Purely Primal

Chapter 2

Nadia put her work gloves in her locker and slid the florescent hoodie over her head stuffing it inside. Underneath, her spaghetti strap top was soaked in sweat. She sighed as she spread her arms to air out.

Her dark purple hair was tied back in a tight bun. She slipped her black hoodie over the now air cooled shirt and put her earbuds in before raising the hood; she gave her boss a wave as she walked out the sliding doors towards the bus stop.

She found that covering up was the easiest way to prevent people from gawking at her. She liked to dress up and go out but when she was going to and from work it was easier if people just assumed she was a guy and the baggy pants and hoodie facilitated that perfectly.

No one gave her a second glance as she got off the bus and walked past a closed night club up the road to her small efficiency apartment. It was convenient living a bus ride away from her job, another ride in the other direction took her to the community college for her night classes.

At 30 years old, she'd gotten a late start, her youth had been spent aimlessly jumping from temp job to temp job trying to make ends meet and putting a little away to send home.

When her dad had passed away the bills kept coming and her mom had only ever been a home maker so at seventeen, having just graduated high school, she took some of the money she had planned to use for college, left her mom and 3 year old sister came to the city for work. She visited occasionally but most of the time she had to get by on phone calls.

Nadia unlocked her door and sprawled out on the bed that doubled as her couch, at the same time closing the door with her foot. The space was really tiny. About two paces from her bed was the kitchen, a small flat screen TV hung on the dividing wall. A small shower cubicle and toilet adjoined her living/bedroom. They had crammed a dozen of these tiny apartments on one floor of the building but given the part of town it was in she only had about four neighbors. She liked it that way though, it was already so noisy with just five tenants, she couldn't imagine what it would be like if every apartment were filled.

The walls were thin, she could hear everything going on, when someone vacuumed, when the game was on, when people were getting, ahem, intimate. She hated the idea that people could hear her so she kept her earbuds in and her noise production to a minimum.

She jumped in the shower and put on a fresh pair of cargo pants, a baggy t-shirt and a ball cap, tucking all of her hair under it neatly, grabbed her backpack and headed out the door. She walked past the club back towards the bus stop but paused when she saw a familiar truck.

She stood there a moment, watching as the large man from the hardware store, picked up three of the two by fours she had helped him load earlier. Her breath caught as she watched the muscles of his arms bunch as he lifted the boards, placing the balance point on his shoulder, and carefully maneuvered the planks through a loading dock door.

She remembered when the place had been severely run down, the roll up doors that would have been used for deliveries had been missing for years, but this guy had done a lot of work and now it was one of the nicest buildings in the area.

Too often she was taller than the guys around her so she really took notice when the top of her head came to his chin. As she approached the truck she looked in the back, there were long paper wrapped packages inside the truck from somewhere else along with the wood and hardware.

She was still very curious as to what kind of furniture required all of the hardware he had purchased.

"Hey bud! Whatcha doing over there?" She jumped guiltily and started walking quickly away. She glanced over her shoulder, the beast was peering into the back of his truck, she guessed he was trying to ascertain if anything had been stolen. He didn't follow so she assumed he was satisfied that she hadn't.