Page 36 of Rent Free

They exchanged glances, then one woman said, “I don’t think they’re here with other women.”

My mouth might’ve fallen open at that. “What are you thinking?”

“I think they’re all in some weird relationship… with each other,” a third whispered.

“Continue,” I said.

“Well, here’s the thing,” the fourth and last woman said. “We all met in college. We got married. Had babies. Then they all thought it would be great to move to this new neighborhood. We live in a small cul-de-sac in Mansfield. This year, though, we started noticing something fishy. Each man would come and go from each house interchangeably with their own. To the point where it was getting weird. I found her husband’s underwear,” third woman pointed at the first woman. “In our laundry.”

“And I found a shirt that wasn’t my husband’s,” second woman said, “but I remembered seeing her husband wearing it a few months ago.” She pointed at third woman.

“We all have similar stories,” she said. “So we started snooping, bringing it up, and we think that they’re all in a sexual relationship with each other, and have been since college.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“And they all only rented two hotel rooms… that conjoined,” fourth woman said.

Wow.

“Okay,” I said. “I mean, sure, I’d love to help, but…”

“And we think they’re sharing one woman,” second woman blurted. “She’s friends with all of the men, but none of us. Comments on only their posts. And I think that they’re all sending her money.”

“We think that they all have kids with her, too,” first woman said. “She has a kid that looks exactly like my youngest… who is the same age as my youngest. Meaning, they were together while we were together.”

Ohh, juicy.

“I don’t…”

“We’ll pay you,” they all said at once.

I still hesitated. This had the possibility of going really bad.

I might love my job, and if I lost it, I’d lose my place to stay.

Hell, I might even go to jail.

I truly didn’t know why this kept happening to me.

I mean, logically, I knew when I’d started this that I was opening a can of worms.

The first time this had happened, it’d been a pregnant woman with her two-year-old on her hip that had come in looking for her husband.

The wife’s husband’s dad had passed away, and she was desperate to find the husband.

She’d tracked him here, to this hotel, and hadn’t seen the warning signs.

I’d taken pity on her and went against hotel regulations—and the laws of Texas—and had not only given out the hotel room number, but I’d given her a key card.

I’d walked up with her and knocked on the door. Lightly to act like I’d done it but had only put on a show for the cameras that I knew would be checked later.

And when I’d opened the hotel room door, it was to find the woman’s husband fucking some seventeen-year-old on the kitchen counter.

Everyone had screamed.

I’d ended up with a two-year-old in my arms.

And the woman’s water had broken.

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