Bleeding Heart

by AM Hartnett

Gasping, he sprawled out in the chair and stared at the ceiling. Through the beat of his pulse filling his head, he was vaguely aware of the music above.

  ‘God damn,’ he murmured breathlessly. ‘Taylor fucking Swift.’

  He grabbed a tissue from the box by the computer and dabbed away the milky fluid he’d left on himself, then groaned as he made a couple of attempts to get up. Once he was in the bathroom, he stripped and took a quick shower.

  Marco, draped across the windowsill, eyed Seth with contempt when he entered the bedroom to put his pants back on, then followed into the living room. The cat zoomed to the dining table, and Seth followed and surveyed the neat stacks laid out across the surface.

  This was the last thing he wanted to do tonight, but the project had become his go-to for the past two weeks, especially when he was hit with a nicotine fit. There were sixteen piles of photos so far, organised by date. Thankfully Rita had been pretty disciplined about marking the month and year on the back of the pictures, which made his job easier.

  It had been her project, to tell the truth. Before she’d gotten too sick to get out of bed or off the couch, his wife had started to pull out the plastic bins on the bookcase. Rita didn’t have any regrets in the end, but when she was in hospice care she had a teary moment that she never got to sort and scan all those pictures.

  ‘It was important to me,’ she’d said when he told her not to worry about a bunch of pictures. ‘I wanted to have them all on one of those digital frames right here so I can watch them come up when I’m by myself.’

  Not that she was by herself much. Seth had become the master of the power nap, sleeping in chairs and in the bed with her when she would let him. He even slept in his truck when she told him to go home. He didn’t want to venture too far in case the end came, and that’s where he had been when he got the call.

  He pulled one of the bins closer and paused to banish the pepper in his sinuses before reaching in.

  Christ almighty, that woman took pictures of everything that caught her eye. The biggest pile he had was nothing but pictures of rocks and trees, ducks in the park, the comings and goings in the alley below the fire escape. There was also a small tower exclusively of pictures of Marco from kittendom to adulthood, and another that was just Seth on the job, always throwing her that look that said, another picture?

  He worked through the bin and tried not to linger on any one picture. If he did, like she used to do, he’d be taken right back to the time when it felt like his life meant something.

  God, he still missed her terribly.

  The idea of taking up with someone else made him a little crazy. It just didn’t seem possible. How could he ever be as comfortable and in love with someone as he had been with Rita? They’d been together for fifteen years. They’d been made for one another.

  What are you going to do, Wolfman? Just sit around jerking off until you’re an old man and the rest of your life has just passed by?

  Once Rita knew there was no coming back from her illness, they’d talked about the after. He didn’t want to hear it, but with her usual bossy flair she had decided to insert herself into his future without her. She made him promise he wouldn’t shut down, like she knew he would.

  ‘Fuck a lot of pretty girls, baby, because it would be a terrible waste if you didn’t. They’ll be lining up.’

  Well, he’d fucked a lot of pretty girls, hadn’t he? That’s what that hook-up website was for. He’d found it surprisingly easy to find a playmate for a night or two and he was just fine with that, but he knew that Rita hadn’t meant just getting his dick wet. He knew that, even though it made her angry to say it, she really wanted him to find someone special who would love him like she did.

  Impossible. That woman had taken his heart into the grave with her.

  He finished one bin and then began another, one that was a little more organised, with rubber bands tied around small stacks, and with notes stuck on the front in Rita’s messy handwriting.

  Christmas 2005.

  After AC/DC concert 2010.

  Seth’s new truck 2008.

  He looked at the storage closet, where there were still about seven boxes left. He could probably get through them all this evening, but then the job would be halfway done. Then he’d have to start on scanning them, and once that was wrapped up he’d be done.

  Then what? What would he do with himself when there were no more pictures? He’d either have to find a new project to put off getting his ass moving on the rest of his life, or, well, get on with the rest of his life.

  So he left them, and instead grabbed his iPad and headed for the sofa.

  Katy Perry started up again as he opened the bug-squashing app.

  ‘At least I’m not the only loser sitting here on Friday night,’ Seth said to the cat as he hopped onto his lap.

  ‘I say you go downstairs and invite him up here,’ Vanessa said as she moved away from the window. ‘Have him bust in Magic Mike style, dressed like a plumber.’

  Now April was just sorry she’d told her friends about Seth and that chest that just went on for ages. They’d planned to meet at a pub around the corner, but once she’d let it slip that she had a Greek god with a toolbox living in the apartment beneath her, and that he would sit on the fire escape with his cat, they all wanted a look.

  Abigail cackled from the sofa and curled a strand of red hair around her finger. ‘We could break something, if that helps. Oh, no, the kitchen faucet just exploded! There’s water everywhere! Please, Mr Landlord, can you take your shirt off and help us?’

  She stuck out her bottom lip and fluttered her lashes, and April giggled.

  ‘You guys, if I was going to do that I sure as hell wouldn’t want you two here for it,’ she countered, and took a sip of her…whatever the hell this yellow rum drink was that Vanessa had rolled in with…then eyed the speaker dock as Abigail’s iPhone shuffled to yet another candy-coated greatest hit from Katy Perry. ‘Can we change the music, please? I’m going to vomit rainbows and cotton candy in a minute.’

