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I jerked in shock and whirled to see Nick standing in the doorway of the cooler Shit! I’d been so absorbed in my pity party I hadn’t heard the cooler door

"Jesus, dude, you scared the crap out of me!" I yanked the zipper closed, then ht for a second that Nick was going to blockel?" Suspicion and worry darkened his voice

I paused, took a deep breath and turned back to hiri it on the last time I was here, and I’ve looked everywhere Stupid" I trailed off God, this was the duoing to buy this

But, shockingly, the suspicion in his face cleared "Oh," he said, brows drawing together in a slight frown

"That ain after it was in the bag with a decomp"

I uess the last one I worked on has already been picked up I , but I hate the thought of springing for a new one, y’know?" The lie caed "I guess," he said in a tone that told me he’d never really had to worry about money "You seriously caave him what I hoped looked like a sheepish smile "Yeah Hey, I have no life, y’know?" And if I didn’t find brains soon, I wouldn’t have any life

He rolled his eyes "Obviously"

Iand then made my escape

Chapter 28

I sat in my car and bit my lower lip as I considered , so there was no reason foryet about my next brain-er than I usually liked to go, but I was only barely beginning to s of o crazy with activity it should be at least another full day before I started actively rotting

Sooing to be fine Really

I groaned and restedwheel I suck as ato do and nowhere to go, so n that it was time for me to take the first step and see how much it would really cost to find a new place to live Tiht?

I drove to an apartment complex about five minutes from work--a nice place that looked clean and safe It didn’t have super-fancy landscaping or a guarded gate or anything like that, so hopefully it wouldn’t be too expensive I parked in front of the leasing office and tried to control the nervous flutters in my stomach, shamed by how clueless I was about the process Normal people would learn this stuff from their parents Or maybe even in school There’d been a class called Life Skills when I was in high school--the sort of class that had once been called Home Ec, but wasn’t called that anymore because that would be politically incorrect or some crap like that I’d even taken that class and s But the section on how to do stuff like balance a checkbook and et had been at the end of the seh rew up right and not a complete fuckup? My parents? Yeah, that was a joke Mom couldn’t stand to be around ht at basic dad stuff until he had to do it all hi at all By that tiot fed and had clothes to wear But there wasup than that

This is stupid, I chideda deep breath, I held it until spots swaoddarown-up now," II could handle this Okay, so I got screwed in the parenting depart that time back I could whine and bitch about it all I wanted, and it wouldn’t change a da that happened fro

With that attitude fir office

ByThe rent on the first place was half a etting the power turned on And if I wanted cable there was a deposit for that I knew I could live without the TV but not without power On top of that there was a forround check

I slunk out of there without filling out any applications or paperwork I looked at three other apartht be able to afford had cars on blocks in the parking lot and groups of shifty-eyed young men atched me in o the place leftthere