Bad Boy Blues(3)

Maggie watches me for a beat. Her stare is making me nervous, or rather more nervous than I already was.

“I watched you grow up, you know. I know when you’re lying, Cleopatra Paige.”

“I’m not –”

“Come on. Let’s go to the kitchen.”

With that, she turns to her right and walks into the hallway that breaks off right before the stairs where I’m standing.

Damn it.

Not exactly what I had in mind when I broke into the mansion tonight. Whipping off my hood so my long, wavy hair can breathe, I follow her.

The kitchen at The Pleiades can probably fit the cottage that I live in three times over. It’s a large circular room with industrial lights and steel countertops. It’s more or less like the kitchen of a very posh restaurant, complete with a walk-in freezer and high-end grills and whatnot.

Maggie gestures at me to take a seat in a nook with a little dining table by the window, overlooking the night.

She’s in her robe, meaning she was on call tonight, and I know that she’s a light sleeper. Just my luck.

I watch her as she scurries back and forth, collecting dishes and forks, and getting the blueberry pie out of the little fridge off to the side.

Maggie is super cute. Short and plump with a mop of curly honey blonde hair, peppered with gray.

She cuts us each a piece and sets one of the dishes in front of me before taking a seat.

“Eat,” she tells me, her motherly face stern.

I shoot her a small smile. She knows how much I love blueberry pie – actually, I love all sweet things – and she always makes sure to save a few pieces for me.

Sliding the dish close to me, I dig in. “Thanks.”

She grunts and my smile gets bigger.

Maggie points a finger at me. “Don’t. Don’t you smile at me. You’re not off the hook yet.”

I bite my lip to keep from smiling and mouth sorry.

She cuts a piece of her own pie. “Now, is this about that guest, Mr. Grayson?”

I gulp the bite I had in my mouth and Maggie raises her eyebrows.

Clearing my throat, I whisper, “Maybe.”

“I told you to stay out of that.”

“Stay out of it?” I ask in disbelief. “Do you even know me? I can’t stay out of it. I won’t stay out of it. He groped Grace. Groped her. He practically groped me.” I gesture to my boobs. “And you don’t grope these without consequences.”

Grace is one of the girls on the cleaning staff. She’s shy and doesn’t like confrontation. So when I caught her crying in the staff room, I forced her to spill her story. Apparently, Mr. Grayson has been harassing her, making lewd comments and patting her butt whenever she walks by.

Motherfucking asshole.

A couple days ago when I felt a brush across my chest while I served him breakfast in bed, I thought I’d imagined it. But Grace’s story had me re-evaluating things.

So I acted. Someone had to.

Maggie studies me shrewdly and I feel my cheeks flushing with warmth.

“And that’s the only reason?” she asks.

“Yeah.” I shift in my seat. “What else could it be?”

Shrugging, she eats a bite of her pie. “I don’t know. Maybe something to do with the fact that you hate this job.”

“I don’t hate this job.”

“Really?”

I slide the pie away. “Yes. I mean, do I like cleaning up vomit when the guests go wild and finding used condoms on the floor? No, I don’t. Do I like dusting off the windows or mopping up the floor until I can see my face on the tiles? Nope. But it’s a job and you know I need it. I need it more than anything else in the world right now.”

Maggie was the one who got this job for me.

In our town, if you don’t go to college, you most probably go here. You work on the cleaning staff or on the cooking staff or whatever staff you seem fit to work on.

My parents were the select few who had other jobs. My dad used to paint houses and my mom used to tutor kids sometimes.

College was never an option for me; I’m not into books and all. But neither was working at The Pleiades.

I wanted to travel the world like my mom used to say when I was little. I wanted to explore it and see what I liked. See where my passion was. I wanted to find myself.

Pity flashes through Maggie’s eyes and I look away. If I don’t, I might start crying and that’s the last thing I want tonight.

Tonight was about tit for tat. It was about the adventure, the rush of it all. Tonight was about feeling alive.

“You know, you don’t have to do this. This job. You could pack up right now and leave this town. Just like you planned. Just get in your car. The blue car that you love so much.” She smiles. “Take a road trip. Send me postcards. No one’s going to blame you, Cleo.”

Okay, first of all: I can’t just get in my car. I can’t.

I won’t.

My blue car that I used to love so much, the car that I spray-painted myself with my dad, scares me now. I can’t touch it. I won’t touch it. Because every time I do, I can’t sleep for days. I get nightmares. Sometimes I throw up, get dizzy, claustrophobic.

But I can’t tell her that. Because she’ll say the same thing that she’s been saying for the past year.

You need to see someone, Cleo. Talk to someone.