I gave Tack back his phone, saying, “That’s really sweet but I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because you can get more out of it if you rent to someone else,” I explained what he well knew.

“Yeah, and we can get more headaches with dogs and lease jumpers and shit like that,” he returned.

“Not to mention, the expense of placing an ad in the paper,” Tyra put in.

I didn’t know how much ads cost but I did know that whatever they cost didn’t cover what they weren’t making if they rented their place to someone who could afford it.

“And we don’t go through a management company,” Tack added. “So we gotta go through applications, pay for credit checks, drop shit to do showings. It’s a pain in the ass. You take it, we don’t have to do any a’ that shit.”

Okay, well, I could imagine that none of that was fun, not to mention it had to be time consuming and pricey.

“When’s your lease up?” Tack pushed.

“It’s month to month. Where I am, they know not to try for anything over six months. Tenants are pretty transient,” I told him. “Once I did my first six months, they went month to month.”

“Notice?” he asked.

“I’d have to check but I think it’s a week.”

“Give it. We’ll get you in. Boys’ll help. First up, Tyra’ll show you around so you know it’s where you wanna be.”

I already knew it was where I wanted to be. Me, Travis, a clean, nice little house that was not in my current neighborhood. It was where I wanted to be.

But taking advantage of them wasn’t who I wanted to be.

I opened my mouth to reply, not knowing how to turn them down, but I didn’t get a word out.

The front door opened again, all eyes went to it, including mine, and I shut my mouth as this time my heart skipped before it squeezed when Joker strode in.

Unfortunately, my ride with Snapper had worn off by Sunday morning. I knew this when I woke up with a strange ache that had Joker and his brunette written all over it. Luckily, I had work to take my mind off of it and Travis back so the ache went away when my little boy again filled my life.

But even with work (and Travis) I thought of pretty much nothing but Joker, and I’d come to the realization that it wasn’t Joker’s fault. He didn’t lead me on. He didn’t give any indications (outside of returning that kiss) that he was interested at all.

So it was all me.

Still, it had hurt.

And seeing him right then, the ache came back.