by Sara Ney
He fidgets.
I’d peg him at around thirty, definitely on the younger side. Playful and carefree, Dale is ridiculously good at his job. He’s also hilarious, and generous, and brings in treats during the holidays and his birthday.
For the longest time, I thought he might bat for the other team, but as his face gets pink, I have to wonder.
Does Dale…
Is he…
…into me?
I study him with renewed interest, nodding as he chatters on about his weekend, casually giving him a once-over. Chest is decent, pecs visible through his cotton dress shirt. Okay arms. His hands are a bit lacking in the masculinity department, but it’s not like he lives in the country and can chop wood in his free time. He’s not out laying bricks for a living; he’s selling ad content and creating copy, for heaven’s sake.
I can’t fault him for that, but I also don’t think I’d bang him.
Yeah, no—Dale is too nice.
Is that even a thing?
Too nice—who’s ever heard of such a thing?
It’s not that I want to date a dickhead, but a little bit of bite never hurt a girl. Unless the guy is biting her bits—huge difference.
The thought makes me tingle downtown, and I mentally locate the vibrator I have stashed in my bedside drawer. Remind myself to stop for batteries on the way home.
Self-care and all that jazz.
Dale is still talking when I dig through my desk and pull out a steno pad—contraband from my grandpa’s office. He’s old-school and keeps office supplies in his desk, too, and I find myself stealing them from time to time. Rather than the high gloss company stationary in the supply room, I prefer the throwback yellow notepads Gramps keeps in his drawer.
If he notices them missing, he hasn’t mentioned it.
Come to think if it, the old coot probably has me stealing them on camera.
He isn’t here often—he retired years ago—but he does like to haunt the place now and again by taking his lunch in his office and giving the staff a stroke with his presence. To me, he’s just Grandpa. To everyone else, he’s one of the most powerful men in the city.
My dad is, too, I suppose, though he’s on the finance end of things. I rarely see him.
“Anyway,” Dale is saying, wrapping up with, “We usually go out after work on Wednesdays if you want to come.”
“For happy hour?”
“Yeah, I guess?”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.” Dale laughs nervously, toying with the buttons on his cuffs. The upturned fabric is a different pattern than the pink check; it’s a bold, floral print and the perfect contrast.
I like it.
I like him—he’s a nice guy. I just wish I felt more downstairs, because it’s not easy meeting someone in this town.
“Sure. That sounds good. When I’m done for the day, I’ll join y’all at the bar.”
Dale rises. “Cool. It’s right around the block, so you can walk there then take a cab home.”
“Sounds good!”
It takes me hours of going back and forth to complete this project I have Bambi working on. Another several conversations with other team members in the art department working on a few layouts for me. All in all, a very productive day.
I meet Dale and a few people from my team at a bar they’ve chosen, a dark throwback called The Basement that feels like more of a guys’ club than a normal hangout, but beggars can’t be choosers and I need the night out.
To network and socialize.
I won’t bore you with all the details, but the drinks flow like water. One—okay, two vodka sodas in and I’m laughing hysterically at Dale, two guys from accounting, two more from graphics, and one from our entertainment division, sharing pieces of myself and building a few friendships. I can feel them growing as I hug everyone before taking my leave.
Taking my leave? Jeez.
I snort as I nod in greeting at the doorman of my building, giggling to myself because I sound ancient. What self-respecting twenty-four-year-old says ‘taking my leave’?
Ugh.
Chuckling again because I’m buzzed and feeling good, I stand rigidly at the bank of elevators; there are twenty-three floors in this building and I live on the twentieth. Not too shabby for my first apartment, and I giddily anticipate the ride.
I doubt there’ll be a day where I don’t pinch myself for being so lucky.
Fine. Luck has nothing to do with it—I work my ass off and every living expense comes out of my own pocket.
A hiccup escapes my lips and I press three fingers to my mouth. Crap. I hate the hiccups; they linger for so long.
