A Gigolo for Christmas Read Online Free Page B

exhausted, Sheila went
in to her bed and sat down...falling all the way to the floor. Somehow, her bed
had gone flat. Too sick at heart to discover the reason, Sheila pulled her pillows
and blankets around her and cried herself to sleep.

Chapter Four
    Sheila’s cell phone alarm went
off, and she reached out to silence it. She forgot that she was sleeping on the
floor, however, and her fingertips jammed very painfully into the side of her
plastic dresser.
    She reached up and grabbed the
phone, shutting the alarm off as she pried her eyelids open for the day. Sheila
made quick work of a shower and breakfast, then surveyed the apartment which
had been pristinely clean just last evening. It was an utter disaster, and
other than the roof still being attached, she didn’t think a tornado could do
more damage.
    Sheila sighed and pulled out a
trash bag and began collecting empty plates, cups, and napkins. Her guests had
stacked them on the half wall as well as the windowsill and in the corners of
her apartment, as well as on the board where the television usually perched -
now in an untidy heap on the floor. Quite a few had been dropped in the
bathroom sink and tub.
    She unplugged the television and
righted it, but one glance told her it was unrepairable. She was picking up the
shards of television screen when there was a knock at the door. Now what?
    “Just a minute,” she called out,
setting another piece of glass into the discarded deli-tray lid she was using
to corral the viciously jagged shards.
    Carefully moving the deli-tray
lid to the low counter of her kitchen, she crossed to the door and opened it,
then sucked her breath in sharply. James Bond looked just as good in ratty
paint-covered sweats as he had last night in his tux. How had he climbed her
stairs without her hearing him?
    "Good morning!" Anders
said. "Have you had breakfast yet?"
    "Yes I did, how about
you?" Sheila moved aside to allow Anders to enter the apartment. He
grabbed two large canvas tote bags, and trooped into her living room, filling
it completely with his presence.
    "Absolutely! I would never
dream about starting a day’s work without a good breakfast inside me." He
looked around the apartment. "I see you you've already been busy cleaning
up. Where would you like me to start?"
    "I… um…" Sheila took a
deep breath and let it out slowly. "I guess the Christmas decorations
should be taken down. I haven't really made a plan of attack."
    "Christmas decorations it
is, then," he said cheerfully. "Do you want me to save them, or trash
them?"
    "I don't really have
anything for you to save them in, so I guess you'll have to just trash them. I
can't leave them up here, and if Mr. Kooper is really going to evict me, they
probably won't be any more popular in my new place."
    Anders' face fell. "That's
just sad," he said, "having to trash all of these beautiful
decorations."
    "On the bright side,"
Sheila said, "I can always make more next year."
    "Yeah, just think of the
size of Christmas tree you could build with a whole year's worth of paper towel
rolls! It would rival the one outside the White House!"
    Sheila giggled. "And it
would have the added advantage of never needing water."
    She went into the kitchen and
brought back a trash bag and a small plastic container, handing it to Anders.
"Here, you can put all the pushpins in this."
    "Thanks."
    "While you take down the
Christmas decorations, I'm going to go in my room and see if I can find out
what happened to my bed last night."
    "Why, what happened to your
bed last night?"
    Sheila shrugged. "I have no
idea, but when I went to get into it, it had gone completely flat. I need to
find the hole and patch it so that I will have a place to sleep tonight."
    Sheila retreated to her bedroom,
and began pulling the bed linens off her deflated mattress. She folded each
blanket and sheet neatly before setting it in a pile in the corner of the room.
As she considered completely flattened vinyl bag, she decided the