Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
“Do you need to shriek?” I asked him as he leapt up onto the counter to sit and stare at his empty bowl. “I clearly wasn’t home yet,” I added, walking to put my purse on the hook, reaching inside for the cash tips I’d gotten but hadn’t had a chance to tally at work.
One-ten.
Not bad, considering my job wasn’t exactly the kind that required tips. What can I say? I learned from a young age that if you chatted up the older neighborhood guys, they were happy to slip an extra twenty to you just for being nice to them.
Kind of pathetic, if you ask me, but, hey, it kept the very expensive cat food in Evander’s stomach. While I ate plastic ‘cheese’ on cheap white bread.
“Really?” I asked as I heard something fly off the counter and clatter to the ground. “I’m coming. Jesus.”
I opened up his can of wet cat food that always made me gag a little, then plopped it down into the bowl I’d found myself popping into the pet store for after the third night he’d shown up at my window. Along with a bed. And some toys. He hated the bed. And preferred to entertain himself by shredding the side of my couch with his viciously sharp nails.
“Happy?” I asked as he moved in to start eating. “It’s not like you really need it, you chonk,” I said as I grabbed the milk and poured some into the other side of his bowl.
I’d learned at that same pet store that I really wasn’t supposed to give cats milk. But Evander really didn’t give a single shit what the lady at the pet store had to say about his unhealthy milk habit. So, yeah, he got his damn milk each night.
“What should I have?” I asked as I pulled open my mostly-empty fridge. “I only have enough cheese slices for one sandwich,” I told him, as if he gave a damn about what I ate. He’d probably be totally fine with me starving to death then feasting on me afterward. Cats were heartless little assholes that way. I liked that about them.
With a sigh, I went into the freezer to pull out one of those frozen single serving pizzas, tossing it into the microwave. Nope, not even a toaster oven. I had a gummy crust ahead of me. Real fine dining over in my dingy little apartment.
What can I say?
I’d left the Bronx with almost no money in my pocket and only the shit I could grab in a mad rush to get the fuck out of there.
Starting over never got easy.
It was harder when you left two-thirds of everything you owned behind.
I’d been lucky to nab the job at the meat shop. Honestly, I’d walked in to get an application out of sheer desperation, not thinking they’d actually hire me since everyone who worked there was a guy.
But, thank God, the manager had taken pity on me and given me a job. Despite my not being able to tell you the difference between a cheap skirt steak and a hundred-dollar tenderloin.
It was even good pay. And benefits. So, hey, I was doing alright, considering having to cut and run with no planning or a nest egg to make the transition easier.
My first month working at Lombardi Premium Meats, I’d managed to get myself enough clothes to last a week without washing, some basic self-care items, towels, pillows, a coffee maker, that kind of thing.
The second month, I got to move out of a short-term rental and into an actual apartment.
Which was where Evander found me. On my second night. Waking me out of a restless sleep, heart hammering, no freaking idea what could be making a noise like that.
Having no cat food that night, he ate my last can of tuna, drank my coffee creamer, and took a nap right on my pillow.
Since then, I’d been… working on building my life back up. The microwave was a splurge. A toaster oven was a stupid luxury when I had a full-sized one. I was just too impatient to wait for it to warm up.
I didn’t usually work such long shifts.
But the store was about to be closed for a week for those renovations. That meant I would be getting paid, sure, but not getting any tips for that time. So I wanted to get as much extra as I could and offered to help with the deep cleaning.
I honestly didn’t remember the last time I had a week off from work, save for when I’d been job hunting after leaving the Bronx in the dead of night. I’d been busting my ass since I was fifteen.
What the hell was I supposed to do with my time?
Watch TV?
I had exactly one streaming service and I was pretty sure I’d watched just about everything on it that didn’t require subtitles. And I just wasn’t interested in reading and watching at the same time.