Cleaning

Breakfast was only slightly uncomfortable. Which, to be fair, was better than Chance had expected.

Fait rushed through the meal and left as soon as possible. She did offer to help with the clean up but Chance wouldn't allow it.

This was now the third time he had personally cooked for her and done the dishes too. It made her feel a little guilty since she hadn't been able to provide any help in return.

He really didn't think much of it. She was still a guest, unexpected or not.

Much to her relief, he didn't ask any questions about last night. Maybe if he didn't bring it up, they could pretend it never happened... or something like that.

At least that was how Fait comforted herself regarding the situation. Chance on the other hand, was just trying to read her expressions and was able to deduce that she didn't want to talk about it.

He decided if the conversation had to happen, which maybe it didn't, it could happen another time.

Once she was gone, he set to work on cleaning the entire apartment.

After the all the excitement packed into the past few days, Chance decided it was best to stay in where he couldn't possibly get into any more trouble.

He started in the kitchen and continued around the dining and living rooms. Next he tidied his barely used office and dusted the unused guest room. He reached for the door knob of the room that Fait and Genevieve had used and paused.

'Does this qualify as going into a girl's room without permission?'

He wondered, provided that there were any, what the standard operating procedures should be after a woman stayed over in a spare room.

She wasn't a relative nor a girlfriend. Fait was his... savior?

Should he go in and continue his cleaning? Should he skip it?

He was torn between wanting to have a clean apartment and respecting, kind of, a woman's privacy?

In the end, he came to the conclusion that this was his apartment. If he wanted to clean the guest room, then he damn sure was going to clean the guest room.

Getting over his internal conflict, mostly anyway, he opened the door and went inside. The room really looked no different than the other guest room.

The only difference he could see was a navy blue piece of cloth that was neatly folded and placed on top of the bed.

He carefully picked up his t-shirt and looked around the room. Chance felt a little unsure of how to continue.

In the end, he left the bed untouched and cleaned everything else. He dusted and swept and wiped everything down in the bedroom and the adjoining bathroom.

He grabbed the shirt on his way out and closed the door behind him.

'Time to do laundry.'

His luxury apartment was outfitted with its own top of the line washer and dryer. He was excited to have the chance to try them out.

'Maybe I'm a little too domesticated these days...' He frowned to himself and returned to his own room to gather the dirty clothes from his hamper.

As he loaded them into the washing machine, he thought about the first month he had spent living out on his own.

The apartment then was barely a single room, but the rent was dirt cheap. At the time, he was just lucky that there was a wall to separate the bathroom from the rest of the place.

He'd had two options for laundry. The first was to drag it to the laundromat and pay someone else to do it. The second was to drag it to the laundromat and feed the machines with coins and do it himself.

The first option was too expensive so he had spent many hours and many coins doing the laundry himself.

He had also screwed up a few loads in the process. Chance learned very quickly how to read the care tags on clothes. When it said wash with like colors, it meant wash with like colors.

No businessman wants to have splotches of dye all over his nice white button downs when his is leading an important meeting to attract investors.

He snapped out of his reminiscing when he got to the navy blue t-shirt.

His face shifted into a contemplative look as his thoughts and emotions became more complex.

To keep himself in check, he shook his head and unceremoniously tossed the shirt in with the other clothes and shut the lid.

Chance was not fully oblivious to what he was feeling. He had dated before and had even been engaged. But, he knew, right now he couldn't act on anything he was feeling.

Mack left behind a huge legacy for him to manage. There were people using all sorts of underhanded means to try to take over that same legacy.

Until he was able to protect the people closest to him, he had planned to keep a reasonable distance. Although, admittedly, things were not going according to plan.