Side Hustle (Jobs from Hell #4) - Marika Ray Page 0,1

this just moves up my timeline.” I tried a smile on for size, and based on the way Titus’s frown didn’t break even for a second, I wasn’t very convincing.

“Hey, beefcakes! How about y’all lift some heavy stuff, huh?” Hazel’s chipper voice rang out in the almost empty living room, her animated wink telling us she was joking around. I grimaced back at her.

Needing to avoid looking at her pretty face at all costs, I glanced around the room and tried to forget about her. Who would have thought most of the furniture in here was actually Titus’s? I had a bed, a fridge, one recliner, and an ancient truck outside. Shit. I didn’t even have a TV. That was the long and short list of my possessions at the ripe old age of twenty-nine.

“Huh. I always thought I’d have my life together by now,” I murmured to no one in particular.

Good thing, because no one was listening. Hazel bent down to lift another box, her nose scrunched up in concentration. Titus had left my side to grab Amelia’s ass while she squealed and ran away, tossing curses over her shoulder. This moment was eerily similar to my entire life. If Hazel was the pesky biting fly, I was the wallpaper. Forever condemned to watch everyone else have a life while I remained ignored and useless.

Fuck. Me.

“Leave a message and I’ll consider getting back to you. Beep.”

Bain’s voicemail message was as friendly as you’d expect from a prison warden.

“Hey, man. It’s Rip. Just calling to see how things are. Call me later.”

I hung up and stared at my phone like it might have the answers I was searching for. I’d left messages for Charlie, Jayden, and now Bain. Not one of them had answered or called back. My left eyelid started to twitch again. I jammed the palm of my hand against my eye socket and paced my empty living room. Titus had finished moving out hours ago and I was still here trying to figure out what to do with my life. If I sniffed just right, I could still smell Hazel’s perfume wafting in the air. It was sickly sweet and fucking irritating. Why’d she have to put so much on? Why’d she have to be the one to help Amelia and Titus today? Literally anyone else would have been better.

My pacing led me to the fridge where I contemplated the leftover six-pack of beer we’d cracked at the end of moving Titus out. Drinking alone didn’t really sound all that healthy, though. If I started that, I’d probably never come back out of the pit of despair and self-loathing I found myself rapidly sliding into.

I had an itch just below my skin and I couldn’t get to it. It was driving me insane.

Tipping my head back to the worn-out ceiling, I yelped like some sort of injured animal. Yep. I yelled nothing at no one all by myself in my house. I was officially losing my mind.

Fuck this shit.

I spun, grabbed my keys, and hightailed it out to my tank of a truck. I needed a change of scenery. A lungful of fresh air. A glance at the full moon. Maybe some communing with nature would spark something to life inside my bored, restless soul.

Driving without seeing where you’re going probably wasn’t my best idea, but I found myself parking just behind the Hill Hotel in the downtown area. The place had started to look a little shabby around the edges lately. Probably because Amelia didn’t work there anymore and she’d singlehandedly run that place for years while the owner sat back and enjoyed his steady income. But it wasn’t the hotel I was interested in. It was the plot of land directly behind it.

The second I slammed the truck door behind me, it went dark all around, leaving only the faint glow from the moon to help me find my way. Gravel crunched under my feet. An owl hooted from somewhere in the tall trees. This land had been in my family for generations. A hilly ten acres no one seemed to care about. Even my opportunity-grabbing father hadn’t seen fit to put a business on this plot of land seeing how it was set back from the main road and hilly enough to cause issues putting a building on it.

One day it would be mine. Well, if my father ever remembered I existed and transferred it to me out of the last speck of goodness