Page 4 of Savage Spades

She walked to the back office. A small space, maybe the size of a large closet at best. The only thing in the office was her desk and a coat rack for Jen and Amire to use. Four, large stacks of papers covered the small desk. She needed to get a filing cabinet to organize all the paperwork but that was going to have to wait.

She slid the first stack of paperwork towards her. Invoices. Some paid; some overdue. The bills never stopped, and sadly, there wasn’t enough coming in to take care of them all. She pulled out the five, unpaid invoices from the pile and organized them by priority. Grabbing the checkbook off the desk, she wrote a check for the electric bill, her liquor distributor, and the plumber who fixed the backed-up toilet a couple of weeks ago.

The other two would have to wait until she had more money. She didn’t even want to think about the debt that she owed beyond these small invoices. Notably, the most significant debt that her dad left to her. The money should have never been borrowed in the first place. It sent chills down her spine and made her palms sweaty just from thinking about it. Taking a deep breath, she ran her hands over her face, trying to clear her mind. Focus on one thing at a time. Her priority was always to make sure Amire and Jen got paid on time. Even though most bartenders worked solely off tips, she paid Jen an hourly, living wage to make up for the lack of tipping customers. And since she and Jen lived together, it would be an awkward conversation if Jen didn’t make enough to pay her half of the bills.

Setting the two, unpaid invoices to the side, she grabbed the next pile of paperwork.

Twenty minutes later, the sound of the front door shutting brought her attention back to the bar. She walked out of the office just as Jen walked around the counter with a cup carrier filled with big, styrofoam cups.

“You are a lifesaver,” Cam said as Jen set the cup holder down on the bar. Cam took one of the cups and stuck a straw inside. She loved the way the bubbles from the soda gave that slight burn to the back of her throat. Drinking so much soda was probably the reason her jeans were starting to get tight again, but she didn’t care about her weight anymore. She accepted the fact that her body was made different from someone like Jen. Whereas she and Jen could eat the same thing, Cam would always have a more curvy shape. Plus, she’d given up on diets a long time ago. She realized her brain power could be used in better ways other than worrying about a little extra fat.

“No problem, I figured we might need some caffeine,” Jen said.

They had soda at the bar, but the gas station down the street must have done something special because it tasted so much better. Of course, she’d never tell her customers that.

“Amire! I brought soda!” Jen yelled. She was a small person but had the voice of an opera singer.

“I can hear you, Jen, you don’t have to yell,” he complained from the kitchen that was straight to the left of the bar.

Jen winked at her and went to give the soda to Amire. Cam leaned against the counter and sipped on her drink. They had thirty minutes until the bar opened, and she prayed it would be a busy night.

Chapter Three

Cam

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Turn it off!” Jen yelled from the other room.

Cam had been listening to the alarm for a while but was too tired to turn it off. With a sigh, she cracked open one eye and grabbed the phone off the bedside table before swiping to turn it off.

The summer heat clung to her skin like a pair of tight jeans. The only thing keeping her mildly cool was the box fan she had set up in the corner. The air conditioner had gone out two weeks ago, and the landlord had yet to fix it.

She laid on her back and rubbed a hand over her face. She needed to get ready to meet with her advisor on campus. As soon as she’d moved to Goldbeach, she’d applied to go to the local community college to study graphic design. Today, she needed to register for her classes before all the good ones were taken.

She could only take classes during the day so that she could run the bar at night, but she couldn’t take them too early or else she’d never get any sleep. She counted to three and then sat up. Less than fifteen minutes to get her ass dressed and down to the college.

She shouldn’t have drunk so much last night, but Jen was a bad influence. Plus, there were only a couple more weeks until she’d be too busy to have any fun. Her head spun a bit as she crossed the room and went into the small, shared bathroom located in the hallway between the bedrooms. They lived in a small house, which meant there was very little privacy. Hence, why Jen could hear Cam’s alarm from her bedroom. It was even worse when Jen brought a guy home. On those nights, Cam had to plug in her earbuds and turn up the volume to drown out the sound of Jen’s moans.

She stripped off her clothes and turned the shower on. It took a minute for the water to make its way through the pipes to the shower head. It took even longer for the water to heat up enough for her to get in. She washed away the smell of sweat and alcohol with her strawberry-scented body wash before brushing her teeth in the shower to save on time.

Once she stepped out of the shower, she wrapped a white towel around her body before running a brush through her wet hair and throwing it up in a bun. In her bedroom, she changed into a white, spaghetti strap top and a pair of jean shorts before slipping her feet into her pink flip-flops. The time on her phone told her she still had ten minutes left before she had to get out the door. Just enough time to make some coffee.

Feeling more awake than she had moments ago, she walked to the kitchen. Jen was scheduled to open the bar today, so that gave Cam some free time after she got done signing up for classes. That meant she could run to the store and pick up some stuff they needed for the house. She’d also been needing to do her laundry since she was running very low on clothes. If she didn’t do laundry today, she’d be wearing swimsuit bottoms as underwear tomorrow. She filled the coffee maker with the coffee grounds and water and leaned against the counter, waiting for it to brew. Even when she had ‘free’ time, she spent it catching up on all the things she’d been putting off. She wished that time would slow down so she could catch her breath.

Jen walked in, dressed in a pair of pajama pants and a tank top. Her bright, red hair was tousled and wild.

“Hey, sunshine,” Cam greeted, plastering a smile on her face to hopefully make up for the fact that her alarm woke Jen up.

“Someone’s peachy this morning.”

Cam shrugged. “I will be once I get some coffee in me.”

Jen pulled out one of the falling-apart wooden chairs from the table and plopped down.

“What are your plans?” she asked Jen before grabbing a to-go coffee mug from the cabinet and started to fill it up.

“Get my shit back from Jason,” Jen said.

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