The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag Read Online Free Page B

Leo sighed dreamily and it clicked into place.
    “Uh oh, you met someone. Where and what’s he like? Come on Leo, dish.”
    “Perhaps I’m happy just because the sun is shining and here I have a few minutes to talk to my very best friend. Does everything in the world need to be about a man?”
    “Yes,” we answered at the same time and laughed.
    “So come on, get to the juicy stuff. What does he look like?” No man would ever be good enough for my pal, not only is he a total peach on a fast track for sainthood, he looks a bit like a mature Jude Law, only less broody. Chances were good that I’d feel the same way about both Kenny and Josh when they started dating, so smothering Leo was good practice.
    “Where are you?” Leo asked again.
    “Where are you?” I shot back and moved over to the side of the road to let a car pass. Instead, the vehicle slowed and the window rolled down to reveal a grinning Leo.
    “Want some candy, little girl?”
    “You’re a sick, sick man. How did you find me?” I shut my phone and climbed into the car.
    “I went to your house first and when no one answered, I called you. The wheezing tipped me off. Thought you could use a ride home. Or an oxygen tank.”
    “Quit picking on me and spill.”
    Leo loved to tell drawn-out stories and he was quite good at painting a picture. “Since it was my night off, I went to a party in South Boston with a few of my friends. Do you remember Dillon?”
    “The angel who made me those slipcovers?” Without consulting me, my mother-in-law had purchased a sofa and matching love-seat for us for Christmas. It may have been a nice gesture, if made out of kindness instead of mortification. Or if the furniture had been scotch-guarded to protect the gleaming white upholstery.
    “That’s him. Anywho, he bought this fab mini-mansion, which he just finished renovating. Total Greco-Roman masterpiece, sculpted columns, authentic wall treatments throughout. He had the idea he’d do a restore and flip, but with the markets cooling off, he got stuck with it.”
    “Yikes, makes me glad we unloaded our house in Virginia Beach when we did.” I’d been following the housing bubble story online and some of the tales curled my hair. My own personal nightmare is to be penniless and at the whim of the universe. It’d happened before and I’d survived, but the thought of losing everything, of being so poor I couldn’t buy food for my family gave me palpitations.
    “Well, he rented out the upstairs half for a song so he could keep up with mortgage payments.” Leo was like a little kid saving his favorite piece of candy ‘til last.
    “And…,” I prompted. Leo pulled up to my house.
    “Do you have any good coffee? Not that generic brand swill, but fresh-off-the-Columbian-mule coffee?”
    “I swear; you are such a drama queen.”
    “Hello kettle, this is the pot calling and I’m sorry to say it, but you’re black.”
    “Fine, I’ll make you some real coffee.” I lunged from the car, and slammed the door. So what if I was proving his point?
    My freezer was stocked for a Leo visit and I retrieved a bag of whole bean medium-dark and tossed it at his head. “You make the coffee. I need a shower.”
    “Work on my day off? You must be joking.”
    “You brought it on yourself, pal. Besides, you make better coffee.”
    “True, true. It’s such a burden being me.” Leo knew where I kept everything and he already had the filter in place by the time I left the kitchen.
    I have showering down to a science. I don’t have to look good afterwards. I can go from mud wrestler filthy to sparkling clean in under two minutes. The low-maintenance look, or as close as I get to it without resembling an alpaca. Neil appreciates this about me and I usually ignore my dormant and understated pride, except when I want to make an impact. Then it takes over an hour to get myself whipped together.
    Leo didn’t need me to impress him, so after I garbed my frame in a faded