Page 62 of The Jerk in Apartment 1B

“Doesn’t matter. She won’t go out with him. Even if she wasn’t hung up on her ex, she told me she’s not dating for two years.”

“Why two years?”

“I guess she thinks it’ll take that long to get over her ex.” I hear someone walking down the hall. “I think that’s her.” I get up. “I’m going to change out the shower head before she leaves for work.”

“You want me to do it? Then you wouldn’t have to deal with her.”

“I’ll do it. I need to talk to her. I’ll see you later.” I go to the closet where I keep my tools. When I come back, Cole is gone, but I hear him talking outside my door.

Grabbing the shower head, I go out to the hall and see Cole standing there with Trina.

“How do you like your new job?” he asks.

“It’s okay.” Trina glances at me. “But it’s not enough hours. I need to find something else.”

“Hey.” I hold up my wrench. “I was just about to install your shower head, unless you want me to do it later.”

“Now is good. I have some time before I have to leave for work.”

“You said you’re looking for another job?” Cole says to Trina.

“For now, yeah. I’d like to find a job in fashion, but that could take a while.”

“Scott’s looking for help. Maybe you could apply for the job.”

What is Cole doing? He needs to shut up. I’m not hiring Trina.

“What’s the job?” Trina asks.

“There isn’t one,” I say, glaring at Cole. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Cole turns to me. “You keep saying you want to hire someone to organize your storage units.” He turns back to Trina. “It would only be temporary, but it’s easy and it’s right here in the building.”

“Cole, let it go. She doesn’t want to—”

“Sounds perfect,” Trina says, her eyes going to me. “But it’s really up to Scott.”

Cole smiles at me. “What do you think?”

“I think you need to go,” I say, not at all amused by his little trick for me to spend more time with Trina.

“I’ll let you two talk it out,” he says, walking away. “See ya, Trina.”

“Bye, Cole.”

“Let’s get this done,” I say, going past Trina to her apartment.

She opens her door and we go inside.

“I put out some traps,” I tell her. “They’re concealed, so if we catch something, you won’t see it.”

“Thanks for doing that. Now maybe I’ll actually sleep tonight.”

I go into her bathroom. “This shouldn’t take long. I’ve changed out a lot of these.”

She doesn’t say anything, and when I look back, I see her sitting on the floor, swiping through her phone. She probably doesn’t want to talk to me after our chat this morning.

A few minutes later, I’ve got the new shower head on. I turn on the water to try it out.

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