Page 69 of Trailer Park Billionaire

“Alright, I’ll take you home then.”

Oh, no. That’s not good. I’m not even going home.

The way I know her, she’s not going to leave me a choice here.She may be under the impression we don’t lie to each other, but I probably should in this instance.

“Actually, I’m getting picked up in a bit,” I answer.

Elaine sits up straight. She knows about my (non-existent) social life, she knows I don’t have anyone who could pick me up, apart from my grandpa.

I try to take the wind out of her sails before she goes full CSI. “It’s not what you think.”

“What do I think, Helena?” she asks, narrowing her eyes, fishing for details.

“I’m not dating anyone.”Friends. We’re friends. That makes sense. I’ll tell her we became friendly during the tour.“It’s just Mr. Lyon. We’re?—”

“MR. LYON?” Elaine shouts more than anything. “YOU’RE DATING BEN LYON? BEN FREAKING BILLIONAIRE LYON?”

Ha! Billionaire. Rich and powerful my ass.

“Nope.” I try to shut this down immediately. I guess I don’t actually need to lie. “I’m not dating a billionaire. Ben and I just got to talking during the tour, and he offered to help with?—”

“It wasn’t him, was it?” she cuts in, sounding serious, gesturing to my black eye.

“NO!” I exclaim, feeling almost personally attacked by the suggestion. Ben is many things, but he would never hit me.Unless I asked him, maybe. In a very different way, though.“No, of course not. He had nothing to do with it. It was just an accident, like I said.”

Elaine narrows her eyes again. This time, I think she may believe me. “So Ben Lyon is your boyfriend, hm?”

The word boyfriend makes me shudder. “He’s not.”

“Right. Well, all of this is still very suspicious. Wait here,” she says, and disappears from the lab as quickly as she had appeared.

I finish cleaning and packing up my things to meet Ben. My boss returns ten minutes later with a bag slung over her shoulder. She closes the door behind her and sets a little spray bottle on my desk.

“Pepper spray,” she explains. “Just in case.”

That’s… actually kind of sweet.

Before I can thank her, she digs into her bag some more and pulls out a knife, placing it next to the pepper spray.

“A dagger?” I ask, squinting at it. “From the Civil War?”

She shrugs. “Best I could do on short notice. It was either that, or a butter knife from the kitchen… or a saber from the Napoleonic period, but those are a bit unwieldy. You can just put it back in the archives when you don’t need it anymore.”

I should probably be surprised by her stealing from the museum in an attempt to protect me, but I’m not. This is very much in line with how I’ve gotten to know Elaine over the years. Guess I’ll take another trip to the archives before I’m meeting Ben.

She reaches into her bag one last time and pulls out a whistle. “I got that from Pat. He’ll be fine without.”

“Elaine—”

“And,” she finishes, sliding a small foil square across the desk, “protection of a different kind.”

Oh, boy.

What do you even say to that? To your boss giving you condoms and stealing artifacts from a museum?

“That’s alright, Helena.” Elaine clearly notices my expression. “I hope you know how much I—we all—care about you here at the museum. I—and everyone else—would do anything to help you, okay?”

Slightly weird but also incredibly nice? That about sums up Elaine.