Scrubbing toilets isn’t glamorous, but Blade still has its charm. I’m twenty-eight, and this grunt work might be the first job I’ve actually liked.
“Yo, intern,” Jeremiah announces as I step back to the front.
I look at him blankly.
This is my standard response to his goldfish brain. I pretend I’m a blank wall and hope he gets bored enough to walk away and forget I’m here.
“You live up by all those queers, don’t you?” he asks.
I grit my teeth. I happen to live a little west of the gay neighborhood here in Chicago, which must be what he’s talking about, but I’m not going to make it easy on him.
“What are you talking about?” I ask flatly.
“Red over here is saying we should open another spot up there. I say hell no.”
I look over to Red. He’s an older artist with a big white beard. Rumor is, he might retire in the next year or two, and I’m praying that I can position myself right to land his spot in the shop.
“If you want to open another location, that’s the place to do it,” Red says, a toothpick hanging out the corner of his mouth.
“What do you think, intern?” Jeremiah asks me. “You want to spend the rest of your life tattooing hearts and rainbows on a bunch of homos?”
“Cut that shit out,” Red grumbles to him.
My nostrils flare, but I keep it together. Another artist is walking in the front door, and I know Jeremiah loves to embarrass me in front of the crew.
“You want to open another shop? Put it wherever you want,” I answer as I take a seat behind the desk.
“Pissy today, aren’t ya?” Jeremiah scowls at me. “And after I was nice enough to invite you to the shop barbecue.”
I pretend to look at the calendar, not answering him.
“Maybe you like it up there with the homos more than you let on.”
Billie growls. Red grits his teeth, glaring at Jeremiah.
This time, I do look up.
Fuck, he pisses me off. I’ve been here a year, and I thought the bullshit would end after a hazing period, but he just keeps poking me.
I hold his eye. I can’t tell him off like I want, but I’m at least showing that he’s not getting to me.
“That it?” he asks, then makes a kissy face at me. “You have a secret boyfriend up there?”
That kiss sends me over the edge. There’s an obnoxious line, and he just crossed it.
“So what if I do?” I answer defiantly.
As a matter of fact, I have no boyfriend, or girlfriend, or significant other of any kind. And guys aren’t, generally speaking, on my radar.
My mind flashes back to a drunken night spent with my ex-girlfriend Lara and another guy, all tangled in the sheets together.
Practically never on my radar, I guess. But none of those distinctions really matter at the moment. Ignorant shit like Jeremiah is spouting pisses me off. And right now, I’m in a stare-down with the one guy I have to play nice with.
Jeremiah whistles. “Oh, really? You got a boyfriend, now?” He turns to Billie, who leans against the wall with her arms crossed, irritation etched on her face. “Billie, did you know your intern has a boyfriend?”
“He’s the shop’s apprentice,” Billie grumbles, then kicks off from the wall. “And who cares? Don’t you have clients to prepare for, Jeremiah?”
But Jeremiah isn’t done. He looks right back at me with a laugh. “What’s his name?” he challenges. “You keep a picture of him on your phone to look at during your lunch break?”
