Page 31 of Infatuated as They Come
“But…” My heart sunk. Holly had already made all those plans for us.
“Are you gonna make me regret this already?” Jay said with a raised eyebrow. “Because I’ve got a big crowd to deal with and I really need another pair of hands that know what they’re doing. You said you wanted this job, right?”
“I did say that. And I did mean it. And…” My head shook. Jay and Audrey were doing me a favor. “Yeah, I’ll be here first thing in the morning.”
“Great. Audrey, can you please give him those forms to fill out?” Jay asked. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Seven in the morning sharp. I’ll need you to stay until five. And if it goes well, we’ll go from there.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. That was the whole day gone, and Holly was so damn excited about doing all that stuff with me. I had been excited too.
My fingers tapped the desk nervously as Audrey handed me some forms, her voice warm as she told me my girlfriend was lucky to have someone like me, someone who tried so hard. But there I was, tossing away our day out tomorrow before it had even started.
I let my mind drift back to that conversation with my dad. It was a mild fucking argument compared to all the other fights we’d had, but those words still stayed frozen in my head.
You think she’s gonna stick around?I didn’t want him to be right. Ineverwanted him to be right, but that was something Ireallydidn’t want him to be right about.
“Thanks so much, hun,” Audrey said as she took the forms from me. “We’ll see you tomorrow bright and early!”
I nodded at her. “Yeah, see ya then. Thanks a lot.”
And I should have been feeling hopeful as I made the long walk home because I had absolutely struck gold with that trial, but all I could think about was the look that would be on Holly’s face when I told her we couldn’t do all that stuff tomorrow. I wanted to spend every last minute with her.
There was no future with a poor man, though.
When I got back to the apartment, Holly was sitting on the couch going through a huge stack of books.
“Hey, princess,” I said. “You get all your stuff?”
She patted the big pile of thick, heavy books. “Mhm. I’m all set now.”
“Have fun reading those.” I took a seat next to her, throwing an arm around her shoulder and pulling her to my chest.
“Now we get to spend the whole day together. Should we leave now?”
“Uh…” I felt my stomach twist a little. “Before we do that, I gotta tell you something…”
“What is it?”
“I kinda got a job. Well, they wanna do a trial run or whatever, and if it goes well, then I’ll get it. They seem like they need extra help, so maybe their desperation will work in my favor.”
“You know you don’t have to do that,” she said. “You don’t have to waste your time working.”
“It’s not a waste of time. I can’t just sit around here all day.”
“You could paint all day.”
I rubbed a thumb against her shoulder. “We’ll deal with that stuff later.”
“Thatstuffis what you love doing, though. You shouldn’t throw it all away for a….” Her brows pulled together. “Wait, where will you be working?”
“There’s this auto shop in Brooklyn. They looked real busy today, so like I said, that might work out for me. The only thing is…”
“Is?”
“… They want me to start tomorrow,” I said, voice flat.
“That’s so…” She sat up straight, that light in her eyes that had been there a couple minutes ago no longer there. “… Tomorrow?”
I cupped her cheek as I took in the look of disappointment on her face. “You made all those plans and I was so excited about them, but I’m lucky these guys are even giving me a chance in the first place. I mean, I went to four other auto shops before them and they all said their positions had already been filled.”
