Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 57216 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57216 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Even if it was a pain in the ass.
Not only because I wasn’t around my things and my usual comfort items, but because it put me around this mobster who thought it was somehow helpful to breathe down my goddamn neck every moment of the day when I was trying to get the job done.
I’d never been so happy to finish a job, get my cash, and head the hell home.
First stop was back to my apartment, so I could stash the cash I didn’t like walking around with, then maybe shower before heading out to Deja Brew.
I missed the coffee.
And to an extent, the company.
Hacking was a solitary job. Sometimes it was nice to go sit somewhere and get some work done. While occasionally sharing a few words with the owner.
I parked my SUV on the street, grabbed my bag, and made my way up to the top floor of the building of warehouse apartments. The lower levels were a little more modernized with their sheetrocked walls and real ceilings. I preferred my place, with the cement walls and exposed ductwork.
I plugged in the code, then pushed open the door.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Barry. What the hell are you doing here?” I snapped when the door opened and there was a guy sitting on my couch. In a robe. Eating cereal out of one of my bowls. Looking way too fucking at home.
Barry was some guy I met working a job for a friend a while back. I hadn’t exactly meant to keep in contact with the short, shaggy-haired gamer. It was more like when you’re nice to a stray dog once, and all a sudden, it’s following you fucking everywhere.
Barry was my stray dog.
“You hired me to be here, Boss,” Barry insisted, jumping off my couch, and spilling milk on the floor in the process.
“I hired you to water my plants,” I clarified.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m doing!” Barry said.
“You’re eating cereal in a robe.”
“I’m keeping an eye on ‘em for you. You gotta turn them, you know. For optimal leaf growth,” he said.
“It takes twenty seconds to turn a plant, Barry,” I said, placing my backpack down on the chair at one of my work stations.
“I’m watering them too,” he added.
“Wait. Where the fuck are my plants?” I asked, looking around, not seeing any greenery anywhere.
“They’re taking a bath. You know, the best way to water a plant is from the bottom. But they need to sit in the water for twenty minutes or more,” he told me.
Apparently, he was now a plant expert. Despite the fact that he didn’t have any plants in his apartment. Just enough streaming equipment that I knew he had to be making a pretty penny doing that.
He clearly didn’t need the money I was tossing him to water my plants. He just jumped on any opportunity to be around me.
The guy figured out I was sick once and showed up at my door with four types of soup, a bag of cold medicine, and one of those fucking watering cans you shoot through your sinuses. He’d offered to wipe vapor rub onto my fucking chest.
Then he proceeded to almost immediately catch what I had, and spend a week on my couch, leaving his snotty tissues everywhere, and moaning about it being too cold in my apartment.
I would think he was into me or something, but the man was straight.
He just had a bro-crush thing going on or something.
Or he had no real friends of his own.
More likely, though, the guy just needed to find a woman.
“All of my plants are in my shower right now?” I asked, my hopes of jumping in there real quick to wash away the stress of the past few weeks slipping away from me.
“Yeah, they’re having a pool party, Boss,” he said.
I took a deep breath, trying to remind myself that it wasn’t his fault he was so… frustrating. He also had no idea I was coming home. Though, to be honest, knowing that wouldn’t have changed anything. If he hadn’t already been at my place, he likely would have hightailed it right over. Thinking that, I dunno, I would want to sit around and gossip like teen girls at a sleepover or some shit.
I was an only child.
But I could only imagine that the dynamic I had with Barry was exactly what it would be like to have a little brother.
I felt like I owed my parents a thank you for only having me.
“Alright. Finish with the plants then before you go. I’m gonna run to get coffee,” I said, grabbing my backpack again.
“Oh, I could go for a donut!” he called, making me close my eyes in the doorway, knowing there was no getting rid of him now. The guy would likely be sleeping over on the couch before I finally had enough and kicked his ass out in the morning.