BLACKHOUSE [H.S.]

Three

I wake up to the sound of my phone ringing, my eyes shooting open in startle. I reach over to my bedside table to grab it, seeing that it's Cass. It's 9:32 am, way too early for me to be awake, especially now that I don't have a job.

"Hello?" I whisper groggily.

"Wake up bitch! I might have just gotten you a new job!" She squeals into the phone.

Why does she have to be so loud?

"A little quieter Cass," I groan. My head is pounding from all the cheap rosé we drank last night. "What are you talking about?"

"The job at that tattoo shop, remember?" She asks. "We literally talked about this last night."

"Oh right, right. With that guy you used to hook up with." I slowly sit up and stretch, laying against the headboard.

"Duh! So get your ass up, you have a job interview at noon," she says excitedly. "I'll be there in 20!"

"Wait but I-" I begin to say, but Cass hangs up before I can finish.

Well, shit.

I am not prepared for a job interview. She didn't even give me a second to think about it. I have a feeling that this whole situation has a little more to do with that guy than it does with me. The sex must have been pretty good for her to be this excited.

I pull my thick comforter off of me and turn to place my feet on the floor, standing up to make my way to the kitchen counter. I reach into the cupboard to the right of my fridge and pull out the package of K-cups placed on the second shelf, popping one in the red Keurig sitting in front of me.

If I'm going to do this interview so last minute, I have to be caffeinated.

As I wait for my coffee maker to do its thing, I head to the bathroom to take a quick shower before Cass gets here. I twist the knob and wait a second for it to warm up before getting in. When the burning hot water hits the front of my body, I let out a big sigh.

I truly did not think I would get an interview anywhere this quick, let alone at a tattoo shop. I looked into a couple shops before I got the job at Genevieve's and all the ones I called said they have their apprentices work the front desk, which makes sense.

Like I told Cass, it's because they don't want to pay them. It's kind of fucked up if you think about it, but you've got to do what you've got to do I guess.

I never met the guy she was seeing last year; the relationship was very short-lived. All I know is that he called things off because he didn't want anything serious. I'm pretty sure he's twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old, so the fact that this grown man just wanted to sleep around is crazy to me. I've heard that a lot of tattooers are like that, though.

Come to think of it, I don't even know his name, or the shop's name for that matter. I'm praying that they're nice; with tattoo artists they're either super chill or total dicks, there's no in between. It would also be pretty cool to get free tattoos.