Business as Usual (Off The Subject) by Denise Grover Swank Page B

morning is a good idea? But this is an easy, no brainer job and it pays better than my other two. I don’t dare fuck it up.
    I climb out of bed, my erection demanding attention. It pisses me off that I’m hard for that bitch, but she knows what to do with that body of hers and my dick remembers every last trick. Thank God I told her no the last time I saw her. Otherwise, I have no doubt I’d be sitting in a jail cell right now, awaiting my trial.
    I grab a pair of jeans off the floor and pick up a T-shirt, sniffing it before I pull it over my head. The beauty of this janitorial job is that I don’t have to wear a uniform. The office building I clean is empty, so as long as I’m wearing clean clothes—questionable at the moment—my boss doesn’t care if I show up in jeans and a T-shirt.
    I slide my feet into my shoes and grab my phone and keys off the nightstand. If it were a school day, I’d make coffee, but there’s an industrial-sized machine in the kitchen at the office. And there will be plenty of refills to get me through the day.
    Hillsdale isn’t a big town, nor is it affluent, which is why Southern University is a strange fit. One of the two local manufacturing plants has laid off half its work force and, the way things are going, it will soon close its doors. The town’s hurting bad and my father’s heating and cooling business is hurting right along with it. Before my arrest, Dad wanted to leave the business, Masterson H&C, to Kyle and me, but now he’s planning on saving the whole thing for Kyle. I wonder what will be left of it by the time my little brother is ready.
    Despite the fact that I hate waking up at o-dark-thirty to go to work on Saturday mornings, once I get there, I usually enjoy it. With no one else around, I can plug in my headphones and listen to music while I clean. And I carry my backpack around, so I can study in between tasks. If I didn’t have my notes with me, I’d go insane. Busy work isn’t enough to keep my brain occupied for eight hours. I have no idea how my friend Bobby can stand working on the assembly line at the plant. He was one of the lucky employees who kept his job. Although the term lucky is relative, I guess.
    I unlock the front door and scan my ID card to get into the building. The door lock pops and I close myself inside, ready for my eight hours away from the world. Coffee is first on my list, and then I’ll start cleaning.
    The day goes by quickly and I’m actually feeling better about my history exam by the time I head back to my apartment, but I’ve spent more time than I care to admit thinking about Alexa, the girl from the play. She caught my attention the moment she walked into the bar last night, but when she started to tell me about her work with the charity, I became seriously intrigued.
    Alexa was so animated as she spoke about her plans for the expanded summer program, which is obviously much more than a resume booster for her, and several things struck me as I stopped what I was doing to watch her. One, she was in charge of the program, as bizarre as that seemed given the fact she looked all of nineteen or twenty. Two, if I had two functioning brain cells left I would have carded her before taking her drink order. And three, all I could think about were her lips and what it would be like to kiss her.
    And that alone is reason for me to worry about my sanity. I’ve given up women, especially Southern women, and even though she didn’t admit to being a college student, something tells me that Alexa is most definitely a Southern woman.
    Still, her idea is incredible and I can’t help but think about how much I would have loved to attend something like that when I was Kyle’s age. Nevertheless, there’s no way she can raise that many thousands of dollars, not to offer the courses she has planned while still making it worthwhile for the instructors. And I find myself disappointed, not only for my brother but also for Alexa.
    By the time I get