Grumpy Boss

Book 5 - Chapter Three April

I stank.

Not in an I’ve been at the gym and I need to have a quick shower kind of way, either.

It was worse, so much worse. I’d literally run to the salon because I was late. Then, while I was there, I kept on sweating. Even the stylist kept asking if I had a fever. I didn’t, I was a bag of nerves today.

I needed to be scrubbed down and soaked for days, and I didn’t know where to turn. I was trying not to panic, but everything that could possibly go wrong had gone wrong today. Why not tomorrow or even yesterday, I wondered.

Why today, of all days?

After the situation where Karen’s friend seemed to have an unnatural obsession with me, I grabbed the special dress and matching shoes and stuffed them in my bag, deciding I would go directly to the restaurant after I got my hair and nails done. Even if I would end up being a couple of hours early.

Jonathan, the stylist, cut and highlighted my hair instead of dying it. I looked in the mirror after he finished, and I felt like crying. I looked like a brand-new woman. I left feeling great, removing all my nerves, and I finally stopped sweating. My hair was clean, even if the rest of me wasn’t, but I didn’t care. I stopped at the store, bought a shower cap, and then decided to buy another one for good measure. Nothing was going to bring me down. I was walking around with my “Scarlett Johansson, short at the sides and long at the front” the new me hairdo.

I headed to the Nail Clinic to get my nails done and my eyebrows shaped after I stopped at the store. I’d had it done in Silver Lake a few times, and they always did a good job. I had cute gold tips and red paint. My nails looked hot, but it was clear I needed a shower. There was no way I could get everything done before going to the restaurant.

My legs were smooth already, but I decided to splurge and get my armpits waxed too. I had no friends in this neighborhood I could ask to use their shower. I had to go home, even if I didn’t really want to.

I wasn’t even really sure if I could call it home when it was apparent all I’d rented was a room, and I was expected to use the bathroom only on special occasions. My gut feeling told me to stay away from there. Until I realized the one important item I needed for the night I’d left in my room.

I know, it was stupid of me to leave anything I might need, but at the time I was thinking of getting out of there, not carrying my laptop. I told myself I shouldn’t be a big baby and act all scared of the teenager I lived with and I should get my butt there, have a shower and then leave. Like a grown-up.

I was wrong.

My gut feeling was right about not going back, and my head was just plain stupid. I got to the apartment, and there was no one there. I was feeling brave about facing them all—I’d talked myself into it—but it all went out of the window the minute I walked inside and found it empty. The only thing I felt was relieved about them not being around. I sighed out in relief, and then thoughts and dreams of having a bath entered my mind, not a shower. I was thinking the whole works, with bubbles and some scented candles to get me in the mood and to stop me from being so uptight. I would wrap my hair up tight, to stop the steam getting to it.

Until I got to my room. I didn’t need a key. The door was wide open, and everything was gone, including my damn bed. There was nothing in there, not even my underwear. I screamed. I cried. I screamed again. I cried some more, and then I called the cops.

I’d been robbed, I told them. My laptop was gone, and in exactly one hour and thirty minutes, I was supposed to go on a life-changing date. Then the little b***h of a teenager walked through the door with her friend, and they both had smirks on their faces.

“No, there hasn’t been a robbery,” Karen told the cops as she crossed her arms. “I sold everything in the room because she hasn’t paid rent.”

I couldn’t believe it. She was still going on about the rent I paid only a few days ago.

“Can we see your contract and a receipt for the payment of rent?” the tall, blue-eyed cop asked. He knew the answer to his question as I shook my head.

“I don’t have any. The room was cheap, and she said there was no need for a contract, and she wanted payment in cash. I’ve been living here in good faith for over six months.”

She laughed and so did her friend, the one I thought was obsessed with me.

“Miss, I don’t see how you’ve been renting a room out without a contract. That’s illegal,” the cop said, but Karen ignored him.

“Officer, this is my room now, and I didn’t like her s**t. So we sold it. It makes sense, seeing as she doesn’t officially live here anymore. Because of a dispute.” She winked at Karen to save her friend from being arrested for illegally renting a room.

I don’t know what possessed me because I wasn’t a violent person, but it was as if the cop knew what I was going to do and blocked my way. He held onto me, I hated myself for wanting to do it, and I hated myself even more for letting the teenager get one over on me. I was so stupid to think having a key to my room and locking it would keep her out of it. I was a fool for not having a contract.

“Ma’am, is this your bag?” he asked as he held it out to me.

I didn’t say a word because I was still trying to get to Karen, who was now sticking out her tongue at me.

“You need to calm down and get your belongings. I don’t want to arrest you!” he warned.

I wondered where his partner went, the one who’d walked in with me, but as he came out of the bathroom, I figured out why he was in such a hurry to come inside in the first place. He needed to pee or do whatever he’d been doing in there this whole time.

“Yeah, you need to leave. You’re trespassing, or is it walking all over someone’s property?” Karen asked her friend, who shrugged. Then she asked the cop.

“It doesn’t matter what it is. This is the third time this year we’ve been here with a similar complaint.”

“But with no evidence,” Karen retorted. She sucked on a sucker, which seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. I was so tempted to take it and stuff it where the sun didn’t shine, but I couldn’t since the cop was holding me back. Then again, it would give me a place to sleep for the night if I got arrested.

I left the apartment and dropped the keys on the floor. The teenagers were laughing because they’d pulled a good one on me.

“Look, you’ve been conned by her. If you’re willing to press charges against her for stealing your property, wrongful eviction, or whatever else I can think of, we might be able to get your property back and stop this from happening to someone else.”

I nodded as we stood outside.

“You got a place to stay tonight, pretty lady?”

I nodded my head. It was a lie. I had nowhere to stay, but I knew I would find somewhere, so it wasn’t the end of the world. Then my phone chimed with a notice of a text.

“Put it this way,” the cop said, “You took it a lot better than the last lady. We started a case to investigate this scam, but with all the other crimes, it isn’t at the top of the list to investigate. If you press charges, then it will help us build a case against her. Just think about it. You don’t have to do it tonight, but here’s my card, with my name Officer Brently. Call and come in once you’ve got yourself settled.”

I nodded my head, speechless at my own stupidity. I didn’t want to admit I thought I was the smart one, renting a room on the cheap. I didn’t want a contract because, for some crazy reason, I believed I would be here only a month or two. No way did I think I would be here for six months with no sense of when I’d be leaving.

I didn’t belong in L.A. I worked two extra jobs in order to save some money, to rent a studio apartment or something, but every time I thought I’d saved enough, prices keep increasing, and so did my goal of moving out.

I looked at the message on my phone. “Dinner in twenty minutes. Don’t be late. He hates tardiness, as he puts it. Enjoy!”

Hayley.

The date.

The presentation.

What a mess!