Courting Trouble. Kimberly Dean

wait staff for an event as large as the Aquamarine fundraiser had turned out to be. She’d been on her feet for hours, and she was tired of smiling. With all those projection scenes and people milling about, she felt as if she’d just swum the ocean.

      She’d certainly been swimming with sharks.

      She winced as she reached the top of the second flight of stairs and let herself into her apartment. She kicked off her shoes and flexed her toes.

      ‘Ah.’ That felt so much better.

      ‘Ahhhhhhh,’ came an echo from down the hallway.

      Her spine stiffened in surprise. More murmurs followed, and heat filled her cheeks. Apparently, that felt better, too.

      Her arms dropped limply to her sides, and she sent a woeful look to the heavens. Margo had company.

      Tiredly, Sienna dropped her keys in the bowl by the door. Her roommate had recently started dating the drummer in her band, and they were still in the hot-and-heavy stage of their relationship.

      Trying to block out the explicit sounds, Sienna headed to the kitchen. She transferred the leftovers she’d brought home in a doggy bag to a plate. She cocked her head as she evaluated the meal. Good enough for a bachelorette’s dinner. She grabbed a bottled water and waited for the hors d’oeuvres to heat. Unfortunately, the panting coming from the bedroom was louder than the whir of the microwave. When the bell finally dinged, it coincided perfectly with an excited cry. Sienna swept up her plate and made a beeline for her bedroom.

      It wasn’t that she was a prude. She understood sex. She appreciated how good it could feel and how it let one express feelings for a significant other. She just didn’t care to be drawn into someone else’s bad porno movie.

      A voyeur she was not.

      Unfortunately, this apartment didn’t allow for much privacy. Her Logan Circle neighbourhood had seen a bit of revitalisation in recent years. Unfortunately, the row house she rented hadn’t seen any of that remodelling. The walls were thin, the floors creaked and, frankly, Margo wasn’t quiet.

      Her roommate let out another moan just as Sienna was passing the occupied bedroom. The sound was enough to make her eyes widen and her sore feet pick up their pace. She closed her own bedroom door behind her, but the sounds of pleasure seeped through the wall separating the rooms.

      Tiredness suddenly assailed her. As if tonight hadn’t been challenging enough, now she had to listen to sex sounds all night long? This close, she could hear the mattress squeaking and the headboard thumping.

      That drummer really did know how to set the rhythm.

      Face flaring, Sienna determinedly set about doing her own thing. She put her dinner beside the bed and began to get comfortable. The shoes had been a good beginning, but her hair was starting to weigh down its up-do and the clip was pulling. She removed the pins that kept her hair contained and ran her fingers through it.

      The sigh she let out had nearly as much contentment as the ones coming from next door.

      She was starting to feel better, but this had not been the night she’d planned.

      Reaching back, she caught the zipper of her dress and released it. As work clothes went, the dress wasn’t bad. In fact, she rather liked it. She evaluated the uniform as she hung it on a hanger. At least it had been comfortable. Not too tight, revealing or hot.

      Fall had arrived in the nation’s capital, but in the past few days DC had regressed to more summer-like temperatures. Sliding into a slip chemise, she tried to find the coolness that the air-conditioning in the place was not providing.

      ‘Oh, baby. Harder.’

      Sienna turned away. The heat she felt had nothing to do with the activity going on next door. Nothing.

      Still, she plugged in her ear buds and turned on her MP3 player.

      Finally comfortable, she settled on the bed, stretching her legs out in front of her. A salmon puff or two helped ease the gnawing in her stomach, and she pulled out her laptop.

      She checked her email first to see if she’d had any responses to the on-line applications she’d submitted. Her nose crinkled when all she found was spam sent out by the stores she frequented and a message from her mother.

      Four months.

      It had been four months since she’d graduated with her master’s degree, and she’d yet to get more than a nibble at full-time employment – and it wasn’t as if she’d waited to start her search until she had her diploma.

      She ran a hand through her hair, flipping it over to the side. The advancement of technology hadn’t been a friend to jobseekers. Résumés seemingly fell into a black hole, never once reaching human eyes, and companies were so rude these days. She’d applied to nearly a hundred places, but only a handful of businesses had set up an automatic reply to let her know they’d received her materials. The ones who’d actually interviewed her hadn’t followed up, even though she’d sent thank-you notes and polite inquiries on the status of the job openings. Her recruiter said that businesses were simply fearful of lawsuits.

      Sienna blamed it all on abysmal business etiquette.

      She had a master’s in corporate communications, after all. She’d learned that sort of thing.

      Closing her eyes, she tried to slow her breaths. The all too familiar sense of panic and helplessness was back.

      And jealousy.

      Moans from the next room made her turn up the volume on her music. She nibbled on a shrimp quiche and opened the email from her mom.

      Her jaw set when she read it.

      She knew her mother was trying to be helpful, but she hadn’t even sent along an encouraging message this time. She’d simply forwarded the job posting.

      Customer Success Associate.

      Code for call centre.

      Sienna sank back onto the pillow she’d propped up behind her. She hadn’t won an advanced degree in order to take a minimum-wage job. She could hear her mother even now, though, arguing that the job was at least in communications.

      Sienna rubbed her temple and nearly groaned along with the couple coupling in the next room.

      Was she being too picky? Too snobbish?

      The green fish dress glinted at her from across the room. She didn’t think so. She was making more from waitressing, and she got tips. Tips that she needed. Living in DC wasn’t cheap, even on the outskirts.

      The panic started to flare again. Should she start looking outside the capital area? She’d sent résumés up and down the East Coast. Should she start applying out west? She didn’t know anybody out that way, but she’d lived in places across the world. She could adjust.

      Shaking her head, she closed the email and switched over to social media. She might as well. It wasn’t as if it was quiet enough for her to consider sleeping.

      ‘Yeah, baby. Just like that …’ A shiver shot down the back of her neck.

      OK, that had been kind of hot. And dominant …

      She bit her lip and tried to focus. Scrolling down the board, she read about what her friends were doing. There were photographs from parties and vacations. One classmate was touring Europe before settling down. Her best friend, Erin, had posted pictures of three different place settings and was asking for votes on which to put on her wedding list.

      Sienna sighed. She was happy for Erin, but she couldn’t help feeling that they were losing common ground. Erin and Marty had been a couple since high school, and her best friend planned to be a stay-at-home wife. She really didn’t understand the pressures of being single and supporting oneself, which was Sienna’s life these days.

      Kyle had never understood the pressure either. Her ex-boyfriend had received a GPA that had been barely passing, yet he’d secured a prime job as