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Hazel burst into the living room with a duster in her hand, two brooms and a dustpan under her arm and carrying a can of Lysol. Leo knew he was in trouble.
“Frank!” Leo yelled, at the same time Hazel cheerfully announced, “Spring cleaning!” Frank arrived just in time to be handed a rag and window cleaner, and see Hazel lovingly shove Leo in the direction of the back patio.
“It’s June!” Leo whined.
Although the apartment the three of them called home had only one bedroom (though that was all they needed, really) and was staunchly on the side of small, dust apparently held no accounting for size. Frank found this out after inhaling what had to be an unhealthy amount of dust from underneath every piece of furniture and on top of every shelf and doorframe. It couldn’t have been more than a few weeks since the last time they’d done a full scrub of the house, and Frank couldn’t fathom dust could collect so quickly. Still he supposed, window-washing and dusting were vastly better options in comparison to the toilet duty Leo found himself with after sweeping.
By the time everything had been scrubbed, cleaned, dusted, sanitized, vacuumed, and polished to perfection, it was well in the evening and the trio were more than ready to relax on the freshly washed loveseat on the patio. Hazel had somehow convinced Leo to make sandwiches sometime during the day, and Frank handed them both glasses of lemonade before settling down to watch the sun set.
“Why do we have to do this so much,” Leo grumbled, taking a swig of his lemonade. The chair only barely fit the three of them, thanks to Leo and Hazel being significantly more compact than Frank, and Hazel took a moment to shift around so she could comfortably tuck her shoulder into Frank while also not hitting Leo in the face with her elbow or spilling her drink before answering.
“If we split it up and added it to the weekly chores, we wouldn’t have to do it all at once,” Hazel pointed out, and Leo groaned in response.
“Didn’t we agree to do that?” Frank asked.
“Mmm, yeah,” Hazel said, “But I guess we never got the chance to sit down and plan it out, since you had that big issue at your job.”
“Oh,” Frank frowned, recalling a similar conversation right before a major client threatened to leave the company he worked for. Reyna had placed the responsibility of placating them mainly on his shoulders. “It was my bad then.”
“Nah, man, we get it. Duty calls and all that,” Leo squirmed at the other end of the chair, and talked around a bite of something with way too much cheese. “It is probably your fault that the cushion I’m on is still wet though.” Frank offered up a meek apology and Hazel laughed.
The conversation petered out after that, but none of them really minded. Sitting outside in the cooling summer evening in each other’s company was more than enough enjoyment, especially after a hard day’s work. Eventually, it grew dark, and the three began to take themselves inside. Leo glanced nervously at the empty cups Frank carried.
“Do you think-“, he began.
“I’ll wash them tomorrow morning,” Hazel interrupted, not looking back from where she opened the bedroom door ahead of them. “I think we all deserve a good night’s sleep.”