Page 2 of Sling’s Awakening

I always tell him he doesn’t need to wait for me. He’s been the bouncer for this place since before I started on the pole. Sometimes I don’t get to leave this place until the sun comes up, but he refuses to let me walk out alone no matter the time of day. I could tell him until I’m blue in the face to go home, but there he’ll be waiting for me in a booth.

It’s kind of nice to know he cares so much. He’s become sort of like a dad over the years.

Big Jack waits outside his car until I’m inside mine and he hears the locks click. I wave to him as I start my car and pull out of the empty parking lot.

It’s a different type of torture knowing you’re coming home from work only to go back in the same day. I pity anyone who works nights because it’s not for the weak. You’re forced to live a life that ninety percent of the world isn’t awake for and then forced to conform to their schedule on your days off if you want to get anything done.

My neighborhood is quiet as I pull in, the street lamps giving a soft glow. I hit the button on my remote as I get close to my house and pull into my one-car garage. The house I bought isn’t big by any means, but it’s mine. It’s a cute, small, three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath ranch-style house. The backyard came with a privacy fence and a cement patio. It needs some updating and a little more curb appeal to my liking, but I’m taking it one step at a time.

Once I’m inside my house, I barely have enough energy to take a hot shower before I’m collapsing into bed.

One thing they don’t tell you about when you hit your thirties is that everything starts to hurt. I can’t even get out of bed without my hip popping.

It’s disgusting.

And the fact that I can barely stay awake past midnight. I have to chug multiple iced espressos just to make it through my shifts. And somehow after all of that, I can still come home and pass out as if I haven’t had a drop of caffeine. Honestly, at this point, it’s what keeps me sane and stops me from being a raging cunt.

I’m out as soon as I hit my pillow, dead to the world.

A loud rumble and revving of pipes has my eyes shooting open.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

The engine revs again as I blindly grab my phone off my nightstand and check the time.

7:25 a.m.

This motherfucker.

Every morning for the last three weeks my neighbor has woken me up at the ass crack of dawn with his stupid bike.

I’m sick of it.

It’s basically the equivalent of someone mowing their lawn at seven in the morning on a Sunday.

Who does that shit?

A psychopath, that’s who.

I haven’t had the pleasure of formally meeting my neighbor. I’ve briefly seen him in his driveway working on his bike as I’m coming and going. He doesn’t acknowledge me and I haven’t acknowledged him. He doesn’t exactly seem like the type to welcome someone to the neighborhood, anyway.

But enough is enough.

If I have to listen to this for one more morning when I’ve gotten two hours of sleep, someone is going to die, and spoiler alert, it isn’t going to be me.

I feel like I’m pretty damn respectful when I come home, making sure to make as little noise as possible because I don’t want to wake my neighbors up before they need to be.

That’s what a nice person does.

Unlike this fucking asshole.

Throwing the covers off, I roll out of bed and slip on my fuzzy leopard print slippers before stomping to my front door and whipping it open. The brisk morning air brushes against my bare arms and legs, making it known that I forgot to put pants on, but there’s no time for that.

I’m on a mission.

I stomp down the front steps of my porch, my target set on my neighbor’s house.

He’s straddling his bike, wearing a black leather vest, denim jeans, and a white T-shirt. From where I’m at, it looks like the shirt is glued to his skin. His head is tilted down, as if he’s looking at something.