Page 14 of All’s Well that Friends Well (Lucky in Love #2)

JULIET

I will smell like disinfectant for the rest of my life. This is my perfume now.

I am a walking fire hazard.

My mind throws out all sorts of protests as I bend over a toilet bowl, scrubbing furiously at a mystery stain I have no desire to identify, but I keep my mouth clamped shut.

Partly because I want to inhale as few chemicals as possible, but also because I need this job. I basically begged for this job.

Which means I can’t complain.

I can’t complain that my back hurts, or that my hands are cramping, or that my scalp feels itchy from sweat.

I just have to keep scrubbing, and scrubbing, and scrubbing. When I’m done scrubbing, I have to replace the toilet paper. When I’m done replacing toilet paper, I have to move over one stall…and do the whole thing again.

It’s temporary, I remind myself as I work, and a thrill courses through me at the thought of my phone call with Cyrus earlier.

I’m not sure what that emotion is—excitement, anxiety, nerves?

But Cy got recommendations from the counseling office at the university where he works.

I would have to be a current or prospective student to go in and meet with them, but they told him about a few career evaluations online.

Most of them require payment for access to the full panel of results, but there are a few that offer a smaller range of results for free. I think that’s where I’ll start. Those links should be in my inbox by now, but my phone is in my cubby in the storeroom.

So, for now, I wait; I immerse myself in the toilet-scrubbing present. At least I’m getting paid—I’m earning money with my own two hands and my sore back and my aching feet. And that?

That feels good. It feels good enough to cancel out the gross toilet smell and the impatience I feel over wanting to check for Cy’s email. So I keep going, and I even manage to hum a little tune.

ABBA, obviously.

I’m halfway through “Mamma Mia” when the door to the restroom creaks open, even though I’ve got the Closed for Cleaning sign propped outside.

“Hi,” I say over my shoulder, the word reverberating in the small tiled room. “We’re currently cleaning in this one.”

“I know,” a breathless female voice responds. “Sorry. I just really have to go and the other one is so far away?—”

“That’s fine,” I say with a shrug, because what else am I supposed to do?

“Thanks,” she says, and then she closes herself in the stall at the end of the row, one I’ve already cleaned.

“No problem.” I turn back to my work and glance at the floor. I don’t trust it to be clean enough to kneel on, so I remain hunched over. I do what I can with the toilet brush and then get to my feet, after which I wobble out of the stall—just in time to see the other woman reappear.

We stare at each other for a good three seconds, until finally she speaks.

“Juliet? Juliet Marigold?”

The smile I dredge up is weak at best. “Marianne, hi.” I clear my throat. “How’s it going?”

Marianne Florissant has clearly undergone a major glow-up since our high school days, and she looks fantastic. Her hair is long and sleek and auburn rather than mousy brown; her teeth are perfectly white, and she’s curvier than before, too.

“You look amazing,” I say before she can answer my question. “It’s been…what? Five years? Six?”

“Something like that,” she says slowly as her bright blue gaze roves over me—contacts, I’m pretty sure, but a great color on her. Her eyes widen with surprise when she finds the bottle of cleaner in my hand, and then her brow furrows with confusion.

Marianne and I were part of the same group in high school—ate at the same table in the lunchroom, took the same limo to prom, studied together for the same tests and finals.

There were five or six of us, and we were decently close, though not close enough to keep in touch.

This is the first time I’ve seen her since we graduated.

I knew I might run into people from school here at Explore—and I’ve already seen Quincey Brewer—but somehow I didn’t expect an old friend.

Are we still friends? She’s giving me a look .

Like, a look look. An awkward look. A bewildered look. A this-is-weird look.

“I just started working here,” I say, straightening up despite my sore back.

I refuse to admit that the heels were a mistake, either—at least until I get home—so I force myself not to wince at the bite of pain on the back of my feet.

“I’m a cleaner.” It sounds more professional than the word janitor, but I hate that I even care.

Caring what other people thought of me was the gateway to a life that almost destroyed me. I won’t go there again. So I give in to the desire to slump, just a little bit.

I need a massage.

“Well,” Marianne says, the word skeptical and still confused, “it’s great to see you.” She gestures at the sink and goes on, “I’m just going to?—”

“Oh, of course,” I say, and she crosses to the sink. There’s a very awkward pause while she washes her hands, and the only goodbyes we exchange are halfhearted nods.

