It was not what you would expect from a woman like Faith. Most people who met her figured she lived in some bare-walled old warehouse and slept on a bed of nails. But, prickly demeanor aside, she was a girl and she liked girly things from her nail polish to her sheets and everything in between.
Besides, some of said prickly-ness was bluster. Granted she could and she would put any man down who messed with her, but all the snark and bitchiness... that was just to keep people from trying to get too close.
"Still alive, huh?" she asked as she walked to the kitchen, looking into the two-gallon modern-looking square tank with the LED light where her betta fish, Rhoda, lived. It was actually a parting gift from an asshole ex who gave it to her with the hopes that it would teach her how to 'nourish someone else'.
The bastard.
The joke was on him though because it was never that Faith couldn't nourish anyone, it was that she had absolutely no fucking plan to nourish a grown ass man whose mother obviously didn't cut the apron strings soon enough.
In fact, just about two minutes after he walked out of her then-apartment, she had ran down to the pet store and loaded up on a tank, filter, live plants, food, and a quirky Easter Island big head statue.
Then she went home, named the bright red thing Rhoda after Rhoda Morgenstern from The Mary Tyler Moore Show and nurtured the fuck out of that fish. Which was why he (apparently Rhoda was male) was still living almost seven years later when they generally didn't live beyond five.
She fed Rhoda and moved off toward the bathroom to shower, something she always did after a shift. Though she had long-since become accustomed to the booze and fruit and mixer smells on her skin and didn't notice it anymore, she knew it was there and she didn't want that all over her sheets.
The fact that as she undressed, what popped into her mind was a set of very dark, very hypnotizing brown eyes and a set of lips she had really wanted to taste, yeah, she pretended that meant nothing. Which lasted maybe five minutes before her hand had to slide down her body and take care of the clawing need before it drove her half-crazy.
Changed into an oversize tee and panties, she walked back into the living room and put on water for tea as she checked her landline. She had a cell, but sometimes there were people and places you didn't want to give that number out to.
"Ms. Costa, this is Marion from Clearview. We need you to come in to fill out some new forms for your mother. She is getting moved to the new wing on Monday and we need the transfer papers signed. If you could give me a call at..."
Faith sighed, rolling her neck.
Why she was putting off the inevitable was beyond her. She was maybe just tired of that place, of all the memories in it. She went as often as her schedule would allow and, with a new trainee, that meant for the next month or so she wouldn't be there more than a time or two.
Not that her mother would notice.
But that was beside the point really.
Even if she didn't notice, she owed it to her to show her face and make sure she was being properly taken care of.
But getting her transferred meant Faith would have to talk to Vin and she really didn't want to.
Though, he was in no position to turn down her request for a bigger check every month.
She'd struck her deal with him the day she turned eighteen and there was no going back. For either of them.
She made her way back to bed, knowing she would only get a couple hours now that she had to stop by Clearview before hitting the Y to teach her usual Krav Maga class.
Then she had to do a busy Friday on barely any sleep side-by-side with Danny.
But, it turned out to go relatively smoothly. She gave a large amount of credit to the extra large coffee with three shots of espresso that Milo, the dessert guy, made her when she came in for her shift and started snapping at people for no good reason. With all that caffeine in her system, she felt like she could do anything.
And she did.
And nothing happened.
Not all night Friday or all night Saturday.
They worked and cleaned side-by-side and Danny kept his hands to himself more often and she made an effort to not be a bitch because that would only lead to more confrontations with him and confrontations with him, she was beginning to see, seemed to lead to open displays of their mutual sexual attraction.
But Sunday was slow.
This was largely due to the fact that Vin refused to put TVs in his bar. He thought it was tacky and encouraged patrons to be anti-social. So anyone who liked sports, which was the biggest chunk of the male population, hiked it to literally any other bar in the city. And where the hot guys went, so did the girls.