L.A. Spa

Chapter Five: Jave Joe. May I Have Another?

Emma's POV:

I arrived home to my humble abode, a two-bedroom apartment. There were six units in our building; for the most part, we all kept to ourselves.

Kate, my kid sister, was already asleep; all the lights were off except the light over the oven that had been left on since we moved in. The lightbulb had yet to burn out, and we wondered if it ever would. Most nights, I was home before Kate went to bed, and I was not too fond of the nights I didn't see her.

A Baja chicken wrap sat in the middle of the fridge, plastic wrapped for me. My sister was an aspiring lawyer and almost graduated from high school, but in another time, another World, she had been a World Famous chief. We didn't have money to splurge on food, but the meals she prepared were better than any restaurant in a sixty-mile radius.

It was just what I needed after the long exhausting day I had just had. Even though I had just left a mansion that two hundred of my apartments could have fit in, I was exactly where I needed to be.

Meg, full name of Megan, preferred to be called Meg, was standing outside Java Joe when I arrived ten minutes before opening. "What are you doing?" I asked, looking over at her as she tugged on the door.

"I forgot my keys." I narrowed my eyes at her. "I may have lost my keys" I smirked, knowing that was more the truth than forgetting them. "I was hoping it would open if I tugged on it long enough."

"You are lucky; Joe isn't coming in today," I said, unlocking the door with the spare key she had given me a long while back. Joe, the owner, of course, did not know that I had a key to his sixth beloved Java Joe. His sister Meg had been my best friend since working here. I didn't know when we became friends that "Show Off Joey" was her older brother, who just threw her a bone because she was his sister and the only person Joey could trust to run his sixth branch of Java Joe. He had five fraternity brothers that were managers at his other branches.

"I owe you," Meg sighed. She started flipping on the light switches while I woke the machines up to live. Java Joe was almost a twenty-four-hour coffee shop; Meg was only there six hours a day and for most of my shifts when she wasn't supposed to be working. "Ever since Collin moved in, I just haven't been able to focus."

I looked across the counter at her. Her hair was messy, her make-up was smeared, and I thought she was missing eyeliner under her right eye. But her eyes were what I needed to see; her eyes said it all. She was in the honeymoon stage of the move-in. Meg was predictable in every relationship that she had.

Meg met boy. Meg moves in with boy. Meg fell in love with said boy. Boy grows on Meg's nerves. Meg kicks boy out. Meg starts the whole chain over.

She was currently falling in love with Collin. Weren't you supposed to fall in love before moving in with one another? I had always thought this but never asked Meg this.

"He's just perfect" she started the blender up, making her usual strawberry chia smoothie. "You know," she said after the blender shut off, and I had caught zero of what she had asked me.

"Absolutely, Meg," I said, giving her two thumbs up.

"What's going on with you?" She stopped adding the chia seeds and looked at me. "Something is different."

Meg always assumed something was different with me.

I shook my head, waiting for the first customer to come in; she let her question drop as she sipped on her smoothie and talked about Collin. I gave her relationship two more weeks before she came in every morning crying. She would get into a fight with him about clipping his toenails at the dining room table, the lights being left on all night, and laundry piling up all over the place, and then she would move out and back into her SoHo apartment that her brother paid for. She told Kate and me that we were more than welcome to move into her four-bedroom apartment. I never could because then we would become the annoying ones, and Meg was a fantastic friend, all things considered.

At the end of our shift, she asked, "you want to go to this casting call with me?" She had been holding papers rolled up and kept unrolling them as she went through the lines.

"Shift at L.A. Spa," I shrugged, wishing I could go to the casting call instead of seeing Delaney and hearing that I had lost one of her biggest clients.

"Delaney wants you," The receptionist said as soon as I entered.

My shoulders slumped, already knowing what she was going to say.

What came out of Delaney's mouth was not what I had imagined hearing. "He wants you back."

"You're joking," I stuttered. "Why?"

"Probably your tits." Delaney said, "But he said he liked the massage. He expects you there tonight." she yawned as if this conversation was draining.

"I can't be there tonight."

"Honey, he pays five hundred an hour. I expect you to make everyone you can." She shuffled through some papers on her desk and handed me a card. "However, that's not me to worry about anymore."

Like the nonprocrastinator that I was... I waited until the end of my L.A. Spa massages to give him a call.

He picked up on the third ring. "Hello, Emma."

Delaney must have given him my phone number.

"Delaney says you would like another massage."

"I would." There was noise in the background, and I could tell his attention was elsewhere. "Tonight."

"I can't tonight."

He laughed. "Ten o'clock tonight." He clicked off, making my blood boil more than the night before.