Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Once, I’d called an electrician. When he’d arrived, he’d told me that he wasn’t certified to work on the historic homes, and I’d have to find someone else.
That was a continued trend through an electrician, plumber, general contractor, and even the damn house painter.
Apparently, the City of Dallas took a lot of fuckin’ pride in Swiss Avenue, and all of their historic buildings. Meaning I was fucked because I had to follow their fuckin’ rules, or else.
Or else being that I could get fined out the ass, lose my house, and have nothing to show for it even though all I was trying to do was unclog a fuckin’ toilet.
The spray finally stopped sputtering, and the pipes in the wall settled down enough that they were no longer knocking against wall.
When I stripped out of my clothes and stepped inside, the spray of overly hot water was like balm to my cold soul.
I’d felt cold for a solid week. And today had only made me colder.
Thoughts derailing now that I was behind closed doors, I spiraled down a rabbit hole of what nexts.
Tomorrow, I’d have to call Woody.
Next week, I’d have to go pick Pops’s ashes up from the crematorium.
At some point, I’d also have to go back to work.
That would be a whole lot of fun.
Honestly, the very last thing I wanted to do was go back to work where everyone would know I’d just had a loved one pass away.
They always treated you like you were a child, and honestly, I’d like to go back to normal where no one knew what was going on in my life.
But I knew it was likely that Tammy would share.
She couldn’t help herself sometimes.
Everyone in the hospital would know by the time I arrived at work. It was inevitable.
My hands made quick work of washing off and cleaning my hair.
By the time I was done, there was no longer any hot water left—the hot water was working subpar at best and was the next thing on my list to have fixed—and my skin was a mottled pinkish-red color.
I scooped up the towel that looked the cleanest on the floor—again, doing any housework the last week was put on the back burner and it would take me a solid week of constantly doing clothes to catch up—and dried off.
Next came the clothes.
I slipped into them, the shirt clinging to my wet shoulders as I did, and opened the door.
The wave of steam that entered the bedroom—because again, the exhaust fan didn’t work in this godforsaken house—preceded me.
That’s when I found Val, in my bed, wearing a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt from my drawer.
She’d changed because she didn’t want to get her hospital scrubs—dirty from a full shift at work—near my bed.
I was wholeheartedly thankful for that small act.
I knew what got on doctors’ and nurses’ clothes while they were working in the emergency room, and quite a bit of it wasn’t pretty.
“You want to shower?” I asked curiously as I came to my side of the bed.
She was directly in the middle, meaning we’d probably be touching when I crawled in beside her.
“Oh, that’s okay,” she hedged.
She didn’t sound okay with being dirty.
“Run and go get in,” I said. “I’ll go see if I can find a clean towel somewhere. I’m a bit behind on laundry thanks to this week.”
Before she could deny me, I went into the bathroom, turned the shower on, and prayed that the five minutes I’d been out was enough time to scrounge up some hot water.
As it was, she’d probably have three minutes of it, max.
“Rápida,” I urged, resorting to Spanish as I was wont to do.
I spoke three languages fluently.
Spanish, English, and ASL—American Sign Language.
Once upon a time, I’d fancied myself as being an interpreter one day.
But then I’d realized that my life would be better spent using the languages I did know in a setting in which someone could benefit.
“I’m on it, I’m on it.” She held up her hands in surrender.
She disappeared into the bathroom just as I disappeared out of the bedroom.
I found a couple of dry towels in the dryer, restarted the clothes that had been in the washer for the last week, and then went back to my bedroom.
I gently pushed open the bathroom door and tossed the towels on the counter—knowing that she preferred using two and guessing she hadn’t changed since I’d last showered in her vicinity.
She came out dressed in my shirt and nothing else, but I could distinctly tell that she didn’t have a bra on, and I suspected the same could be said for underwear.
“I dropped the pants into a puddle of water you left,” she grimaced. “Have anymore?”
I was already shaking my head. “No. When I say I need to do laundry, I mean that I probably should’ve done it last week and never did. Just crawl in here and cover up with the blanket.