Page 6 of The Reluctant Roommate

“And will she still be there when I arrive in Maine, or will she have closed up and moved to Hawaii?”

“Too humid for her.” Raine sighed, and her voice softened. “I’m sorry, Heidi. I realize how this sounds. You’ve already bused for almost a day to Colorado. Now it’s turned into Maine. If you’ve got any sort of good work in Denver, I’d stick with it. Yes, Kali is my friend, but this isn’t the first time she’s outrun her creditors like this. I guess I should have told you earlier.”

“Not your fault.” She bit her lip. “I’ve found work in Denver. I started today, and it looks promising.”

Lula lifted her eyebrows. “Really?” she mouthed.

“Then stick with it,” Raine said. “At least for a while. Kali’s not a bad person, but she’s not abusinessperson, if you know what I mean.”

Heidi did. The trouble with service jobs and the sort of easy-come-easy-go jobs that she usually took was that people often treated you like shit. Sometimes it was unthinking, more often it was a deliberate attempt to fuck you over. Kali was definitely an unthinking shit.

She thanked Raine and ended the call, throwing the cell on the bed and flopping back on the quilt. “Looks like I’m stuck with Robert. At least for the moment.”

Lula tapped Heidi’s leg. “At least we get our tips daily. Robert’s the type of asshole who’ll try and shaft us hours at the end of the week.”

“I think you’re right about Robert—I’ll keep applying for other jobs.”

She gripped the thin coverlet between her fingers. Damn Serena and her silver fingers—even if those fingers had done magic things on Heidi’s body, it wasn’t worth the other, less legal, ways Serena had used them. But there was nothing she could do about that. Not unless Serena strolled back into her life—and with twenty thousand dollars of Heidi’s money in her possession, why would she?

Her phone tinged with a message. Her feet hit the floor with a thump, and she propelled herself upright. “Gotta go. The hostel messaged. They want someone to clean for four hours in exchange for a free night’s accommodation. If I don’t answer in five minutes, they move on to the next on the list.”

“Go.” Lula, too, got off the bed. “You’ve time to do that before we leave for the FlyInn.”

~ ~ ~

Heidi poured cheap bourbon, conscious of Robert’s eyes on her, no doubt making sure she didn’t give too large a pour. She rang up the sale and put the dollar into her tip jar. Across the room, Lula set down burgers and fries then hustled back to the kitchen. It turned out the server’s job was also a cook’s job, and the cheap food the FlyInn served brought in a steady stream of customers. Robert obviously hoped they wouldn’t notice the overpriced drinks, but it seemed most people were onto him. They weren’t drinking, and Heidi wasn’t making much in tips.

She ran a cloth around the counter. If Robert wasn’t there watching her every move, she could check the job websites, but not while his stare was fixed on her like a coyote in a henhouse.

Lula dropped three baskets of wings in the servery.

“Who are they for?” Heidi asked.

“Construction workers at the corner table,” Lula said. “You’re a doll.” She pushed her dark hair from her forehead and added some jalapeño poppers to the fryer basket.

Heidi returned to the bar and poured the domestic beer the workers also wanted.

Robert tapped his glass on the counter, and she poured him another Bud. Her lips thinned. Lula was working her ass off—it wouldn’t kill him to help her.

In her ten-minute break, she looked at the job sites. Server for a Mexican restaurant, must speak Spanish. Person to mind three toddlers during the day, occasional evenings. The pay wasn’t mentioned. And toddlers? No, thanks. She preferred people she could have a conversation with. A casino in Blackhawk was seeking cocktail servers—but that was out of town and didn’t mention accommodation. Plenty of jobs for short-order cooks—Lula would find another job easily enough, but Heidi’s cooking skills weren’t that great to begin with, and she was sure she’d struggle in a fast-paced diner.

No, it looked as if she’d be stuck at the FlyInn for a while longer.

“Heidi!” Robert’s sharp voice recalled her to the bar. She pocketed her cell phone and returned to pour beer and cheap bourbon.

Chapter 5

Dark Side of the Moon

Morgan opened her banking app. The balance was healthy—but for how long? The mortgage payments on her town house—her luxury town house with the high-end appliances and finishes—would whittle her savings down soon enough. When she’d purchased it, it had been what she could afford, what she deserved—a glorious refuge at the end of a twelve-hour day. Now, though… She ran a hand over the granite counter, then lifted her coffee and went to stare out of the picture windows to the mountains. Early snow dusted the Front Range, and the peaks shone crystalline white. It’d be gone by midmorning. Normally, at this time of year, she’d be buying a season ticket so that she was ready to go when the snow was good. Breckenridge or Copper Mountain usually, but last year, she’d decided to try Vail. She’d been doing well; she could afford it.

This year, though, she wouldn’t be skiing. Not if she wanted to keep paying her mortgage beyond the next few months.

Since she’d been fired, she’d changed her status on LinkedIn, reached out to some of her contacts at other companies. But nothing so far. The coffee churned in her stomach. Surely, soon, someone would look past her firing.

Her cell phone rang, and she snatched it up. “Morgan Favola.”

“Morgan, hi. This is Jerry Grogan from Blackstar returning your call. New number, I see.”