Another erupts as a guy bursts through the revolving door, balancing a box that, although it doesn’t look heavy, appears loaded down with random odds and ends. Gadgets? I can’t tell from here, but “Come on, come on” leaves my mouth, willing the elevator to speed things up so I don’t have to humiliate myself by being trapped with this gorgeous specimen of a man.
I’ve seen this guy around, and I don’t want the first time I meet him to be in an elevator! When I’m drunk, for heaven’s sake, cheeks and nose probably cherry red.
Cue another tipsy hiccup.
And another…
He’s heading straight toward me. Okay, maybe not toward me specifically, but toward the elevator car, and I hold my breath as the electronics think, silently praying the doors will close before he reaches me.
“Hold the door please!” he calls out, box now somehow balanced on one hand like he’s a server at a restaurant, other one outstretched, beseeching me with an open palm. As if he’s about to force the door to remain open with the sheer force of thin air and a prayer. “Fuck!”
The box teeters and he careens slightly to the left. Right. A pantomime of a balancing act.
“Sorry?” Drunk me doesn’t feel guilty in the slightest about not pressing the button to hold the door for him. Sober me? She’ll regret it in the morning.
I shrug as if helpless and hard of hearing, cupping a hand over my right ear. “Say again?”
Hiccup.
He knows damn well I can hear him if his eyebrows shooting into his hairline are any indication. He’s genuinely shocked I’m blowing him off. Well surprise, surprise, pal, I’m shocked at myself, too—I’m normally so well mannered!
A flash of irritation mars his brow.
Truthfully, I’m ordinarily a really nice person—too nice, my friends have said. My nan calls me a pushover who needs to grow a pair of lady balls, preferably a bigger set than she has.
“Oh no!” I peek through the closing steel doors, the corners of my mouth shifting down into a grimace. “Shoot! I can’t… Nooooo!” My voice mimics a sound like I’m fading into obscurity, gets quieter as the guy disappears, an incredulous expression slashing his handsome features.
“I’m melting!” Drunk me adds more drama for good measure, as if I wasn’t acting ridiculously immature enough. The doors are two inches from closing. I snap my fingers in front of the diminishing crack between them and add a sassy wink. “So close. Almost made it.”
Shoot him some air pistols and blow off the imaginary smoke.
I sigh and sag against the wall when the doors mercifully slide shut.
But dang, he was good-looking.
Tall—really tall, actually—with dark hair and thick eyebrows, eyes so blue I could distinguish their color from across the lobby, almost thirty feet away. His hair was windblown, sculpted cheekbones red from the cold. Dark gray wool jacket with the collar pulled up. Black scarf. Jeans and dress shoes. I didn’t need long to get the full rundown on his appearance.
Good-looking men never take long to drool over.
And just as the door shut in his startled face, I saw the traces of a shallow cleft in his chin.
Damn him, I’m a sucker for those.
“Huh.”
That face.
That handsome, bewildered face.
It’s the last thing I see when
I close my eyes that night and, let’s face it, pass out in the middle of my bed.
4
Brooks
Weekends are for: alcohol, hook-ups, sitting on my ass.
And exercise.
On days I run, when I’m finished, I take the stairs to my apartment, skipping the elevator so by the time I reach my floor, I’m panting like I’m on my last breath, almost collapsing when I shove through the door exiting the stairwell, practically falling into the hallway.
Stumble.
Panting like a goddamn dog, like I’ve just come from a one-hundred-degree room, wearing thirty layers and running backward on a treadmill.
Feebly grasping toward the direction of my apartment, I sound like I’m breathing through a metal lung and—
“Yikes,” a voice says. “Dude, are you okay?”
“Jesus Christ!” I shout, startled that anyone is standing in the hallway. No one is ever in the hallway, so this pleasant female voice takes me by complete surprise.
I wipe the sweat dripping down my brow and into my eyes, glancing up into the curious eyes of—
“You.”
