to take care of. Crap. This is my second reminder about Kingston and the vet.
I write Kingston’s vet’s phone number and mentally cringe. There are lots of vets in this town; I don’t know why Nonna insisted on seeing this one. Actually, I do know why. He’s young, cute, and single. He also gives me the ick, and I don’t know why.
Checking my email after doing the small tasks gives me a nice little dopamine hit. One subject line grabs my attention, and I sigh. “The closing date changed.”
Motherfucker.
Another three months, are you kidding me? How long could it possibly take to finish building a condo once the basic infrastructure is done? It means another three months of rent in an apartment where I can’t have a dog. Can this day get any worse?
I finish off my day and head back to Kingston. Last walk, and it’s a short one. Joey’s car is still in the driveway. Ugh. I don’t want to deal with him, either.
Kingston greets me at the door, tail curled and ears up. He is the best boy, and his new owner can eat a bag of dicks.
Said owner is sitting at the kitchen table—still, or again—and his laptop cord is a tripping hazard across the floor.
He jumps to his feet and crosses his arms. “You own the largest dog walking company for fifty miles.” Why does he sound incredulous? Like I’ve committed some cardinal sin. He also sounds annoyed at my success.
Riiiiight. He has a penis. Being surrounded by amazing women who support one another, I forget that men can be like this.
“Congratulations. You do know how search engines work.” I frown and hook Kingston’s leash.
“I don’t understand why you’re walking dogs. Don’t you have employees for that?”
“Dogs are better than people.” I shrug. “And at thirty dollars a visit, given that I have ten to fifteen daily clients who get picked up twice, I make over six hundred a day, six days a week. And that’s just walking the dogs. It doesn’t include the overhead I get from all the other dogwalkers for each job they do. On a good day, I bring home over a grand.” I do jazz hands. “Math—the more you know.”
“It was a fucking misunderstanding. You don’t need to be such a bitch about it.” Wow, the audacity of this guy. “This is the exact reason why I don’t do nice things for people.”
“Oh, you’re right. I’m sorry. Thank you very much for invading my privacy and passing unfounded judgments on my personal life.”
He barks. “Or lack thereof.”
