Page 20 of Ellie Hayes and the Himbos
“We’re already making great strides.” I extend my arms to indicate the tidied deck. “An hour ago, this was littered with empty cans and Solo cups. But now, totally civilized.”
“Snow White and the Three Himbos?” he asks with a grin.
“I have made it abundantly clear that I am not their housekeeper. I will help to set a baseline and lay out a course of action that will keep it maintained, and then it’s up to them.”
“And if they slack?”
“I am not above nagging.”
“What plans do you have for the gym?” Heather asks.
I shrug. “I’m going to work the front desk, run their social—”
“And gradually integrate yourself into every element of the facility’s operation until it runs like clockwork,” she finishes.
“How do you know it doesn’t already run like clockwork?”
“Because you would have had a competence boner about it.”
I nod. Fair.
“Ugh!” Alistair’s wail comes from inside the house. A moment later, the screen door bangs open, and he joins us on the porch, clad in what I can only describe as a Speedo.
Mark chokes on his coffee, and I thwack him on the back as Alistair erupts with “You see this shit?” He motions to his torso. “It’s gotshimmer!”
The three of us are forced to take a closer look. Indeed, Alistair’s immaculate form is shimmering in the late morning sunshine.
“This is some goddamnTwilightcrap,” he grumbles, wiping a hand across his abdomen. He studies his palm for a moment, then looks over his fingertips at us, brows twitching slightly when he sees that his audience consists of more than just me. “Oh. Hi.”
“Alistair, these are my friends Heather and Mark.”
Alistair greets them with the quick chin-lift traditionally meant to conveys’up?, then resumes his study of his glittery torso. “I’m gonna use the hose.”
Mark’s coughing fit kicks off anew, a high, thin“A hose?”getting rasped in on his next breath. Heather takes on this round of back thumps.
“Why do you want a hose?” I ask.
“I’m not rinsing this off inside. You said we’d be deep-cleaning the bathrooms today. I don’t want to give us more work than we’ll already have.” Alistair examines his arms. “I don’t even know what it is. It came in the other day with a bunch of skincare stuff from my cousin in Korea. I thought it was bronzer.”
“Are you going to want a towel after?”
“Nah. I’ll air dry. Thanks, though.”
“That was a suggestion, not an offer,” I clarify, reenforcing the non-housekeeper nature of our arrangement.
“Cool,” he says, attention back on his abdomen. We look on, as helpless against the pull of his perfection as the tide is to the moon, as he traces a finger around each segment of his abdominals, creating a pale outline of his six-to-eight-pack in the shimmer. He completes the path, then, using the same finger, pokes his belly button with a high little “Boop!”
Theboopat least breaks the spell, and I shake my head.EllieHayes, this is your life.
Chuckling at himself, Alistair strolls to the edge of the porch, disappearing around the side of the house.
Heather slumps in her seat. “That’s just your new normal?” I nod, electing, for the sake of Mark’s esophagus, not to mention yesterday’s flash of tush. “Sure. So. How are negotiations going with Cole? When we went by, he wanted to know where you were staying.”
The reference to my ex wipes away the lingering sortilege from Alistair’s display. “He had the temerity to text that he was worried about me yesterday morning.”
“Like he hasn’t lost all claim to that, theshit,” says Mark, voice still thin from coughing.
I smile at my friend’s loyalty, and the fact that the response I’d sent Cole had said the same thing. “Thanks again for picking up those bags.”
