"I was wondering what kind of girl could have botched up a rescue attempt so badly. Now that I know it was you all along, everything makes sense."
"Go away."
Rome runs his nose down the side of my face, smiling at the way I shiver. "After all thes...
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AT FIRST, I THINK IT'S AN ERROR.
"Hey Jack?" I nudge his shoulder with mine. "My schedule is giving me six hours for this task. Is this is a mistake?"
Jack puts his weed-cutter to the side to glance at the tablet, and just snorts. He shakes the hair out of his eyes. "Nah, that's a deep-cleanse. They usually take a couple of hours."
"But I've done deep cleanses before," I click on the tab on my schedule, but it doesn't give me any additional information. "They take a while, sure, but never longer than three hours."
"Then you haven't seen Rome Abernathy's room."
Jack's right.
When I reach Rome Abernathy's bedroom, I have to check my tablet to make sure I got it right and didn't mistake for a lounge or a library. It's bigger than the entire floor of my apartment - stretching out to an entire corner of the mansion and containing two different floors.
The first floor contains its own lounge, a walk-in closet and state-of-the-art bathroom. The second floor holds a bathroom and Rome's private library.
"That was my first reaction too," Jill, my partner for this task, rolls in the cleaning art. "Take it all in. I won't judge."
I step on to the cushioned rug, antique and the color of red wine, to take a slow round. The walls and pillars swirl with colors of silver and white marble while dark wood sheathes the floors.
Glass shelves have built into the left wall, containing photos of Rome shaking hands with world-leaders and platinum-plated trophies. On the back wall, three large paintings hang under dim lights all signed Thank you to Rome from mysterious signatures.
"This is... really something."
"Imagine living like this," Jill sighs. "Sometimes when I'm all alone, I throw myself onto the bed and let myself pretend that I'm a princess living in a castle. Silly, I know."
I smile at the thought of Jill tossing herself onto Rome's specially-made Italian mattress. "But it's nice to indulge in childish fantasies on occasion."
"I guess so."
I stare at the dangling silver lanterns for another two seconds, then blink out of my daze.
Jill and I walk up to the second floor so we won't have climb upstairs later when we're tired. While she irons Rome's emerald green drapes, I clean and dust his bookshelves. He has everything from massive religious texts to trashy erotica novels.
Together, we clean Rome's room. We repaint the walls, varnish the floors, vacuum the rugs and shampoo the carpets. Minute by minute, hour by hour, Jill and I take apart each section of Rome's bedroom and put it together again. As we roll to the end of our shift, my head swims with all of the cleaning chemicals.
