Page 53 of The Muse
I snicker to myself.
Chapter Thirteen
Flynn
“How was your day, darling?”Monroe says in a high-pitched voice when I step into our apartment after work.
I give him the bird, and he laughs, standing by the toaster oven, waiting for his pizza to cook. He eats a pepperoni Totino’s pizza every day after work as a snack before the poop sheriff arrives and feeds him a meal with perfectly balanced macros.
“I got paid,” I say.
“Thought you got paid the other day.”
“That was my last paycheck from the detail shop. This is from the Rawlings.” I hold it an inch from his face.
He rears back, eyes bulging. “Fuck me.”
“Right?” I stare at it.
“Youhaveto be screwing his wife. Or him. Dude, are you sucking his dick? No judgment. I might suck dick for that paycheck.”
“Nope.” Again, I hold it in his face. “This is a sexless paycheck. Although, Mrs. Rawlings made me sit in a lounge chair beside her forthree goddamn hours!”
He pulls his pizza from the toaster oven. “And?”
“What do you mean,and? That’s just it. There was noand.” I steal a hot pepperoni and pop it into my mouth.
Monroe elbows me.
“Every time I so much as moved, she told me to sit still. If I started to talk, she shooshed me. No music. No using my phone. It was the worst kind of torture, and I was ready to quit, go to jail … whatever. But then I found an envelope with this check in it, shoved into my shoe by the door when I went to leave.”
After he cuts his pizza, he pulls his phone from his pocket. “Is that for one week?”
“I think so.”
“Eight-hour days?”
I shake my head. “Closer to ten.”
“Do you get paid during your lunch hour?”
I shrug. “Lunch hour? I don’t take lunch. We eat lunch, but I eat with her. There is no time clock. I don’t know who’s tracking my hours. I’m just following orders so I don’t go to jail.”
“Well, fuck you, Flynn. You steal some rich dude’s car, and he hires you to take a nap beside his wife to the sum of a hundred bucks an hour.That’swhat you’re getting paid to be a dumb-ass muse! You’re moving out.”
“Because I lucked out?” I laugh.
“Because you’re making six figures.”
I collapse onto the sofa and stare at the check. “This is not six figures. It’s four.”
“It will be six if you work for them for like … six months. Probably less. And my weekly paycheck is three figures. And I’m paying sixty percent of the rent. You’re only paying forty.” He sits in the recliner with his pizza.
“You get the bedroom and closet. I have the sofa and an old chest. That’s why I’m paying forty.”
“Flynn,” he mumbles, carefully chewing the hot pizza, “you’re holding a check for five grand. You can afford your own apartment. You can afford your own fucking house.”
I twist my lips, nodding slowly. “True. But I don’t have job security. Hell, for all I know, this is my first and last check from them.”
