Page 87 of January

“Don’t you have a hot date with a hickey-giving lady?” Jill said, picking up her jacket off the chair in the back office.

Melinda laughed and replied, “Yes, but she knows I’m closing. And she’s coming here, anyway. I just need to make it upstairs in time to clean up.”

“Clean up? Your place is, like, ten times cleaner than mine.”

“She spent all of five minutes there as I changed before we ran out. I want her to want to be there, you know? I want her to feel like it’s home and it’s comfortable.”

“Is she a neat freak or something?”

“No clue.” Melinda shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t know much about her living habits. Next to nothing. She was staying in a hotel at first, and now, she’s at her grandmother’s old place, but that’s not exactly her apartment.”

“She could be a slob, so if you look super neat, it might end up beinguncomfortable for her,” Jill reasoned.

“Kyle doesn’t strike me as a slob,” she replied, pulling up the spreadsheet they used to enter in the daily total of cash brought in.

“She could be; you don’t know. And you should probably ask. If you end up visiting her one day, and she’s got, like, to-go containers and pizza boxes on the floor under a mound of dirty laundry, you’d be in trouble, right?”

“I think we’ll be okay,” Melinda said.

“So, will there be more hickeys tonight?” Jill teased, slipping on her jacket.

“I hope so; just not in visible places.”

“Oh, nice,” Jill replied with a lifted eyebrow. “I’m jealous.”

“Bridge said she was free tonight. You should call her and see if she wants to hang out.”

“No offense; I like Bridgette, but I don’t want hickeys in invisible places from her.”

Melinda laughed and said, “I meant to go see a movie or something.”

“I’m going to eat a tub of ice cream on my couch. Is she into that kind of thing?”

“I think it depends on the ice cream,” Melinda replied.

“I’ll give her a call, then. Have a good night,” Jill said, winking at her. “Enjoy that no sleep you’ll be getting.”

“I plan to.”

Jill left the office, and Melinda reviewed the credit card receipts, entering the total into the spreadsheet. When she heard the front door close and the lock make that amazing sound, blocking any more walk-ins from entering and booking tours, she sighed. The workday was over. She was just a few minutes away from having dinner with Kyle at her place and, hopefully, dessert involving their naked bodies.

“Mel?” Lacey, the part-timer who worked the register a few days a week, said.

“Yeah?”

“There’s someone at the front door for you. I said we were closed.”

“Someone? Oh, that’s probably Kyle.”

Melinda was excited to see her but also slightly annoyed because Kyle was early, as usual, and she hadn’t had a chance to clean up. She stood, peeked her head out of the office, and it was Kyle, all right, standing outside the now-locked glass door they’d finally had installed, looking like she’d been crying.

“Lace, can you give me a minute?” she asked, moving to the door.

“Sure. I’m off, anyway.”

“I’ll pay you for an extra two hours if you count downyour drawer and take the deposit to the bank for me.”

“Really? Yeah, cool.”