Page 68 of Sublimate
They both looked at me. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“I remember you telling me last summer that your paternal great-great grandparents built it,” I responded.
“You remember everything,” Nolan said.
“It’s just funny that your mom ended up with it after it had been in your dad’s family for so long,” I told Cadence.
“It’s still in my dad’s family. I actually own the house,” she explained.
“What?” he stared at her. “It’s yours? Then why are you here, wondering if you’ve been kicked out?”
“We should call your mother and let her lawyer this up,” I told him, but Cadence was too upset to deal with anything else. She wanted to wash her face and maybe lie down for a minute, so I took her to the guest bedroom.
“I’m sorry that I’m disrupting you,” she said as we made the long walk. Living in a house this size was something that I still wasn’t used to. “I thought about going to a hotel but then I also thought about you getting attacked in the parking lot.”
“You wouldn’t have to worry about that,” I said. “It was directed.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you don’t have to worry,” I assured her. “They were coming after me specifically because they knew I was going to be there, so it wasn’t random violence.”
“Why did they come after you?” she asked.
“Because I was there working. I was—it doesn’t matter much now, but I was doing something for one of my cleaning clients. They were the couple with the nice towels in the downstairs bathroom.”
She immediately understood. “And there were holes in their one set of sheets,” she correctly recalled. “Why were you doing them a favor?”
“It wasn’t a favor. I was going to get paid for doing a job at that hotel. I was going to be one of the people that the police were looking to arrest for vice crimes, which was why I didn’t want to get involved with them afterwards.”
Cadence was quiet for a moment. I was pretty sure she’d never been this close to an actual criminal before, let alone have befriended one. “Oh,” she said finally. “I see.”
I knew that she didn’t. “I don’t usually do things like that. But I was at my wit’s end,” I explained. “I was hungry, I was broke, and I was desperate.”
“I think the police would have helped you,” she said tentatively. “I don’t think they cared what you were doing there.”
“The guys that did it had come for the weekend and I’m sure that they didn’t stick around. I never really saw their faces and of course, I didn’t know their names. They must have thought that I’d have money since we were supposed to do a cash transaction, so they met me in the parking lot and decided to rob me. Too bad for them that I didn’t have anything to steal.”
“You should have told the police!” she insisted.
“Next time,” I promised, but she turned on me, furious.
“There won’t be a next time! Because if you ever need help, you can come to me. Always!”
“Just like you came here, because we’re friends,” I said. She started crying again and I told her that she could stay for as long as she wanted.
“Maybe I will,” she said. “But I don’t want to take up your bed.” She looked around the room. “Where did your stuff go?”
“I moved it upstairs. It was a lot more convenient since that’s where I’m sleeping now,” I explained. “Nolan doesn’t mind sharing and there’s plenty of space.”
“You…you’re sleeping together?” Her eyes widened. “I didn’t know that!”
“Yeah, sleeping.Sleeping,” I emphasized. “Also reading, because he always does before he goes to bed and you picked out that good mystery book for me.” I was slow but I was making progress, and he kept telling me that all I needed was practice. Also, he was great about defining words I didn’t know.
“So, you guys are sleeping in the same bed and that’s it. That’s it?”
“It’s our relationship,” I said. “That’s how we’re doing things.”
“No sex, not ever?” She had gone into the bathroom and I heard water running. “I’m still thinking about it all the time.”
