I choke on a swallow, sputtering and spitting orange soda all over her dusty dashboard. Never in my fucking life have I done anything like that before. And if it were my car that I just spewed orange soda over, I’d be furious.
“Fuck, you can’t say shit like that when my mouth is full.”
“Really?” she says with an eye roll.
“Well, what the hell kind of condition is that?” I choke out, pounding on my chest, trying to clear the soda that’s made its way down into the wrong part of my throat. The part where liquids go to die.
Maybe she was right. She’s a hazard to me.
She shrugs as she keeps driving, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
“You’re fucking with me?”
She laughs. “Yeah. I am.”
“Why do you keep trying to kill me?”
“Choking on orange soda is hardly an attempt on your life. I didn’t pour it down your throat and force you to drink it. I don’t think that will hold up in court and you wouldn’t want to lose another case to me, would you?”
“Ouch.”
She laughs then her face turns more serious. “Look, I’m really sorry about your hand. I wasn’t thinking and I was trying to deflect. I’ll tell my manager I broke the vase, and they’ll deduct it from my paycheck.”
I shake my head. “That thing was worthless to me.”
“I guarantee it’s worth a couple thousands.”
Something tells me that’s money Rhiannon can’t spare to lose.
“Don’t sweat it. I’ll tell them I broke it. I doubt they’ll charge me for it given I didn’t even know it was in there and I’ve been living there for two years.”
She shoots me a lopsided smile. “Two years in that place and you haven’t even looked at the furniture is kind of sad.”
I nod but stare straight out the front window when I do because she’s not wrong.
“I hope that the stitches won’t impact your work too much.”
“Shouldn’t be an issue.”
Another long stretch of silence and I realize we’re getting closer to my penthouse now. I should be eager to get out of this hazardous piece of junk. But instead, I’m scrambling for any way to extend our talk.
This conversation wasn’t enough to get her out of my system, and I can’t keep living every day in this city of millions wondering if I’m going to run into her around every corner.
“So, you work as a maid, sorry,cleaning personnel, two days a week, a sex therapist for virtual clients who need relationship help, manage a very successful snark account where you take on the influencer community and sometimes act as a model for music videos?”
She laughs. “And I help with my family’s thrift store.”
“Thrift store?”
She smiles proudly. “It’s been in our family for generations.”
“Damn, and I thought I was busy.”
“It sounds like a lot, but if you sit down and think about how much free time you have in a day, anyone could do it.”
Now I understand why she doesn’t have time for sex or dating. This woman doesn’t have time to breathe.
“No, I don’t think anyone could work five jobs.”