It’s a distinctly uncomfortable experience, though not for any reason I can pinpoint.

I spend the rest of the day cleaning and stocking the bathrooms and kitchen on the second floor, and by the time I’m able to go home, I haven’t seen Luca once.

I did entertain brief thoughts of sneaking around to find where he works, but ultimately I decided against it; it felt like a bad idea for my first day.

So I drift tiredly back to the storage room, bucket of supplies in hand, and clock out.

I can feel Quincey’s eyes on me, but I ignore them.

I just want to go home and get out of these clothes. Shower. Moisturize. Lie down on my back. And then, once I’ve made myself as comfortable as humanly possible, I want to take the career evaluation .

I’ll see where my future truly lies.

I’m the first one home when I pull into the driveway at five-thirty, but in the fifteen-minute window of my shower, India and Poppy manage to show up—and Poppy doesn’t even live with us.

“Hey, Chickadee,” she says brightly to me when I round the corner into the kitchen.

She’s sitting next to India at our little wooden table, and her sunshine smile is bright.

Her dark curly hair is wrangled into a bun on the top of her head, but usually she lets it do what it wants, curling this way and that to frame her face.

“I haven’t seen you in forever,” I say with a pout, slouching over to her and leaning down to wrap my arms around her neck from behind. I rest my head on her shoulder as she hugs my arms and laughs, twisting her head to look up at me.

“It’s only been a week,” she says. “How was your first day?”

India nods from next to us, picking at a loose thread in her leggings. “Seconded. How was it?”

I sigh, and I’m just about to answer when I hear the garage door opening. India looks at me in surprise.

“Is Aurora home already?” she says. “This is early for her.”

She’s right; Aurora doesn’t work until eight every night or anything, but it’s not even six yet.

“I guess so,” I say as together we turn our heads and stare at the laundry room door, waiting for Aurora to emerge from the garage entrance.

Sure enough, ten seconds later she comes stomping in, her expression grouchy, her ponytail tighter than usual.

“Hey,” she says when her eyes land on us, her voice tired, her posture softening. “Hey, Pop,” she adds to Poppy.

“You look…” India begins, but she trails off into silence.

“Annoyed,” Aurora says succinctly. “I’m annoyed.”

India clears her throat, and I stand up, releasing Poppy from our hug.

“Did something happen with Bart?” I say.

I drift closer to Aurora for a surreptitious sniff, just to see if she smells like cologne today—she does, but not as strongly.

Then I casually redirect toward the cabinet where we keep Band-Aids and our basket of medicine.

I pull out two Band-Aids for my feet and return to the kitchen table, waiting for Aurora to answer.

“Not really,” she says finally, stepping out of her shoes.

She places them neatly on the shoe rack and wiggles her toes.

“I don’t think?” She shrugs, and I’m not surprised; Aurora is not great with feelings or relationships or delving deep emotionally.

She’d rather just clean the house top to bottom while blasting music until she can set her negative feelings aside.

“You don’t think?” India says, one brow quirked.

“That’s not convincing,” Poppy says in a soft voice; her lack of surprise tells me that India has already filled her in. Like Cyrus, she’s two years older than Aurora; unlike Cyrus, she’s cheerful and sweet, basically another sister to all of us.

“I don’t know,” Aurora says uncomfortably.

She’s got on a typical work outfit today—a black pencil skirt, white blouse, and a light gray cardigan.

Boring colors aside, she’s still a complete bombshell.

I was always jealous of Aurora growing up, because she was so free-spirited, so naturally good at anything she did.

She always knew exactly what she wanted, and she went for it.

“I don’t know,” Aurora repeats, sighing now. “It’s fine. He’s fine. He’s just a little obnoxious sometimes. Very…business guy, sort of.” She pauses. “He probably wore polo shirts with popped collars when that was popular.”

“Ew,” India and I both say together, our noses wrinkling.

“You know,” Poppy says, nudging India with her elbow as a gleam of laughter enters her eyes, “I bet your boyfriend wore a popped collar, too.”

India groans and covers her eyes. “You’re probably right,” she says, even as I nod.

I bet Felix Caine did wear polo shirts with popped collars, and they probably looked great on him.

My thoughts jump to Luca as my mind tries to conjure an image of him with a popped collar, but the idea is so strange that I can’t even picture it. He wouldn’t wear anything preppy—not now, anyway. He’s practical, put together, but never flashy or showy.