Ride Steady (Chaos, #3)(49)

I didn’t know why she was telling me this, so when she stopped talking, I said, “Okay.”

“Thought you might wanna have a look at it,” Tack said.

“I—” I started but only got that far.

“A little house,” Tyra stated and at that, my heart thumped.

Travis and me in a little house?

How wonderful would that be?

“Two bedrooms,” she went on.

Two bedrooms?

Heaven!

“I redid the kitchen when I was there, which was a while back, but it’s still nice,” she kept going. “And we put new carpet down in the whole place and repainted after the renters before these and our current renters have only been in there a few months. So it’s really nice.”

“I, uh… I…” I stammered.

“We need someone in it we can trust,” Tack told me. “The ones leavin’ jacked us around. Jumpin’ their lease early ’cause they had a kid, got pregnant, need a bigger place. The ones before them got a puppy, didn’t tell us, didn’t pay a pet deposit, puppy messed the place up. Which bought new carpet and paint and a pain in our ass. Not worth the hassle of gettin’ in the faces of a couple buildin’ a family. But need someone steady. Regular. In the family, meaning our family, who we know’ll take care of the place.”

I would definitely take care of their place.

Though, I’d likely have to start selling plasma (and then some) to afford it.

“Well—” I began.

Tyra cut me off again, “Six hundred dollars a month.”

My eyes got big.

Six hundred a month?

That was only a few hundred more than what I was currently paying for the not-so-great place I was raising my son.

A deal!

She took in my big eyes and added swiftly, “Plus free cable.” When I didn’t speak because my excitement made me mute, she threw in, “And electricity paid.”

“I, uh… a house for six hundred dollars?” I finally got out.

“It’s nice. Really nice. In a good neighborhood. And you said you weren’t real big on where you’re staying,” Tyra said by way of answer.

At this point, Tack was holding out his phone. “Scroll, girl. Those are pictures. We can take you ’round whenever. Place’ll be open at the end of the month, which means a week.”

I took his phone and I scrolled through the photos. They weren’t big on the phone but I could still see the place wasn’t nice.

It was very nice. Clean and attractive with personality.

Not something that cost six hundred dollars a month.

And here it was again.

This wasn’t a deal, it was a steal.

And I’d be the thief.

Darn.

I gave Tack back his phone, saying, “That’s really sweet but I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because you can get more out of it if you rent to someone else,” I explained what he well knew.

“Yeah, and we can get more headaches with dogs and lease jumpers and shit like that,” he returned.

“Not to mention, the expense of placing an ad in the paper,” Tyra put in.

I didn’t know how much ads cost but I did know that whatever they cost didn’t cover what they weren’t making if they rented their place to someone who could afford it.

“And we don’t go through a management company,” Tack added. “So we gotta go through applications, pay for credit checks, drop shit to do showings. It’s a pain in the ass. You take it, we don’t have to do any a’ that shit.”

Okay, well, I could imagine that none of that was fun, not to mention it had to be time consuming and pricey.

“When’s your lease up?” Tack pushed.

“It’s month to month. Where I am, they know not to try for anything over six months. Tenants are pretty transient,” I told him. “Once I did my first six months, they went month to month.”

“Notice?” he asked.

“I’d have to check but I think it’s a week.”

“Give it. We’ll get you in. Boys’ll help. First up, Tyra’ll show you around so you know it’s where you wanna be.”

I already knew it was where I wanted to be. Me, Travis, a clean, nice little house that was not in my current neighborhood. It was where I wanted to be.

But taking advantage of them wasn’t who I wanted to be.

I opened my mouth to reply, not knowing how to turn them down, but I didn’t get a word out.

The front door opened again, all eyes went to it, including mine, and I shut my mouth as this time my heart skipped before it squeezed when Joker strode in.

Unfortunately, my ride with Snapper had worn off by Sunday morning. I knew this when I woke up with a strange ache that had Joker and his brunette written all over it. Luckily, I had work to take my mind off of it and Travis back so the ache went away when my little boy again filled my life.

But even with work (and Travis) I thought of pretty much nothing but Joker, and I’d come to the realization that it wasn’t Joker’s fault. He didn’t lead me on. He didn’t give any indications (outside of returning that kiss) that he was interested at all.

So it was all me.

Still, it had hurt.