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JOSHUA OPENED THE DOOR to his apartment, stepped in, and closed the door behind him.
The mountain of dishes stared back at him and Joshua blinked, a little surprised.
"Where is the cleaning service?" Joshua dropped his duffle bag from practice on the hardwood floor before digging out his cell phone.
"Hi, Marguerite's Cleaning Company!" An energized feminine voice came on the other line, "How can I help you?"
"Hi, yeah. Uh, my name is Josh Christopher and you guys have been cleaning my home on Wednesdays but today there wasn't any service and I was wondering why."
"Oh, let me look that up for you, sir," There was a pause and then the sound of faint typing.
"Oh. Sir, the credit card connected to your account belonged to Miss Ayoluwa Palmer and she requested that it be removed so we were unable to come to your home. Would you like to put a new card on your account today?"
Huh.
Joshua didn't realize that all these months he had been here alone while Ayoluwa had been on tour, that she had been paying for the cleaning service.
The least Ayoluwa could've done was tell him that she was canceling the cleaning service.
"Sir?" The mystery woman asked, "Sir?"
"Uh, no. Not today, at least." Joshua replied.
"Okay, very good, sir. Have a good day!" The line clicked off and Joshua had to take a deep breath in preparation.
Joshua kicked off his shoes, his phone still in his grip, as he strode over to properly examine the full sink.
While Joshua had been eating and cooked eggs for breakfast and takeout for everything since Ayoluwa usually cooked, he still liked to have his food on plates, which left a full sink.
Pulling open the cabinet underneath, Joshua began to rummage for a pair of yellow cleaning gloves when a FaceTime alert sounded from his cell phone.
Joshua propped the phone against the back of the granite covered kitchen island then answered the phone, "What's up, Woo?"
"Gup," Caleb shook his head.
Caleb's background was of his apartment back in San Diego, "Have you seen the shit they're saying about you?"
Joshua snapped on the cleaning gloves then grabbed a small frying pan with egg residue before scrunching up his face, a little, at the smell, "No and I don't care about what they're saying."
"You should," Caleb warned.
Joshua turned on the faucet all the way to hot and took a soap filled sponge in his dominant hand.
"What are you doing?" Caleb asked.
"The dishes," Joshua murmured before looking up at the camera, "This is what being single looks like."
Caleb snickered, "Did you tell mom that y'all broke up? You know she's not on social media."
"No, I don't have a plan for that just yet," Joshua scrubbed at the pan, "And you better not tell her."
"She's gonna be crushed. You're doing surprisingly well," Caleb noticed.
"Why I wouldn't be?" Joshua put the now clean pan on the drying rack.
"Uh, I don't know? Your girlfriend of almost four years left? You don't miss her at all?"
Joshua simply shrugged at that before moving on to the next pan full of burnt egg, "I'm not about to beg anyone to stay if they don't want to. The fuck I look like?"
Caleb shook his head at Joshua's statement, "Not senior year of high school Gup making an appearance. I thought being with Ayo would end all of that."
"End all of what?" Joshua creased his face in concentration, trying to scrape the egg off.
"The whole 'I don't wanna be with no one', 'fuck relationships' Gup."
"I'm done with that. Being with her helped me see that doing that was immature but," Joshua shrugged again before trailing off.
Caleb shook his head once more before looking over past his screen, "Aye, I gotta do something for work but I'll call you tomorrow to check if you've told mom."
Joshua groaned at that, "Let me tell her my own way."
"No. We all liked her," Caleb retorted.
"Bye, Woo." Joshua rolled his eyes before pressing the end buttons on the FaceTime and leaving a soapy imprint on the phone.
Later that night, Joshua tossed and turned in the bed, desperately trying to go back to sleep.
The room was dark and a little frigid, making Joshua pull up his white duvet over his bare chest.
Half sleep, he tried to pull the pillows from what used to be Ayoluwa's side, and pressed them underneath his head.
Admittedly, sleeping alone in the bed, especially when Ayoluwa was in the same state, wasn't something that Joshua was used to.
Old visions of her sneaking into his childhood bedroom when he was home from college, visits to his apartment in Dallas when he was on the Mavericks and him visiting her, those few months she was living in Inglewood back in 2022.
But he would have to get used to it now.
Groggily, Joshua got up and opened the bedroom door.
The moonlight on the windows of the penthouse exposed the scuff marks where the piano had once been.
Joshua walked across to the kitchen and opened the fridge.
Leftover Sweetgreen from earlier tonight had taken over the first floor, leaving just enough space for a six pack of Heineken.
Joshua took a bottle of beer from the fridge, opened it using the edge of the counter, then began to gulp at it, hoping it would get him tired enough to be able to sleep without her.