Just that one word is an accusation, delivered in a special tone reserved for shock and disgust, for when I’m feeling both at the same time.
Her.
It’s the little shit from the lobby—the one who wouldn’t hold the friggin elevator for me and let it slam in my face.
Okay fine, elevator doors don’t slam. They slide closed slowly. But she punctuated the whole thing with air guns, so that whole “Oh no, I’m meltinggg!” bullshit was just that—bullshit.
She wasn’t melting. She’s perfectly intact, staring at me as if I were heaving, hunched over, and nearly hyperventilating in the hallway of our apartment complex.
I squint up at her.
This—she is why I’m swearing off women—women like her.
“You? Huh?” Dawning registers on her face. “Oh you mean meee.” Her nose turns up. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“I think I’m your neighbor.”
“Hmm.” She taps her chin, thinking. “Which one?”
“The one that lives here?” I point to the door behind me—the gleaming number 2045 that matches her gleaming 2042. The cream doors exactly identical, save for the gold addresses affixed to the centers.
Gold doorknobs.
Gold peepholes.
The place is classy as fuck, and some days, I cannot even believe I live here. Not after the lifetime of shitholes I had to live in growing up, digging myself out of the poverty hole my parents dug us into by never having jobs.
I’m fucking proud of how successful I’ve become, proud to afford this place.
Except now I have this lippy troll glaring at me from across the carpet of this gilded hall as if I’m the dickhead in this scenario, not her.
“Huh. Didn’t realize I had one.”
“You didn’t realize you had a neighbor?”
That’s a giant load of crap if I’ve ever heard one. The hallway is full of doors and she didn’t realize she had a neighbor? Now she’s just being difficult. I know I’ve played my music a little too loud on occasion, and even though she’s across the hallway and we don’t share a wall, there’s no way she hasn’t heard it at least once through the door.
Not unless she’s a hermit who never comes out, which I highly doubt.
This girl is polished, poised, and sassy. Definitely comes off as a bit of a snob, and from the way her eyes keep roaming up and down my sweat-soaked body, no doubt she’s judging me. Finds me lacking, I’m sure. Not sure how I feel about that—the blue gaze a twinkling gleam I’ll catalogue as toying with me.
She’s amused, teasing me like a mouse to a cat.
I hate cats.
I’m more of a dog person, and why the hell am I even thinking about that right now when it’s not the point?
The girl—this young woman—is watching me, and it’s obvious she knows my thoughts have strayed. She seizes the opportunity to bail on an introduction.
“Well, nice to meet you. Bye.” She tries to slide inside her apartment, but I stop her.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Not so fast.”
She sighs, sagging against the doorframe. Crosses her arms and rolls her eyes. “Ugh, fine.” Instantly, a disgruntled censure commands her voice. “I’m sorry I didn’t hold the elevator for you the other night. I was busy and had stuff in my hands.”
Busy?
Stuff in her hands?
Little liar. “You weren’t holding jack shit!” Meanwhile, I had a cumbersome box full of crap from the office! “If you’re going to lie, at least put some effort into it.”
“Fine. I might have been a teensy-weensy bit drunkish.” She regards me again, tilting her head. “What was in that box you were carrying anyway?”
“Mail. Packages. Work stuff I had sent to myself.”
“What kind of work stuff?”
I narrow my eyes, patting at the perspiration on my forehead. “Are you always this nosey?”
“Actually—no.” Her smile is crooked and cute and oddly enough, I believe her. “Normally I don’t care a fig about what other people are doing.”
A fig?
I shift inside my sneakers, legs cooling off. “I’m working on a project and thought I’d bring some of it home.”
“What’s the project?”
Nothing you need to worry about. “It’s just a project.”
“Why won’t you tell me what it is? Is it illegal?”
“Why do you care?”
Her shoulders rise and fall in a feminine shrug. “Just curious about what my new neighbor does for a day job. There are a lot of mafia around here, you know.”
