You know that feeling where you're so exhausted, that you use even more energy to get to your bed as quickly as possible? Tiff--finally free from her third job--was in such a state as she twirled her car into its parking position, grabbed all of her bags with one reach and marched out of the car and into her building.
In the lobby are one of the ladies who works at the apartment, as well as some young man she's never seen before. She wasn't looking forward to anyone seeing her in such an irritable mood like this, but she was relieved that there only seemed to be these two people anywhere in sight--so she charged on past them with as little interaction as possible and headed for the elevator.
As she tries to muster enough focus to slip her key in the lock properly, her heart starts to beat a little warmer, knowing that there's only a few seconds before she's going to see her kids again. Swinging the door open as an influx of honest joy crashes away the nail-biting stress she'd been building up all day, Tiffany belts out a "Heyyy!!!!" as she drops her bags, bends down a bit and spreads out her arms as she intercepts her children.
This was one of the few daily routines Tiff hadn't gotten at all tired of. The only part that threw her off for a second was that the older one called her "mom", omiting the secondary "mie" syllable. Then again, he is seven-years-old now, so she supposed that was natural. She can't even remember how long it's been since Nicholas graduated from calling her "mommy". This gave her even more appreciation for the fact that she still had that title with the younger one.
Letting the two of them go after a firm squeeze, Tiff stood up straight as the babysitter approached her.
"Thank you sweetie." Tiff tells her, with almost tear-shedding intensity.
Tiff grabs her wallet and directly puts it in the sitter's hands.
"Fifty dollars tonight." She says, walking past the sitter and towards the bedroom. "I have a bunch of 10's in there so you can take those. Hide it in the drawer with the towels, okay?"
"No prob, Ms. Lohne!" The sitter answers, her only disappointment being that she wasn't just given a $50 bill--something she's long wanted to posses just because it would be cool.
Just before Tiff reaches her bedroom, she spins around and holds herself by the door frame.
"Oh and Jordie, I'll start paying you $60 a night if you can start cooking real meals, and not just microwaving something, okay?"
"No way!" The five-year-old reacted; tugging at her babysitter's pant leg. "Keep making macaroni! Okay?"
Jordan smiles down at her.
"Your mom wants you and your brother to eat healthier food sometimes, okay?"
"Puh. Whatever man." Lilly scoffs and walks over to a wall she can lean against.
Jordan collects her things and says her goodbyes, and by then, Tiffany has already taken off her jeans and plummeted onto her bed. She's not quite laying down yet; she's taken the pose of sticking her butt up in the air at the moment, because she knows that she's going to pass out the moment she gets completely comfortable, and she wants to be awake just a minute longer so she can look out the window. Watching the sun-set over the city from up on the 6th floor was a simple pleasure that Tiff appreciates more the older she gets.
Lilly and Nicholas had tiptoed into the room a minute ago, holding hands and looking intently at their mother. They always want to hang out with her for those precious moments before she falls asleep, but she tends to get annoyed with them if they bother her too much when she's trying to sleep, so they're always a bit nervous and pick their words carefully.
"Mom, did you have a good day at work?" Nicholas asks, him and his sister keeping their distance.
"Mmmhm." Tiff answers with a mumble; most of her face completely lodged into the pillow--and looking the other way from them.
"What about your day was good?" He asks.
Tiff takes a moment to think that one over.
"...well, most of the people I work with have good attitudes. At the SBR, anyway." She answers. She's not sure how much her kids even understand about any of her three part-time jobs, and if they even know that the second place she works is referred to as "SBR" by her coworkers, but she doesn't care enough at the moment to inform them.
The brother and sister don't know how to respond to that answer, so they just stand there silently for half a minute.
They finally give up on trying to come up with something to say, so they wave goodnight and close the door on their way out.
Tiffany finally stretches out and folds herself into her comforter; about to finally conk out for the night. Tragically, it is only a few seconds later when there is a knock on the door.
Something about the way the knock sounded triggers something in Tiffany. At first she assumed it must be Jordan, who may have accidentally left something in the room. Jordan's knocks were always more fast and serial, however, whereas the knock she just heard was slow and methodical, so who could it be? This kicked Tiff out of her near-sleep state, a small dose of adrenaline has dropped into her system and given her the eye of a tigress protecting her cubs.
Leaping to her feet and carefully approaching the door, she looks through the peep-hole and sees exactly one person on the other side; the young man she had passed in the lobby.
~Let me in~ you instruct.
Tiff unlocks and opens the door. The kids have come out into the living room by now to see what's going on.
Immediately as you walk in, Tiffany gets pretty nervous.
"Uh, excuse me." She says, trying to be polite as she tries to head for the bedroom and put some pants on. She's also about to tell Lilly and Nick to go to their room.
You decide to swiftly cut off the tension hanging in the air.
~You, all three of you, feel comfortable with having me in your home here. You feel and act as if I were a very close friend or family member, even though you know you only just met me~
You watch with amusement as the body language completely flips, as it had with the employee earlier. The sight of a scrawny woman in her late 20's with curly-blonde hair, and with dark circles under her eyes, walking around in her underwear right in front of you was pretty funny. Her two kids--a boy with hair that was blonde but straight instead of curly, and a girl whose hair was curly but brown-ish instead of blonde--didn't seem to know what to make of it either.
"Hey, I'm Damien. It's nice to meet you." You extend your hand.
"Tiffany." She returns the gesture. She isn't sure how to feel about this short, lanky young man with oily black hair--with a nose that she thought was a smidge too long and pointy, and she couldn't tell if he was a teenager or an early 20-something--but she felt comfortable around him, if nothing else.
"Now uh, please look over at the wall for me, okay? I need to go put on some pants." She says, still a little awkward from the whole underwear situation.
"Oh," you say, not breaking eye contact with her, "you don't have to worry about that." You say, gearing up to spit out an instruction.