Gideon

His Perfect Smell

Chapter 3

His Perfect Smell

POV: LAYLA

That’s it, I’ll be getting the dreaded phone calls from my mom tonight.

I open the door to a dark, quiet house. There’s light under Lana’s door. I don’t talk much to Lana but at least someone’s home.

It used to be five of us living here: Lana, Isaac, Jonah—who is also the owner of the house—his cousin Quincy, and me.

I turn on the light in my bedroom and drop my overnight bag on my bed. My anger turns to sadness as I stare at the empty bed on the other side of the room. That used to be Quincy’s. My roommate moved out after she’d gotten mated.

Everything on that side of the room is now bare. Even a small old, broken mirror and a silver-framed picture of her beloved Nana is gone from the wall.

I wish she were here. She used to make me forget about my own problems by entertaining me with her boy problem. Singular. Just the one boy—to whom she is now mated.

She landed herself a handsome lycan.

~Lucky b***h!~

I’m very happy for her and think she deserves all the happiness, but I do miss her. I even miss her swear jar and her grubby teddy bear, Oliver.

I should have opened up more to her when she was here.

To be honest, I actually freaked out a bit when she moved out last week.

I might have to pay the full rent again now that I’m not sharing the room. I don’t think I can afford it. I still need to pay my tuition this month.

I don’t want to ask my father for the money. I might have to get a better-paying job or something soon.

I take out my camera and my laptop and place them on my little study table. I bring my camera everywhere I go, but I haven’t had much time to take pictures these last few days.

I’m taking a two-year photography course at a small college, a short bus ride away from where I’m living at now. I’ve been told that I’m pretty good at it.

My father grudgingly helped at the beginning, but now I’m trying to survive on my own. I would never admit to my family about how much I’m struggling to pay the bills.

Strangely enough, it was my grandma who gave me the money to buy my first equipment for the course, including the camera.

Of course, it came with a warning that if I told anybody about it, she just might have to kill me. I understand. She has to maintain her street cred after all. I haven’t told anyone, obviously.

That’s why I’m still alive.

My mom and dad have been trying to persuade me to come home and forget everything. In our pack, very few girls attend colleges. They’re usually mated and too busy popping out babies as soon as they find their mates.

I think that’s what my family wants.

Even though I want a mate of my own, I dream of being independent too. I dream of opening up my own studio or traveling the world, taking photos.

I want to be free, but I want that all-consuming love.

It’s such a contradiction, I know. But I think there are more things to see, experience, and explore outside our pack’s territory.

Maybe it’s just a pipe dream. The scary part is, I can see myself giving in to my family in the end.

“Marnie’s sick, so I’m hoping you’d be able to do a couple extra houses for her, Layla,” Beth says. Beth is a werewolf, and the owner of the Elly Maid’s Cleaning Service. “I’m giving the rest to Jess and Sarah.” She hands me a few pieces of paper.

I open my mouth to say something…

~Something along the lines of “NO!”~

But she talks over me.

“Listen, Layla, if you want to go further in this company, you’re going to have to sacrifice a little bit of your social time.”

I want to say, “What social time?” or “What future in this company?”

I wasn’t planning on working for this company for long.

I know Marnie’s her favorite and she gets to pick and choose which places she gets to work at, but I do have a lot on my plate already.

I go to school and I clean offices and houses to pay the bills. Between school and work on weekdays, and my family drama on weekends, I don’t have ‘social time’.

I’m not planning on cleaning the houses of others for the rest of my life either. Not that there’s anything wrong with the job. It’s an honest job, and there is no shame in hard work, but it’s not my dream.

I clean offices some nights from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. Sometimes I clean houses too.

“Both places are required to be cleaned twice a week,” Beth continues, pointing at the papers. The two extra places that I have to clean are an apartment and a penthouse.

I guess I can sacrifice some luxury…like sleep.

“Oh, and the owner of the penthouse prefers you to be in and out of their home on the dot. The schedule is all there.”

In other words, they want their home to be magically cleaned but prefer not to see the cleaners. Well, that’s just fine with me—in fact, that’s what I prefer too.

It feels awkward for me to be working when the owners are around…watching.

“I heard Marnie’s caught the kissing disease,” whispers Jess gleefully when I see the two other workers later on.

“Oh, mono? She won’t be back for weeks!” replies Sarah. “I wonder who she’s been kissing.”

“Who hasn’t she kissed?” says Jess.

Both women giggle and I walk out of the small office without saying a word. I understand that Marnie’s a b***h and nobody likes her, but I don’t like gossiping.

For the first time since I started cleaning, I feel like stealing something.

This pillow. I run my fingers and rub my cheek over the smooth silky pillowcase. I’m tempted to take this one. Just this one so I could put it on my bed and sleep on it…every night.

Maybe daytime too. I’ll just stay in bed forever.

The whole penthouse has this amazing smell, but it’s faint. The moment I enter the master bedroom though, my heart jerks in my chest and my breath speeds up.

It’s that good. I’m a hopeless case.

The smell is the strongest here, especially on this bed.

It’s like a d**g.

I feel high as a kite the moment I lay down on the cool sheet and bury my nose in the pillow. I rub my cheek against it again and imagine the man who put his head on this pillow last night.

No one who smells this good could look ugly. No way.

I know the room belongs to a man because I saw his shirts, suits, shoes, belts, and neckties in the closet earlier. By the size of his suit, he’s not a small guy.

Everything is organized so perfectly.

A pair of his shoes probably cost more than what I make in a year.

The penthouse itself is impressive. It’s a wide open space with a soaring ceiling. The two walls are floor to ceiling glass windows overlooking the ocean, the sky, and some of the buildings.

The floor is made of smooth dark hardwood.

The sunken living room has two curved white sofas with furry grey pillows and a thick luxurious carpet. There’s a bar with a gleaming white marble countertop near the wall at the back.

There is a wide, curved staircase leading upstairs…to this bedroom.

There’s extravagance, yet simple elegance everywhere I look. Everything takes my breath away, but the smell.

The smell…

My ringtone blares out of my phone and I jump out of the bed. It’s my mom calling…again.

That reminds me that I have less than thirty minutes left to clean this place.

~What the hell, Layla! Argghh…my boss would surely fire my a*s if she knew what I’ve been doing and thinking. I have no time to daydream over a smell.~

~What is wrong with me?~

I let the call go unanswered as I sing along to the song while I work stripping the bedsheet off the bed to be sent out to the dry cleaners.

The song stops. Mom’s probably going to call me again soon. Oh God! My mom is going to kill me.

I work on making the bed with a fresh bedsheet next.

~There, done!~

Impulsively, I lie back down on the perfectly made bed and rest my head on his pillow. I can’t help it. The smell is still there, though not as strong, and his bed is so comfortable. The sheet is so soft.

I imagine tonight that he’ll be lying right here.

~Creeper Layla. What has got into me?~

I jump up quickly and smooth the bed down again.

There’s an envelope addressed to the cleaner on the counter. I stare at the handwriting—a sure, confident scrawl on the envelope.

There’s a very generous tip tucked inside.

No wonder Marnie chooses to clean apartments and penthouses instead of offices like most of us.

I wish there was a picture of him. There are no pictures or personal items except for his clothes in the closet. It’s weird.

The room at the end with a balcony definitely belongs to a female. I can smell her perfume and see all her personal items.

Wait! What if they’re married? I don’t do married men or engaged men or men with girlfriends…even just to daydream about.

That just feels wrong.

~Gah!~

I need to go out on dates more often….just not with Kofi.