Page 73 of Brassy Bigwig

Into love? Into lust?

Perhaps both.

* * *

I got comfy in my Wharton sweatpants and a thin t-shirt when I finished showering. I can hear Shelby telling me to, “move my ass” from the living room as I comb my hair. Rolling my eyes, I place the comb on my dresser and walk to my bedroom door.

When I open it, I come face-to-face with Reed, and I gasp loudly.

“Oh, my god you scared the shit out of me!”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. This camera needed to be adjusted a little.”

He points to the upper corner of the hallway. That’s when I notice a chair situated underneath a brand-new camera, installed in the ceiling. I take deep breath with my hand still on my chest as I try to control my breathing.

“It’s okay. Not your fault. I’m just still a little shaken up from Friday night.”

“Yeah, that… that was weird,” he mutters. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“Thanks,” I reply. “And thank you for installing these so quickly. And over the weekend? I hope you still had time to relax.”

“Eh, it’s okay. It helps that I like my job.”

“For once, I can actually relate to that,” I smile.

Work doesn’t seem like work when you enjoy what you do.

Or when you’re fucking your boss.

“Anyway, sorry again. If you want, I can show you how everything works now.”

“That would be great, thanks.”

I follow Reed as he walks the chair back into the kitchen, then he leads me to the living room.

“Jesus, finally,” Shelby says from the sofa when we enter.

“Can I see the remote?” Reed asks, and Shelby hands it over.

“Okay, so when you turn on your TV, hit the ‘Source’ button on the remote to toggle through all of the devices that are hooked up to it. You have Live TV, which is your cable. HDMI1 is your Blu-ray player. HDMI2 is going to be where you can view your security footage.”

Reed clicks on HDMI2, and the screen is suddenly split into four sections. One shows the hallway outside of the door into our apartment, another shows the living room. I see the kitchen in a third square. In the last one, I can see perfectly down the hallway from the camera Reed was adjusting a moment ago.

“Wow, I didn’t even notice one outside the door.”

“It’s small, you’d have to look really hard to see. Technically, you’re not allowed to put cameras out there, but I thought it would be best for you to have one.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”

“All of the footage gets downloaded to a thumb drive which is plugged into the back of the TV.”

“Does it record twenty-four-seven?” I ask.

“Yep.”

“Won’t it run out of memory quickly? Do we need to change it every so often?”

“Not very. The one I put in can hold up to two terabytes worth of data.”

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