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“How much are you charging?” she asked, tossing the rag back into the sanitizer.

I opened my phone and went to my price sheet and showed it to her. She looked it over.

“I think you can go up by at least ten bucks a box,” she said. “Twenty on the big ones. And if you buy in bulk, you’ll get better prices. Do you belong to a wholesale club or anything?”

I put my phone away. “I can’t afford the membership.”

“It’s expensive being poor,” she mumbled. “So, when were you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“That you’re moving in with Mike,” she said.

I paused to look at her. “How did you know?”

“Donna and Janessa were talking about it.”

I drew in a slow breath. “It’s not a big deal. My mom is moving to South Dakota with her boyfriend.”

“They didn’t ask you to come?”

“They did. I’d rather sleep in my car.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “It’s that bad?”

“You have no idea. He’s dirty, lazy. I can’t even sit in my own living room when he’s there. Honestly them leaving is the best thing that could have happened. It’s forcing me to make decisions that I should have made a while ago.”

“Moving in with Mike though? You don’t want your own pad?”

I laughed dryly. “My credit is so bad I couldn’t even get places to reply to my applications. If I live with Mike, I won’t have to pay rent. I can finally start making a dent in these bills, get ahead for once, or take an actual day off where I don’t have to worry about financially drowning while I’m gone. Plus, he’s been asking me to. He really wants it—it just makes sense at this point.”

“If my sister didn’t need me to help her, I’d have moved in with you in a second. So, how’s the saving-up thing going?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Good. I got the credit card companies to waive half the debt.”

She brightened. “You did?”

“Yeah. Now I only owe fifteen thousand.” I rolled my eyes.

They were going to go after Dad for the rest. I was actually chipping away at the debt now. In six months if I kept up the graze boards at the rate I was, I could pay them off. I’d also gotten the ding against my credit removed, so I was recovering that now too. I could be in a totally different place in half a year. Literally.

“When are you moving in?” she asked.

“Right before Christmas.”

She pressed her lips together. “This is either going to be really good or really bad.”

“His place is a million times better than the one I’m in. His mom has a gym and a pool. The neighborhood is nice.”

“Yeah, but you gotta live next to Donna and Janessa.” She made a face. “I don’t know, girl.”

“We’ve been together nine months, Lexi. I’m sleeping at his place half the week. It’s not even going to be that much different. He’s been begging me to move in for a while. And I didn’t tell you because I don’t need the lecture. We both know how you feel about me and Mike.”

“Okay,” she muttered. “Fair.”

She dropped it and I went back to my side work. But what she said earlier niggled at me.

If Mike wasn’t going to be a plumber, what was he going to do? Because if things worked out between us, if moving in together pushed our relationship to where I hoped it did, we’d eventually get married. Have kids. And I was not doing that in the house in Donna’s yard.