Jesus Christ. “I’m not in the mafia, and I’m not your new neighbor—I’ve lived here for nine months.”
“It’s so weird we haven’t bumped into each other.” She pauses. “So what was in the box?”
“Oh my God.” My groan is loud and dramatic as I brace my hands against the wall so I can stretch my calves while we’re wasting time blabbering out here.
“Just tell me.” Another hesitation. “It was a severed head, wasn’t it?”
A severed he—
“If you really must know, I’m one of the principal architects at Witt & Spencer and I’m working on the latest technology for a high-rise development downtown.” I’m not proud to say I puff out my chest as I deliver a line I’ve actually practiced saying in front of the mirror in my bedroom, but what can ya do.
She’s suitably impressed, eyebrows rising into her brown hairline. “Well la-di-da, aren’t youuu fancy!”
Wait—is she impressed, or is she mocking me?
I can’t tell.
“Okay Miss Sassy Pants, where do you work?” I want to know the answer, even though I have sweat dripping from my spine to my butt crack. I’m dying to swipe at it, but no way am I digging into the ass of my shorts in front of this chick. I have a feeling she’d never let me live it down.
“I’m over at Margolis & Co.”
“Doing what?” She’s young—definitely in her twenties—so I immediately peg her as a junior executive assistant, or maybe even a trust fund baby? Seems highly unlikely. This girl isn’t nearly snooty enough.
I’ve been inside that building a time or two, mostly when I was younger, doing architectural tours of the city. That’s kind of always been my hobby: scouting modern cities for old buildings and historical sites. I try to see as many Victorian and Art Deco designs as I can before they’re inevitably demolished, one by one, to make way for newer, shinier skyscrapers.
The girl hesitates.
“I’m Vice President of Media Development.”
Say what now? “What?”
“Vice President of—”
“No, no, I heard you. I’m just surprised. You seem kind of…”
I don’t want to say…
“Young?” Now she’s leaning against her door, fiddling with the tie on her mauve yoga pants.
“That’s because I am.”
“How old are you?”
Again, her nose turns up. “Didn’t your nan ever teach you it isn’t polite to ask a lady her age?”
My what? “What the fuck is a nan?”
The girl laughs. “Your grandmother?”
“My grandmother is dead.” I say it deadpan, to shut her up and to wipe that smirk off her cocky little face.
She blanches. “Oh my G-God,” she stutters. “I’m so sorry. I…I…” She’s sputtering, turning the delightful shade of red one acquires upon jamming her foot so far in her mouth, she chokes on it. A dainty hand covers pouty lips, her once pale porcelain skin now the color of a ripe beet.
Good.
I wait a few more seconds, letting her squirm.
Then, “I’m just fucking with you. My grandma on the East Coast is probably at some casino gambling away all my grandpa’s life insurance money.”
Her mouth gapes. “You. Butthole.”
Butthole? That’s the best she can do as an insult? Shit, if that’s the worst thing I’m called today, I’ll call it a win.
And it’s not even eight o’clock in the morning.
Which reminds me, “What are you doing out in the hallway?”
“My nan had breakfast dropped off for me and I was out here making sure I didn’t leave the bag of condiments.”
Huh? “Say that again, slower.”
“My nan had breakfast delivered for me since I can’t be there for brunch today, and I just popped back out to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything.”
“Your grandmother brought you breakfast?” I glance at the watch on my wrist. “It’s so early.”
“She didn’t bring it, she had it delivered.”
“Why?”
“Um, because I’m missing family brunch today.”
“Why?”
She huffs. “I don’t want to go?”
I cock my head. “What does Nan-Nan think you’re doing instead of going to brunch?”
She checks her nail polish, intently studying her hands. “I told her I already had a brunch date.”
“A date date?”
“Yes.”
“On a Sunday?”
“Yes?”
“And that was enough to get you off the hook and out of a family obligation?” Why am I so impressed?
