“Are you talking to your baked goods again?” Maeve teased.
“They like being talked to.”
Maeve jumped up and stole some of the pie dough, dipped it in sugar, and ate it. “So good!”
Rain splattered against the tiny single window of our apartment.
“Is it supposed to rain all week?” I asked Maeve. “We may need a new apartment sooner than we think.”
She swiped on her tablet. “If you can find a better job that pays three times as much and I find a better job that pays four times as much, we could move into a two bedroom with a view of a brick wall as opposed to a view of a cinder block wall.”
I adjusted my robe. I had changed into my self-care clothes, which were a ratty pair of Tweety Bird pajama pants and an I Lurve Cupcakes T-shirt. No bra. Because I had just been fired, and you didn’t have to wear a bra if you were fired.
“I love how we have such lofty goals,” I said sarcastically.
“It’s good to dream,” Maeve said.
The floor above us started vibrating, then crappy hip-hop music blared through the floor. We looked up warily at the ceiling.
I grabbed my broom.
“Don’t,” Maeve warned. “You’ll bring the whole place down.”
“Stop blaring your music!” I yelled. “People are trying to bake here.”
I opened my window and beat the broom up against the wall.
“Wow, you really are mad!”
“I was in the middle of shopping when Beck fired me, and I’ll never hold those vintage Polly Pockets,” I complained, banging the broom against the wall above the window.
Thunder cracked, and lightning flashed. In the dark alley below, I saw a car waiting.
I was suddenly apprehensive and slammed the window.
“Don’t think you made much of an impact,” Maeve said, throwing me a towel for my hair. Then she frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“I think…” I pointed.
Maeve looked out the window, peering into the dark. “Is that a car?”
“You see it too.” I sat on our sagging couch. “I was hoping it was a wine- and rich-Spanish-food-fueled hallucination.”
“You don’t think it’s Kaden, do you?” Maeve asked in concern. “Do you think he’ll come up here?”
“Oh my god. He probably saw me stick my head out of the window,” I said in horror.
“I thought you always said he wasn’t dangerous.”
“He hasn’t shown up at my job or my home before now!”
“Maybe it was just a delivery driver,” Maeve said uncertainly.
“They ride bikes,” I hissed.
The front door to the building slammed. A man’s voice echoed up the stairway.
“Oh my god, he’s in the building.”
