Page 12

12

KEANE

Now that I had settled into my new home with Boaz, received my replacement ID, thanks to losing mine behind the dumpster, and had recuperated, it was time to get back to the job hunt. As much as I dreaded it, not because I didn’t want to work—I did, but being rejected time and time and time again? That was crappy.

And then add to that, the last time I went out to pound the pavement, I’d been drugged. And that experience turned job hunting from being awful and bad for my self-esteem to also being dangerous. But I couldn’t let it get me down. I needed to do this. My mate deserved a mate who contributed.

I’d listened to far too many podcasts about how to get jobs lately, hoping for a hint of how to be successful and for a glimpse at what the current job market looked like. I was trying to find something… anything… to give me a leg up. They talked a lot about how to “brand” yourself, and there were a few hints on what to say when asked why you were fired from your last position. That was pretty helpful, given that saying, “My boss was a cheating asshole and I happened to see him out with his side piece, so he fired me to cover his own butt” wasn’t good optics.

I pulled up my job search profile and started browsing again, seeing if any company I was interested in had any listings. And then I took the risk—I started looking at jobs I didn’t quite qualify for, not in the truest sense, and decided that was the route to go. As long as I could sell myself, that tiny missing skill wouldn’t be noticed, right?

I filled out online application after online application after online application, only stopping when my mate insisted, telling me I’d done enough for the night. And then before I could get too in my head about all I could be doing to find work, he distracted me in the best possible way… with his tongue.

From the beginning, I knew that my place was by my mate’s side. Other than grabbing some things from my apartment, I hadn’t been back. He was mine and he was my home. Full. Stop.

Boaz offered to help me get a job, and he would, but I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to always be dependent on him. I wanted him to be able to depend on me, too. I couldn’t keep staying with my mate, eating his food, letting him spoil me, and not contribute. It just wasn’t in me.

He insisted I was contributing, by learning how to protect myself and by staying safe and blah blah blah . He never “blah blah blah-ed” or talked over me, but that was how my brain processed it. This was all self-imposed.

When I woke up, I declared today the day I was going to get a job. I printed out a bunch of résumés, threw on my best business casual, and headed to a new part of town. I was going to wait around for interviews that may never come. I was gonna do this.

It was a good day to go out looking too, because Boaz had a meeting that was going to take up a good chunk of his day, and frankly, knowing he was occupied had me not feeling guilty about being away from him. Because once again, I was self-imposing rules and regulations onto me. I needed to get over that.

The rideshare dropped me off at a central location and I took out my new phone, looked at my list of places to stop at, and went to the first one. It was a small office that was hiring and asked for people to apply in person. It sounded absolutely perfect… until I caught the person at reception, out of the corner of my eye, tossing the résumé straight into the trash. It was another case of “they weren’t really hiring.”

That was the most frustrating part of this. It wasn’t that I was applying for jobs and there were better candidates. Most of the jobs didn’t even exist from what I could tell. Why were they advertising them? I didn’t know. Humans were weird.

My next stop was a small insurance company that was looking for someone to watch the front desk. They called it some weird, bloated name, but that was what it boiled down to. And I got an interview on the spot, which felt great—and I thought I did really well. They said I would hear from them “soon,” only to discover, “soon” meant when I was one block down at a coffee shop grabbing something to drink where I got a text saying:

We’re sorry, but we’ve decided to go another direction.

And since there was no way they could’ve interviewed anyone else in that time, “another direction” was simply their way of saying: Not you.

A medical clinic was next. It was shifter-owned, and the person who took me to fill out the application—on their computer, which apparently were different from computers at home, told me very bluntly that they didn’t like to hire what they considered “prey.” Apparently, my beast just didn’t suit their big-cat vibes or whatever.

It was getting frustrating. That was a lie. It had long surpassed “getting” and was now in the middle of frustration dumpster fire.

I stopped at a little café for lunch and to recalculate my day. And while I was waiting for my sandwich, I got a text from my mate: I hope your day is going well. You’ve got this, Kitten. You’ve got this.

I looked down at the phone. He had so much more belief in me than I had in myself. Thanks, getting lunch now, and I punctuated it with three happy faces.

Then I put my phone back in my pocket just as my number was called. People were starting to come in, the cafe pretty crowded now, and I was glad I was able to get a table. My sandwich was good, but I spent most of the time tapping away at my phone, seeing if any new positions opened up.

“Anyone sitting here?” I looked up and saw a man who I guessed was either a bear or maybe a raccoon shifter. Hard to tell. Stupid nose.

I tilted my neck so he could see the mating mark on my shoulder, and he chuckled.

“No, I just need a place to eat.” He showed me his mark.

“Oh. Sorry. Please, join me.”

I liked that about the shifter community. You didn’t have to play the “Oh, I have a boyfriend” or “I don’t have a boyfriend” game. You just showed your mark. Boom. Done. Message received.

I went back to work, typing away on my phone, grabbing a bite of sandwich here and there as he ate. And eventually, I just gave up on finding more positions and put my phone down a little too hard.

“Bad day?” he guessed.

“Bad multiple days. I’m looking for a job, and either I can’t get an interview, or there is no real job, or once I do get an interview, they’re ‘going in another direction.’” I used air quotes for that.

“Well, I know a place that’s hiring. Not sure it’s what you’d be into.” That sounded cryptic, but I was desperate.

“I’m into just about anything right now.” I went on to tell him about how I caught my boss cheating on his husband and lost my position.

“Eek. That sucks.”

“Yeah, no kidding. So as you can see, I’m game.”

“All right. The bar is called Moonbound. Apparently, they hire anyone. Well, anyone that—you know—is like us.”

I assumed he meant shifter, but it felt too rude to ask if he was a cat too.

“Thanks for the help.”

“Yeah. No problem. We’ve all been there. Thanks for the table.”

I didn’t even catch his name as he walked away, and I decided to keep this bar as a last resort. I’d been down that route before, and it didn’t go very well.

Last resorts came quickly when you were looking for a job. Four hours later, I was walking into Moonbound. And unlike the last time I went through the service industry process, they said yes almost instantly.

I said, “I’m looking for a job,” and the bartender was like, “Let me get the boss man.” The owner came over, and… boom, I was hired.

They didn’t really ask me anything. Just said, “Here are the hours. Here’s the pay. You get tips. But if you break it, you pay for it. So don’t drop trays.”

I should’ve been happy. I should’ve been excited. I should’ve been thrilled. I got a job. One that was fairly easy as far as learning curves went.

But there was something about the owner that put me ill at-ease, and I couldn’t quite place what that was. He didn’t leer at me. It wasn’t sexual, for sure. Maybe I was just still holding on to what happened last time.

Whatever the case was, I wasn’t going to let that happen again, not at any bar. Because for all I knew, it was a patron who’d spiked the drink. If that was how I even got the drug in my system. We still didn’t quite know.

But bottled water from now on. Done.

“Thank you so much for the opportunity,” I said, shaking his hand.

“Sure. Be here tomorrow on time. Probably want your jeans a little snug, you know—for those tips.”

“…Yeah, okay. Can do.”

I left hating the discomfort I was feeling, but at least now I was going to be able to do my part.

And that was something, right?