If at first you don't succeed, then level the playing field and take a second chance.
Two years ago, Ellie Harrison collapsed under the weight of her past and the fallout that caught up with her. Like a shell of her former self, she retreated away f...
Once all my boxes were in the apartment, thankfully after my dildo embarrassment courtesy of Harper, Logan stayed with Wes and Charlie. Dad still hadn't shown up from where he'd gone to cool off, so Mom and I took a break. We stopped by the front leasing office, where I picked up my parking pass.
Fortunately, the manager Stella was also there while she worked the graveyard shift. So once Mom and I moved our cars out of the loading zone, Mom drove off to pick up Dad while I went back to the leasing office. I followed Stella past the front desk area to a small, cramped, and practically suffocating office space. The white walls were covered with lots of silver-framed prints of Monet pictures.
Probably best Mom gets Dad because, by this point, the man could've walked up to Canada by now.
Stella looked in her mid-fifties, with gray-streaked black hair pulled into a tight bun and frown lines around the corners of her mouth. Everything in her posture screamed uptight professional like a principal, but she gave me a kind smile while she pulled up our apartment's file out of a large filing cabinet behind her desk.
"You don't have any two-bedroom units open?" I asked even though I already knew the answer was a big fat no.
"We actually don't have two-bedrooms, just a one-bedroom and a den option," she mused while her brown eyes skimmed over the large manilla folder in her hands. "Those are twenty-four hundred a month but currently no, there are none available."
Twenty-four hundred?
"Okay." She placed the folder flat on top of the white desk between us. "You and your husband Mr. Hightower are in the largest one-bedroom square footage-wise, so your rent is nineteen hundred, fifty dollars a month."
Oh gosh, again with the husband thing. I can't imagine how that happened... It better not have been Logan.
"Now, your husband's stipend is fourteen hundred a month and..." She paused and glanced at her screen. "Yours is a flat four thousand, paid in half each semester. So your new monthly balance will be two-hundred, sixteen dollars and sixty-seven per month, utilities, high-speed internet, and local phone calls included but you're on your own for cable."
While Stella continued, my mind stayed frozen on one thing.
Two hundred and seventeen dollars a month.
That's... unbelievable. I can afford that with just my library job. Or even, Ellie's Kitchen.
"You can pay all upfront and we'll apply a credit or you can do monthly installments on the two-seventeen." Stella's eyes lifted to mine. "We don't do short-term leases and because your husband moved in August first, you're locked in for one year until next July thirty-first."
Again with the husband. I should correct her, but it's been three times. Is that past awkward? Yes.
Wait. Did she say July?
Suddenly, the gravity that I'd left our housing arrangements up to Charlie slammed into me. My mouth dried but my fingers moved on my own, pulled out my checkbook, and wrote a check for the entire lease's amount. The finality of our arrangement hit me when I signed, then pushed the check across Stella's desk. The sense of dryness crept over my tongue and I swallowed tightly.
Financial boost aside, I need to talk to Charlie sooner than later about what the hell is going on here.
And... my so-called husband.
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