Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
“Don’t worry. Jacob warned me about her,” The Squeeze responded.
I took a moment to wonder if I should petition our new landlord to put a sign out on the gates that said Beware of Martha.
Then, even if I was still swimming through my horror that Martha said Jacob’s woman wasn’t as hot as him right in front of her, I realized this was a point to ponder.
Because Alexis was all petite, slender, ballerina loveliness, with gorgeous peaches and cream skin, amazing cheekbones and big eyes, and I’d always thought she was the perfect foil to Jacob’s rough and ready, muscle-packed, black-hair-and-bearded good looks. And he was maybe only three inches taller than me, but he was six inches taller than her.
Perhaps he knew the until-just-now-unknown rule of “swinging low.”
Before Martha could say anything else that might make Cap pack my belongings and move me somewhere else in fear of my mental health, I grabbed Cap’s hand, saying, “We need to go see to Cleo. Later!” and then I dragged him to my apartment.
Once inside, I put down my plant, divested him of his, pulled off my crossbody, slung it on the chair, turned to him and ran it down.
“Right, Linda. Retired schoolteacher. Really sweet. Everyone loves her. Never married, but since she is who she is, she’s kind of the mom of the complex. Jacob, in construction, and when he’s not on a job, he spends his time getting stoned and or laid. Nice guy, though. Bill and Zach, partners, not married yet, they have one of the two-bedrooms. They’re our community organizers. Really nice guys. Patsy, who called from the door, works at a doctor’s office and takes care of the plants and flowers around the complex. Alexis is a ballerina, and completely in love with Jacob. So much, it’s hard to watch. I keep hoping he’s biding his time, but now I think he might be swinging low.”
I took a deep breath.
Then I launched into Martha.
“Martha has three boys and a dead husband. Jeremy contracted some rare form of cancer a few years after their youngest was born. This means she spent her life dealing with his treatments and him being in and out of remission, at the same time raising three rambunctious sons on her own, being the primary breadwinner most of the time. All of this, only for him to pass a few years after their youngest went to college. This also means she’s had her hands full all her life and instead of being cowed by it, she became a take-no-shit warrior. After they all graduated from college, she sold the house because she was done with AC repairs, cleaning a pool and dealing with tree limbs falling on her roof during monsoons. She lived at the Oasis in her swinging-single twenties, what she calls, ‘The Glory Days,’ and came right back the minute a unit opened. She has two grandkids who are in the pool a lot during the weekends. She also has no filter, as you’ve seen, but she’d put herself in front of a bullet for you.”
“Do you know everyone in the complex?” Cap asked.
I thought about it.
Then I said, “Yes.”
He studied me, an expression I couldn’t read on his face, but it veered toward good, while saying slowly, “Right.”
“We don’t have to go to the shindig. We can do what we want.”
“Do you want to go?”
Of course I did. Oasis shindigs were the best.
Outside Luna’s parties, that was.
Cap must have read that on my face, because his beard twitched in the area around his mouth, and he said, “Let’s make a deal. I’ll check out what you got in the kitchen that we can throw together and take to the party, you take Cleo out, because she’s been a good girl, but she’s gotta go.”
I jumped to him happily, gave him a quick kiss, then headed to my hooks to get Cleo’s lead.
“Raye?” he called as I was clipping it on her.
Still bent over, I looked up at him. “Yeah?”
“I wanna look into this new landlord.”
Hmm.
“Why?”
“Investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into upgrades without rent increases, and capping a tenant’s rent…” He shook his head. “Sometimes, a good thing is a good thing. Sometimes, a good thing masks something bad.”
I finished with her lead, and Cleo danced around me as I asked, “What could be bad?”
“Don’t know. That’s why I wanna look into them.”
“Go for it,” I said.
He jerked up his chin on a small smile and urged, “Get her to some grass. She’s dying.”
I smiled back, then Cleo and I took off.
Cap and I were lying in my bed.
Update: Cap fit in with the crew. He was laidback and friendly and super good at small talk.
As for me, when the sun went down, Bill and Zach’s lights came on, the pool illuminated— making the Oasis an oasis—and drinking, eating, hanging and communing with people I cared about, with a comfortable and outgoing Cap at my side, felt like a slice of heaven.