Chapter 12

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll see. You need to stop by and see your mother sometime. Let her fuss over you.”

“I can do that.”

“Alright. Get back to your woodworking. I’ll see you around.”

With that, he was gone, and I got back to my project.

It wasn’t until the sun was well down and I had everything cleaned up and was debating painting my room when, finally, my phone rang on the nightstand.

It looked like Junior had a lead on my mystery wannabe assassin.

CHAPTER FOUR

Carmen

My sister was right.

I didn’t really need to do much of the actual cleaning myself anymore. That was kind of the point in taking the financial (and personal) risk of hiring more women. Lord knew that there was plenty of work for me to do on the back business end, including taking on new clients, but I found myself driving to one of my regular houses to help the other cleaner. Even though she’d been cleaning houses for longer than I had.

I just needed something to do.

Needed somewhere to put my extra anxious energy.

“You still considering doing office cleaning at night?” Becca asked as she slid the racks back in the oven.

“Yeah, it’s on my list. The money is good, but I would need to take on a few more cleaners to really get that going. And not a lot of people want to work overnight.”

“Well, when it comes to it, I wouldn’t mind throwing my name in that cap.” She pulled off her mask and wiped sweat from her face. “This nugget is going to be here soon,” she said, pressing a hand to her round stomach. “And it would make moresense for me to work at night when my mom and sister are home to help with the baby, so I can be home all day with my baby and watch my sister’s kid to save her money too.”

“You’ll be the first on my list then, when I sort it all out. How about I take the bathrooms, so you don’t have to breathe in the chemicals?” I suggested, handing her the vacuum I’d just dragged in.

Honestly, Becca was far enough along that she probably shouldn’t have been doing the back-breaking work of house cleaning. But when her loser ex heard she was pregnant, the asshole hopped on a plane to backpack around the world and ‘find himself.’ Which was a synonym for ‘I don’t want to pay child support’ I hadn’t heard before.

So Becca had a baby on the way while living at home with her mom, her sister, and her sister’s son. Everyone was struggling. And babies weren’t cheap. She had to work. And her condition allowed me to distract myself while also making her job easier.

I didn’t expect, when I took a flag off a random poster asking for a reliable house cleaner, that it would be more than a part-time gig for me. My sister and I had just been living on ramen and leftovers from my serving job at the time, and I just wanted a little more breathing room with bills.

But I ended up being good enough at it that my client started recommending me to her friends. Then suddenly, I was making twice what I was making at my serving job.

I chugged along that way, just a solo operation, for a few years. Until more work kept coming in and I ran out of hours in my week. Only then did I bring a girl from the neighborhood in. Then another. And another.

Suddenly, I owned a business. And all the headaches that came with that.

My sister was right. The more I expanded, the less of the actual cleaning I had to do myself—even if I kind of preferredthat to all the taxes, bookkeeping, healthcare forms, and all the other crap having employees came with.

It wasn’t even like I was rolling in it, either, evidenced by where we were still living. I always thought that people who had employees must be making bank. I was probably making the exact same I’d been making when I’d been doing all the cleaning myself.

That said, another handful of clients—especially if I could snag some office buildings—could finally tip things slightly more in my favor.

“How’s Sofia’s auditions going?” Becca asked as we made our way to our cars once the house was sparkling.

“She nabbed a pretty big commercial, which is great.” Especially since it was her first gig in months that nabbed her more than a few hundred bucks.

“Residuals, right?”

“Exactly. She lucked out with this one. She’s still trying her best to nab a play or role in a show or movie, but with this and her UGC work…”

“UGC?”