Page 3 of In Spades

Kyle was nice enough. Sometimes I would catch a ride home from poker night when he picked up Bridget since I didn’t live too far from him and Bee.

“No, I don’t think Isaac will propose for a while,” Hannah said as we hurried into the inn and cut through the labyrinth of hallways to the conference room. “I mean, I want him to. But life’s just a little crazy at the moment. He’s gone a lot, and wedding season is kicking my ass. I don’t want us to spend our engagement apart, you know?”

I nodded and scurried into the back of the conference room for the staff meeting. We snuck in five minutes late and were met with a scowl from Richard Davidson, the general manager of the inn.

He harrumphed and thumbed through his notes. “As I was saying, punctuality is of the utmost importance. Beginning today, anyone clocking in more than two minutes past the beginning of their scheduled shift will receive a warning. Three strikes, and you’ll find yourself sitting in my office, discussing the status of your employment.” There was an undeniable undertone of glee in his voice—as if he just couldn’t wait to fire people.

“Dick is in a mood today,” Hannah Jane said between sips of coffee.

I snorted behind my cup.

“What was that, Miss Hayes?” Dick—er—Richard snapped from the front of the room.

Hannah raised a threatening eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure spreading bullshit around is considered littering, Rich. Mind getting to the point before you get slapped with a misdemeanor?”

No one dared cross Hannah Jane. I wasn’t sure if they were just plain old scared, or if she had a secret file full of damning blackmail in her office. Probably both.

He scowled, causing his no-neck to disappear further into his ugly pinstripe suit. “Moving on. If you read the announcement in the employee email, you saw the news that the inn is changing hands. Allegiant Holdings has already taken over. In a few weeks, they’ll be sending a rep to observe our operations.”

Of course, we all heard the news. Hell, the minute I heard Hannah Jane and Isaac discussing it at poker night, my world began to crumble.

The bombshell that the Taylor Creek Inn had been sold was the only thing that could get the entire staff here for a Monday morning meeting.

Hands shot up all over the room. Employees fired off question after question about whether we would be let go, if there would be an interruption in pay, or if they would bring in their own upper management.

Staffing decisions hadn’t been made. It was unknown if there would be a delay in the next month’s pay. And good Lord, I hoped they would take a wrecking ball to the upper management.

Rich the Dick, to be exact.

“It’s going to be okay,” Hannah said softly as she elbowed me in the side. Easy for her to say. She could take every single one of her clients with her and do just fine going into business for herself. That didn’t even touch the fact that she had a billionaire in her bed.

As much as I needed to prepare myself for the worst, I didn’t have any energy to spend on thoughts of what if. I needed to put my head down and get to work.

“Thanks for this,” I said to Hannah as I lifted the coffee and sucked down the last drops.

She waved it off dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. Hey, I have a leftover vendor meal from Sunday night’s wedding in the fridge in my office. Help yourself to it. It’ll go bad, and I’m heading out to run errands before poker night.”

I knew the leftover part of that was a lie. It was probably dinner from Revanche that she packaged in a styrofoam clamshell, but I wasn’t about to call her out on that. It was either play dumb or be stuck with the granola bar I stuffed in my pocket for lunch.

Everyone always had leftovers and hand-me-downs. It was both thoughtful and utterly infuriating. I was sick and tired of being a charity case. But, like wishing on stars and winning the lottery, hoping for anything different was a long shot at best. I tugged my ponytail tighter, blew the wispy strands out of my face, and went to work.

It took forty-two minutes to clean a checkout room and turn it over for the next guest. A stay-over room only took twenty minutes. Heavy checkout days like Sunday sucked ass, but I didn’t mind. I liked the satisfaction of seeing how fast I could go. When two of us paired up, we would race and see who could finish first.

Being a housekeeper wasn’t the riveting career path I had envisioned, but it would have to do for now.

I wasn’t stuck in a rut. I had simply decided that rather than trying to get out of the rut, I would add some dollar store decorations and call it home.

To some extent, I enjoyed the monotony. After a while, muscle memory kicked in, and I didn’t have to focus so much on crisp bed sheet corners, and I could let my mind rest. Work was a reprieve. It was the only time during the day I got a smidgen of quiet.

The worst rooms to clean were the ones with guests in them. Especially the kind of people who didn’t know how to take a hint and wander around the inn for half an hour while I changed the sheets and vacuumed up their crumbs.

There was nothing more awkward than picking up used condoms and empty liquor bottles in front of the half-dressed guilty party.

What was even more unnerving was when they were chatty, or worse—when they stayed in the room and said nothing at all. They just sat there and watched me like a hawk.

The last guest to do that was a balding geriatric. His robe hung open, exposing his stained tighty-whities and saggy man-boobs. That guest from hell lingered near the window as I raced through my tasks. In my haste, I stripped the bed sheets a little too fast. My stomach lurched as the linens sent fungal toenails flying like confetti. Apparently, the top of the bed was the best place to clip those.

What a lovely memory.

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