Nicole walked the couple of blocks back from the diner quickly. It was turning out to be a pretty good day, the sun was high in the sky, and there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. She sat down on the steps of the apartment building and forced herself to relax. She found that she wasn’t quite ready to go inside yet, it was a beautiful day, and she might as well enjoy it. She pulled a piece of candy from her bag and leaned over the rail to toss the wrapper in the alley trashcan. The lid was open, broken pieces of plumbing pipe sticking out the top. She smiled. Hopefully that meant the leak in her neighbor’s apartment was finally fixed, so she wouldn’t need to keep coming over to Nicole’s apartment to shower after step class on Thursdays.
Sitting back down, Nicole chewed on the candy and closed he
