Page 12 of Crushed By Love

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, are you a child?”

He laughs as if this is all just fun and games. “It’s not my vomit. Now come on.”

“No, I’ll do it in the morning.”

“If you want, but it’ll be a lot harder to clean up if you wait for it to get all crusty.”

The visual image of that makes me rethink my life choices. “And you really can’t go clean this up by yourself?”

He pouts. “Please, Ardie? I’ll just make an even bigger mess.”

I narrow my eyes. “Are you familiar with the term weaponized incompetence?”

I can tell he wants to laugh and I don’t know if I want to laugh with him or punch him. Maybe both. “I am, but is it my fault I never learned how to clean properly? Blame my parents.”

“At twenty-four, yes, it is your fault, you big baby.”

He shrugs and I want to hate him for this but I don’t. I may be pissed off, but I don’t hate him. I can’t, the guy has a certain swagger that’s too easy to love. “What will it be, Ardie?”

“You’re a monster,” I deadpan and he snorts, giving me his signature panty-dropping grin.

I drag myself to the closet and grab an oversized hoodie to throw on over my sleep set and follow him upstairs. We zigzag through hordes of mostly drunk people and I get more than a handful of stares. They’re all preppy casual wealthy twenty-somethings and I look like I’m naked under my ratty hoodie. Some of these people just seem curious, some are most definitely checking me out, but most of them are judging me.

We take the second set of stairs and go all the way up to his bedroom.

He doesn’t say anything and I glare at his back, following him inside to the mess of splattered vomit on his rug. The rancid smell is a punch to the gut. I hurry back out into the hallway away from the stench and Cooper follows. My frustration has bubbled up and any sense of professionalism is fast disappearing.

“Let me guess, you hooked up with a drunk girl and she threw up on your floor? You really shouldn’t sleep with women when they’re so drunk they can’t even hold the contents of their stomach.”

Maybe I said too much, maybe that was mean, but I’m exhausted and this is bullshit and I’m back to hating the guy. I know I’m supposed to keep my mouth shut and clean on autopilot, but Mrs. King isn’t here to reprimand me.

Cooper, however, is.

His face goes pale and his eyes blaze. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Cooper mad before, I thought he was the easy-going brother. The funny one. The one who lets things roll off his back because he’s too disengaged to care. Guess I don’t really know him at all. “I don’t sleep with women who are too drunk.” His tone is tight with anger. “I would never do that.”

I should shut up, I really should, but I can’t help myself. “Then why, of all places, was it in your bedroom that a woman threw up a bunch of liquor? I know what you get up to in there. Considering you’ve got a woman over every night, we all do.”

His eyes narrow and I know I’ve hit a nerve. This is about to be the part where he threatens my job, maybe even fires me, but that doesn’t happen. Instead, he smiles slowly, stalking in close. Dusty brown hair hangs around his face as he presses his forehead to mine. I’m frozen to the spot. This is the last thing I expected.

“You’re so fucking cute when you call me out like that,” he says, “but Ardie, I know what consent means. Ask anyone I sleep with and they’ll tell you they want it. Not only that, but I always make sure they come back for more.”

“O–okay,” I breathe. “Sorry.”

“Now let me call you on your shit,” he continues, voice husky-soft like velvet. Oh, boy. If this move is how he seduces women, I get it now. “You’re being pretty resistant to doing your job. Do you need to be punished for insubordination?”

My pulse thunders and I let out a slow breath. Somehow, I think I might like his form of punishment and that scares the utter shit out of me. I shake my head no.

“Hmm, too bad.” He brushes past me, shoulder-checking me on his way out.

Back to being an asshole.

The anger rushes right back and I want to chase after him, but I don’t. At least I got under his skin. I’m tired of keeping my mouth shut around here. Their mom hasn’t set foot in the beach house in three weeks and I still haven’t met Mr. King. It’s just me and these entitled idiots when Camilla isn’t around. If I’m going to be cleaning up vomit, I should at least be able to speak my mind about it.

I hurry back downstairs to the cleaning closet and get what I need, ignoring the guests who have moved on from taking an interest in the housekeeper. They’re all probably used to staff waiting on them hand and foot. I’m just another everyday luxury to them, not an actual person who needs sleep and respect.

I set to work and twenty minutes later the rug is as good as new. Stupid as it is, I stand there for a full minute, admiring my work. I’ve gotten pretty decent at cleaning. And also, thank goodness for baking soda because that stuff is the kryptonite to vomit.

On my way out the door, I catch sight of Cooper’s phone sitting on the dresser and a pair of noise-canceling headphones laying next to them. I already know the phone will be locked so there’s no point in trying to look through it, but the headphones will help me sleep tonight even if I can’t play music through them. I try them on, adjusting them down to my smaller head-size and switching on the noise canceling feature. Sure enough, what comes out sounds like glorious white noise and drowns out most of the obnoxious party sounds.

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