Page 1 of X's and O's

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VIOLET

“You do realize there’s this thing called email, don’t you? It’s where you do the typey-type with your fingers, hit send, and then poof! Your message is instantly delivered.” Toby eyed me with an up-and-down glance. Like we’d time-jumped back to the 1800s and my dowdy workpants had suddenly morphed into a corset dress, complete with a hoop skirt.

All because I wanted to send some snail mail.

I ignored my best friend’s disdain and stopped at the mailbox on the corner.

“If I see you kiss that envelope, Violet Garrisen, I swear, we can no longer be friends. That would just be too tragic for words.”

Toby’s perfectly plucked eyebrows furrowed deep in the middle. His words might have been laced with his usual sarcasm and sass, but he didn’t frown for no reason. He didn’t want to have to pay for the extra Botox to repair the damage to his wrinkle-free forehead.

He was worried about me.

I loved him for it. Truly, I did. Nobody cared about me the way Toby did. But we’d had this argument a million times over the last year, and I wasn’t willing to have it again.

Toby didn’t want me sending the letters, and I wasn’t willing to give them up.

I couldn’t.

I ran my fingers over the handwritten text on the envelope and then glanced back at him. “You should probably look away now.”

He groaned dramatically, grudgingly turning around to face the street.

When I was sure he was no longer watching, I quickly pressed my lips to the paper and dropped it into the box for the mailman to collect.

I knew it was ridiculous and I was acting like a teenager, but the giddy, excited feeling swirling in my belly was so sweet I couldn’t have stopped myself, even if I’d wanted to.

Toby still sulked on the sidewalk though.

I tucked my arm into his and tugged him along the path. “Come on. Don’t be a grump. I’m happy. Please just let me have this?”

He held his frown for a few seconds longer until a long sigh slipped out. “Fine. Be all gooey and in love.”

I grinned at him. He was average height for a man, but I was tall for a woman at five eleven, so we were eye to eye. “I know it’s gross to be this happy.”

He flicked his brightly painted fingernails dismissively. “Sogross. But it’s your life, girly-pop. You can buyme a bucket-sized caramel soy latte on your way home from work though, and all shall be forgiven. I won’t mention it again.” He shrugged. “At least not until the next letter I have to watch you smooch on.”

I chuckled, relieved he wasn’t really mad at me. I put my hand over my heart. “I wouldn’t dream of coming home empty-handed. I’ll stop by the café as soon as I’m finished at my next house.”

It was our ritual. He had a hot meal sitting on the table for me when I got home each night, and I brought him fancy coffees, which he called dessert, and somehow still managed to sleep before midnight.

I did not possess such skills, so I kept my coffee consumption limited to anything in the a.m. realm.

Though I could have used an extra today to prepare myself for the next few hours of scrubbing. I squinted at the street sign up ahead at the intersection.Olympic Drivewas printed in metallic letters. “Okay, this is me. My job should be just down here somewhere.”

“New client?” Toby asked.

“Yep, first clean. So I might be late.”

Toby shuddered, understanding that first cleans often took longer because people let the grime and mess build up for a while before calling in help. Once we were in a cycle of regular bi-weekly cleans, it was a breeze to get through, but the first one almost always needed a lot of elbow grease and time.

“Hope it’s not too gross.”

I shrugged. “It’s okay if it is.”

Toby might have hated to get dirt on his nicely moisturized hands, but I was used to it. I liked knowing I washelping people. Whether those people were stressed business execs, who worked too much and just wanted to come home to relax in a clean home. Or exhausted parents with toys everywhere, who needed an extra set of hands. I even liked the houses nobody else wanted. The ones where there was dirt and clutter and filth everywhere you looked, but in the middle of that was an elderly person too frail to keep on top of it, or someone struggling with their mental health.