Page 5 of Clean Sweep
“Today is pretty open,” he murmured. “We had a last-minute cancellation. In fact, Yessica could be there around 9:30. Would that work?”
My gaze lifted to the clock over the table. Almost 8:00 now. I could be out of here before Yessica arrived and stay away all day at work. Someone else cleaned my house while I made money doing what I loved?
Yes, please!
“Should be perfect.”
“What specifically are you needing help with?” he asked.
“Can you just come and take it all and I can start over new?”
My quip had been mostly joking, although I’d take the offer if he responded in the affirmative. Getting rid of all the old furniture and stuff left behind when Ethan left? Another easy hallelujah.
Instead, Tanner fumbled over his response for a moment. Out of experiential pity, I saved him.
“Just kidding. You don’t have to take all my stuff.” I tucked some hair behind my ear and leaned forward. “Look, on Saturday my son is bringing a woman home that he just proposed to after only knowing her for four weeks. I’m super busy at work and don’t have time to clean. Scratch that, I could make time, but I just . . . I really don’twantto clean.”
“Okay.”
“Frankly, I’ve done the whole stay-at-home-mom-clean-up-after-everyone thing for the last two decades and I’m over it. I couldn’t care less about my floors if youpaidme to care less about my floors. No one gave a damn then, and no one seems to care now. So sayonara suckers! I’m out of the cleaning game.”
I gave a flippant salute to the ceiling, but had no idea who I meant. Of course my sons hadn’t cared about the house, and Ethan hadn’t been awake enough on a good day to consider something like, oh, laundry.
These were the thoughts the divorce stirred up in me the most. The ones I should have shared sooner.
On a roll now, I kept going.
“Still, I want to make a good impression on this woman. Also, I’m not a disgusting person, so this isn’t a hovel, okay? It’s . . . lived in. All right, it’s chaos. Even with just me and Blake living here. I need help.”
The other three words I should have said sooner.
I need help.
The end of my much-needed diatribe halted so quickly it left dead space. I paused. Had I overshared again? I had a thing about doing that. Apparently, honest details made other people uncomfortable.
“Well,” Tanner cleared his throat, “we can help you out with that. A deep cleaning, maybe? We do floors, windows, dusting, counters, general clean up, that sort of stuff. We can go as heavy into details or as light as you’d like.”
I closed my eyes and tilted my head back against the chair. “Deep cleaning would be great.”
“I can’t give you a quote until I stop by to look at it.”
Over $1,000 had been burning a hole in my underwear drawer ever since the divorce finalized. Once I let Ethan officially go, my great aunt—who was somewhere between ancient and Moses’s wife—sent me $1,000 with a card that simply said,About damn time. Now go do something crazy.
This was just the level of crazy that I needed.
“I don’t care how much it costs.”
“We . . . I’m sorry?”
“I don’t need a quote. I want a clean house.” I cut a hand through the air, even though he couldn’t see me. “I want to walk out of this mess, then come back into something that sparkles and smells just a little bit like lemon. Organization would be great too. Also, the dishwasher struggles and my disposal sounds like something is dying inside, if Yessica is handy like that. No obligation on those two.”
“Lemon,” he repeated flatly.
“You got it. What else do you need from me to make this magic happen?”
He stumbled for a minute before he said, “Uh, I . . . well . . . just a credit card for a deposit to hold your spot.”
“Done. Let my grab my card.” Once we finished swapping details, I asked, “Do you need my address?”
