Page 10 of Mayhem
You’ll be waiting forever,Erin thought. “Okay. I have to go.”
“I’ll see you next week,”Stu stated. Erin made a noncommittal gesture as she slid into her car and pulled out of the parking lot. The faster she left Florida behind, the better.
She still had things back at her apartment that she needed to pack up and furniture that she needed to take apart. Erin planned on leaving in two days. She was going to leave late atnight and drive through as much as she could so that she could sleep before unpacking her things when she arrived in Denver.
While Cruz had offered her the use of his plane, Erin had decided not to accept it. It just didn’t feel right, and she didn’t know what message that would send to him. They hadn’t discussed him touching her at Alijah and Kieran’s wedding, and Erin didn’t need them to. She figured he didn’t want to because he hadn’t brought it up, so she wouldn’t either.
Erin had always believed that if someone wanted to talk about something, they would. She didn’t particularly feel the need to speak about the event because, one, she hadn’t been the person to initiate it, and two, she was grown enough to know that sometimes people did things with no intentions of repeating them or expanding on them.
So, when she spoke to Paetyn yesterday, she told him she wanted to leave during the weekend. It wasn’t technically a lie. She would be leaving late Friday night. She wouldn’t let them make a futile trip, though. She planned to call them when she hit the road to let them know she’d already left and there was no point in them coming to help.
She would rent a U-Haul box to hitch behind her car. A few days ago, she found one that fit and reserved it.
Erin pulled up to her apartment building and got out of the car. She grabbed the bag and the box and took them inside. She didn’t want to leave them in the car over the next couple of days, not wanting her inks to get too hot since the temperature was all over the place recently.
Once inside, Erin started packing up the rest of her clothes. She had already set aside what she would wear for the next few days, along with her toiletry bag and a couple of hair products.
She’d started packing her bedroom the day before. Erin had a large ensemble of clothes and shoes. They didn’t all fit into her closet, so she added shelves to the wall and lined them with hershoes. It was the reason she’d decided to start in the bedroom first. Erin knew it would take her the longest to pack.
She’d already filled her three suitcases and two duffle bags with clothes. She had several large boxes and tended to keep her shoe boxes, so she knew it would make them easier to pack once she got them back inside.
Erin took her shoes off before starting some music on her phone. She’d packed each suitcase and a duffle bag with specific items and would do the same with the boxes.
When she had the first box put together and ready to fill, she labeled it bottoms and started taking all her jeans off the hangers, folding them, and placing them into the box. She knew she’d need more than one box to fit all her bottoms, but Erin hoped that if she rolled everything tightly, she could use the one box.
She’d been packing for about two hours and had been able to pack all of her bottoms and put her shoes back into their original boxes before she packed them. She aimed to pack all her clothes, bedroom items that weren’t furniture, and kitchen items.
Erin had never been a big fan of packing and moving, finding it overly tiring, but she assumed that most people were, her more so from moving around so much during her childhood. She spent the first six years of her life in Barcelona; they moved almost every eighteen months after that until she, her mother, and her sister settled in Florida when she was eleven when her father was stationed there. His assignments after that had only typically been six months to a year, and her mother liked Florida, so they didn’t move with him.
She packed for another hour before deciding to order some food. She hadn’t eaten since that morning, and it was now six in the evening. She knew that meant she’d be hungry again extremely late if she was still up, but she’d order two meals and have the other one for later.
Erin had just picked up her phone when she thought she heard a knock at her door. Pausing the music, she listened for a moment, and when she heard the knock again, she headed towards the front door. She figured it was Mrs. Green asking if she could borrow something again. She was a lovely elderly lady who lived in the apartment across from Erin’s. She didn’t drive, so if she forgot anything during her grocery run once a week, Mrs. Green found herself at Erin’s door.
Pulling the door open, Erin paused for a moment.
“Paetyn, Cruz, hey. What are you two doing here?”
“I told you we’d come out early to help,”Cruz stated.
“You did, yes, but I wasn’t expecting you until Saturday morning,”Erin responded.
“You didn’t want to try to do all of your packing in one day, did you? That’d be pretty stressful,”Paetyn responded.
Erin hadn’t planned on packing everything in one day. She planned on not being at her apartment and simply letting them know.
“I got a jumpstart on some of the smaller things,”Erin replied, moving aside to let them both in. They were there now, and she was sure she couldn’t convince them to leave or that she was fine on her own. Besides, they’d made the trip, and doing so was nice of them. “I was just about to order some food. Do the two of you want anything and from anywhere in particular?”
“Whatever you want to order is fine,”Cruz told her.
Erin thought about it for a moment. “Is pizza okay?”she questioned.
“Sounds good,” Paetyn responded.
“Okay, make yourselves at home. I’ll order, and then we can tackle the kitchen if you want.”
“It’s whatever you want to do,”Paetyn said with a smile.
Erin returned his smile before dialing the number to her favorite pizza place.
