Page 105 of Cruel Legacy

Her mouth gapes open. “Seriously? You’ve never done your own laundry?”

“We’ve got staff at home that does it or takes it to the cleaners, and I’ve got girls here to do the same.”

“That’s how I was able to mess with your shit, Number Three. Doesn’t it worry you to give people access to your clothes?”

I pick up a bra and twirl it around my finger.

“Why are you playing with my dirty underwear?”

“You want me to play with the clean ones instead?”

“No, Finn, I don’t want you touching them at all.”

“Because they’re dirty?”

“Because they’re mine and I already told you I don’t like people touching my shit.”

Her fingers are twitchy. She’s getting ready to snatch them back, or maybe… “What if I let you touch my dirty clothes, too?”

She elbows me out of the way and turns on the washer. “I’m not doing your laundry.” She drops the lid and looks at me. “And you shouldn’t want random chicks doing your laundry, either. It’s why your shit keeps coming up missing.”

“I’m not missing anything.” She arches a brow, then shakes her head like I’m pathetic. “Did you take something, Pet?”

“Not me. Not this time. But if you’re sure you’re not missing anything, maybe I got it wrong.”

I rack my brain for if I am or not. I have a lot of clothes and I’m a mood dresser. I don’t keep an inventory of what I have, and I’ve been known to just go out and buy shit when I’m too tired to check my closet. Other than my favorite beanie, I don’t put too much attention on any other article of clothing.

“What do you know, Pet?”

“Nothing.” She moves over to another machine, prepping it for another load of clothes.

“Yeah, you do. Spill.”

She glares at me. “I don’t know shit. I was just making an observation, because in my experience, whenever guys let women have access to their clothes, shit comes up missing. Women claim clothes as a sense of ownership of the guy they belong to. It’s a status thing. So my guess is, if you’re letting people do your laundry, they’re walking around in it or sleeping in it, and bragging to their friends about it belonging to you.”

“Girls brag about their affiliation with me all the time.”

“I’m sure. But if they’re bragging about owning a piece of your clothing, that says they’re moreaffiliatedthan everyone else. You strike me as the kind of guy that goes to her place and barely undresses. The shove your pants down to fuck and bounce as soon as you’ve bust a nut, type. There’s no chance of you leaving your clothes behind, so your conquests would have to resort to stealing them.”

She’s right. I don’t need to get naked to get a blow job or fuck. She also makes a good point about guys giving girls their clothes. It’s a way to show how serious things are. A public claiming.

I’ve never given a girl my clothes to wear and I certainly haven’t given permission for them to help themselves to clothes as payment for doing my laundry.

“You sure you don’t have any names you wanna give me?”

“Nope. Don’t know shit.”

“Would you tell me if you did?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Because what goes on between your clothes and your little fan club is none of my fucking business.”

Yet she mentioned it, so on some level she wanted me to be aware that it’s happening. I walk around the room and spot my bag in the corner. Whoever is on schedule to do my laundry this week picked the bag up this morning. Do they always just leave it out like this?

I drag it over to where Thea’s standing and watch what she’s doing. “Wanna help me out?”

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