Page 49 of Game On

“Honey, this is Lily. She’s going to help us with the books.”

The woman had streaks of grey in her dark brown hair that was piled high above her head, and she wore cat-eye glasses on her face. She paused shading in a dragon on her client’s body to give me a small smile. “Nice to meet you. I’m Allison. Alex said good things about you.”

“Good ole Alex. He and Veronica practically grew up in this shop,” Rich said.

“Oh?” Veronica mentioned tattooing was a family affair, but she clamped up when I asked about her dad.

“Yeah, their dad used to run it. They both apprenticed here,” Rich explained. “They’re our god kids.”

Allison smiled. “They’re both good kids.”

“Come on back,” Rich told me again, and led me to his office.

Once inside, he sat behind the desk, and I took the seat on the other side. I opened my briefcase and pulled out the presentations I’d put together.

“So I want to get an assessment of your needs. If you need a regular bookkeeper or if you’re just looking for someone to do your taxes. We can talk budget and plans for any of these.”

Rich leaned back in his chair. “Oh, you came prepared.”

I grinned. “That’s me.”

“Alex told me you were good. I’m getting too old for this shit, so a bookkeeper would really help us. I also need someone to do my quarterly business taxes.”

I nodded. “I can do that.”

We talked numbers, and he agreed to my rates. I was giddy on the ride home that I had secured yet another client. I mentally planned out my schedule with the new workload. A new client was great, but I had to start advertising about tax season.

I sat at the kitchen table and worked on applying to jobs and coming up with my plan to get all this work done. I felt much better about the state of my career, but not one hundred percent happy. That was okay. I’d get there.

I had been working so long, I didn’t hear my mom come home. I jumped and held my hand to my chest when her high heels click-clacked against the tile floor.

“You scared me!”

“Sorry, hon. I’m surprised to see you home. Thought you’d be out with Logan again.”

I pinned her with a confused look. That was a jump to a conclusion. She had warmed up to Logan immediately, but we had only gone on one date. One that wasn’t supposed to be real despite the fact that we ended up tangled in the sheets together.

“We’re just friends,” I told her.

“But he took you to dinner?” she asked and crossed her arms over her chest as she stared me down.

I gritted my teeth. “Yes. He’s the one who asked me to babysit, and Mari’s his nanny now.”

“Right, you mentioned that. I like him.”

“I like him, too.”

“I like him better than Seth.”

I sighed. Yeah, me too. If only I had listened to my mom about him… But I couldn’t dwell on the past. I closed my laptop. “It’s not like that, Mom. Why do you like him, anyway? You met him for like thirty seconds.”

“Because he came in and introduced himself and then was a gentleman who helped you with your coat. Seth only ever honked his horn and dragged you out of my house before you were ready.”

I closed my eyes and tried not to feel like a teenager again. Moving back in with my mom felt like a step backward. The fact my career still wasn’t together didn’t help.

“You don’t have to keep throwing it in my face about how much of a failure I am,” I muttered.

Mom’s face fell. “Oh, honey, is that what you think?”