The Apartment: The Complete Affair Read Free

mentally getting back into gear for work. Lily ignored the small blades of grass that fell to the floor as she did so.
    “I just wanted to make sure that you knew there was a red chart up in Room 4.”
    “Oh! How long?” She glanced down at her watch that cost more than Lily made in a year.
    “Less than five minutes.”
    Natalie wasted no time, shoving her coat and purse in Lily’s hands. “Be a dear and stick those in my office, would you?”
    “Sure thing.” When Natalie passed her, Lily noticed a small green leaf sticking out of the back of her hair. “Hold on,” she warned. Knowing that Natalie would be mortified if any patients saw her so disheveled, Lily bit the bullet and plucked the offending leaf from her hair.
    Natalie blushed but recovered quickly. “Thanks. We had lunch at the new greenhouse in the park. I must have brushed against a branch.” And with that she was gone, off to impress another red sticker.
    “Hey, what are you doing tonight?” Becky asked when Lily finally returned to her desk.
    “Gym, then home.”
    “Lily, that’s what you do almost every night! You never go out. Why don’t you come out with me and Jared later? We’re going to grab a few drinks.”
    “I can’t. It’s a weeknight. I really need to get home and make dinner. Maybe some other time, though.”
    But they both knew that there would never be another time. Becky had been asking her for years to hang out, and Lily always had some reason not to.

Chapter 2
    A few hours later, Lily was driving downtown in her massive old car toward the gym. As she watched the now familiar landmarks go by, she let her mind wander back to Becky’s invitation.
    It wasn’t that Lily didn’t like her; Becky was the sweetest person she’d met since she’d moved to town three years ago. However, almost a straight year of having no time to herself while nursing her father, George, back to health after a heart attack, combined with being a naturally shy person to begin with, had left Lily almost completely antisocial.
    The heart attack itself hadn’t been so bad; the worst part was that her father had been driving down Main Street at the time and had lost control of his car, swerving into the stupid town clock that stood right in the middle of the intersection. The impact had totaled his Chevy and shattered his hip, resulting in major surgery and months of bed rest.
    The funny thing about declining Becky’s invitation was that Lily was actually desperate for something different in her life, a change of pace. She wanted to get out and live for once. Her father had eventually healed up, and with the help of a cane he had returned to his job as the high school guidance counselor. The problem was that he was so happy to have someone at home helping him with his day-to-day activities that he tended to play up how helpless he was, knowing Lily was a sucker for helping people. It had worked for a while, but she was beginning to get annoyed with him. George got everything he wanted, while Lily disappeared deeper inside herself.
    As she pulled into a parking space, she thought about the fact that even though this time of day was precious to her, she didn’t really care about going to the gym every day. She wasn’t some vapid hardbody who lived to feel the burn, but it provided her with a few short hours of alone time and allowed her to work out her frustrations physically. Actually, there was nothing she loved more than popping in her earbuds and losing herself in the music on her iPod, but whenever she tried to do that at home George would inevitably hunt her down and need her to do something.
    Grabbing her bag from the seat next to her, Lily locked the doors and made her way toward the gym. The Aledo Fitness Center was in the middle of a long strip of businesses. To the left of the gym was an accountant’s office, its employees already working late to get ready for tax season, and to the right was a place that Lily always liked to walk by: