Dirty Lil Secret

Chapter Two

Lake Bluff, IL

"9:58 am," mumbled Erika staring at the clock on the microwave.  "That means it's almost midnight in Seoul."  Pressing send she waited while the phone rang leaving a message when it went to voicemail.   After being told five weeks ago she was being laid off Erika decided not to renew her lease and accepted her dad's offer to move back home until she found another job.  She'd had her resume professional reviewed and had begun sending it to daycares, elementary and middle schools and hadn't received any telephone calls about it.

She blinked back the tears of frustration and anger that were threatening to bloom in her eyes as she opened her mobile banking app she stared at the negative amount.  Her dad was planning to marry some desk sergeant named Pheobe Tyler from North Chicago so she didn't dare ask him for money plus she doubted he'd give it to her anyway.  This was the perfect opportunity for him to throw what he considered a waste of time and money in her face.  Against his wishes, she'd went to school and studied for a degree in arts with an emphasis in Horticulture. 

Dropping her phone on the table she checked her email on her laptop to see if any of the districts she'd applied to responded with anything besides the automated thank you but saw nothing.  "Maybe I should look outside of Illinois," she mumbled back to scrolling through her email.

Plucking at the material of her yoga pants she sighed; when she'd graduated everything was working out.  Through some miracle, she and Liam were still together and he'd come to see her.  He'd said something about not having anything pressing to do for the next three months and they'd played house, as her dad liked to call it.  While he was visiting, she'd interviewed and gotten a good paying job and signed a lease for her first apartment.  But now after paying to break her lease and move out plus paying six months ahead on her student loans, car insurance, and her car note she was lucking the bank didn't close her account.  

Feeling a bout of anxiety rise up at her own dismay she sat her phone back on the table not realizing it had redialed.  It seemed like everyone and everything was out to make sure she couldn't get ahead.  If she didn't know any better she'd think her dad had something to do with her not being able to get a job.

Staring at the computer screen, Erika sat with her elbow propped on the faux marble kitchen table in her dad's two-bedroom townhouse ignoring the boxes from her old apartment that she refused to unpack.  "I'm not staying here," she whined.

"Call me back when you're done crying," she heard a familiar voice snap through her Bluetooth followed by something she couldn't quite make out.

"Liam," she heard herself saying as she plucked the earbud from her Bluebooth from around her shirt's collar and placed it into her ear.

His panic was palpable when he responded, "Erika, what's wrong?"

"God I'm stupid," she whispered picking up her phone and realizing somehow she had dialed him again.

There was slight a pause before Liam responded along with a little shuffling and if she didn't know any better she'd think he was agreeing with her.  "What's wrong," he finally asked on a yawn. "Is your father okay? Did something happen to my parents?"

"No," she whined wishing she could take it back as soon as she'd done it.  Ugh, I sound like one of those chicks from a k-drama whining on and on expecting the guy to make everything better for me.  Liam is a struggling artist I need to fix this crap myself.

She wondered why he was still but before she could ask him if she'd woken him he sighed, "what's going on then?"

Erika debated with the idea of laying her problems down at his feet but decided to take Bong Cha's advice.  "Ms. Ernhard," she whispered, "Ms. Ernhard fired me."  There was another pause before Liam began to ask questions and by the end of the phone call Liam had decided for her that she was going to apply to a Teacher's Exchange Program with a company called All Bright and move to South Korea for a little while.