  ‘No, turn it up!’ Vanessa leaped from the chair and beat April to the remote. ‘Loud enough that he has to come up and tell us to turn it down.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I am not going to be the neighbour everyone hates.’ April set aside her drink, jumped at Vanessa and wrested the remote from her, until the other woman squealed about messing her makeup.

  She left the terrible music, but turned it down and looked at her half-empty bottle. ‘We should just go already. It’s almost ten o’clock.’

  Her friends booed, and she sighed.

  This wasn’t how she’d wanted to spend her first Friday night at Winsloe Court. She’d wanted her beer and her comfy pyjamas, a Sons of Anarchy marathon and another round with her vibrator. Her friends had insisted. She had moved to somewhere within walking distance of some great bars – not the booze-soaked clubs they usually frequented, but nice places. Live music and trivia. Excellent food to snack on between pints.

  Winsloe Court was located just off the student ghetto, but in the nicer part of the neighbourhood where families lived in townhouses and cheerful Victorians, families who could overlook a bit of noise every so often but didn’t take kindly to rowdy frat parties. April was never one for getting drunk and making mayhem, and she’d picked this neighbourhood specifically because it had that certain sophisticated vibe.

  After all, she was no longer April Kaye who still had to mow the lawn to earn her keep. She was April Kaye, civil servant and independent woman, for whom a crappy apartment in a crappy neighbourhood would not do.

  ‘You should invite him out with us,’ Vanessa said with a smirk.

  April couldn’t help but laugh. ‘And why would I do that?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you? You were drooling when you told me about him.’

  ‘I was not, and, even if I was, how could you tell? That was over the phone.’

  ‘Maybe that was some other bodily fluid I heard dribbling in the background.’
>
  Abigail took the remote and cut the music. ‘All right, can we go? With or without the gorgeous landlord, I don’t care.’

  ‘With the gorgeous landlord,’ Vanessa insisted, and leaped from the sofa. April rolled her eyes and raised the bottle, but before she could take a sip she shrieked and darted in front of her friend, barring the window.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘It’s not funny!’

  She gave Vanessa a gentle shove, then quickly closed the window. She’d been confident that the terrible music kept their voices from carrying too much, but now with the silence she was sure he’d hear everything.

  ‘He’ll think we’re making fun of him,’ she explained. ‘He probably already feels bad enough sitting down there by himself.’

  ‘Which is why we should invite him out,’ Vanessa riposted.

  April growled through her teeth and looked helplessly at Abigail. ‘Help?’

  ‘It is a little insensitive,’ Abigail conceded, ‘and juvenile. You might as well slip a note in his mailbox telling him that April likes him.’

  ‘I don’t –’ she started, but shut her mouth when they both gave her oh, please looks. ‘Yes, I like him. From afar. I don’t want to get mixed up with a guy in mourning for his dearly departed wife.’

  ‘And tonight is about getting really close,’ Abigail went on. She set her bottle on the table and stood up. ‘Come on. Let’s go check out that bar around the corner there.’

  They hadn’t even made it down to the second floor before April was already listing excuses to get back home in less than two hours. It didn’t bother her that she was going to turn into a homebody. When she lived with her mom, she would go out mainly to get out, rather than have to creep around downstairs to prevent her mother popping up and asking, ‘Are you still up?’ Clubbing had never been her thing, though she had gone and put up with the drunken jostling and shrieking.

  If the suggestion had been to head downtown, where the music pumped out of every doorway, she would have given a flat-out ‘No’, but she had to admit that she was interested in giving the pub a try.

  So far so good, she thought as they turned the corner and Freddie Mercury’s voice spilled out onto the street. There was patio seating and she grabbed a table, even though Vanessa had wanted to squeeze into the thick of things.

  The beer was cheap but not watery, and the place was still serving food so they ordered something to munch on. April quickly relaxed and engaged in some easy flirting with a guy at the next table whose name was Todd and who worked at the coffee shop a few doors down.

  Just as she was typing into the phone the number he recited, she heard a familiar voice nearby.

  ‘Picking up my usual,’ Seth told the waitress who greeted him.

  ‘Excuse me a second,’ April told her new admirer, and quickly returned to the pub table where her friends were.

  ‘Hey, next to the cash machine by the door: that’s my landlord.’

  Two sets of eyes looked past her, and Vanessa whistled.

  ‘Oh, my God, let’s go back to your apartment and break everything. I mean, look at that body.’

  ‘Honey, I don’t want to be weird,’ Abigail chimed in dreamily, ‘but if you get on that and he suggests a threesome, I volunteer.’

  ‘Stop that,’ April hissed, but giggled as she took a peek over her shoulder.

  At first glance, one might think that he was checking the place out from the door, taking stock and picking out his playmate for the night, but after a moment April could see that his eyes were following the waitress in one direction, then, anxiously, turning to the kitchen in the other. His post by the door was so he could get out as quickly as possible, she guessed.

  ‘Do you need a roommate?’ Abigail asked, but, before April could reply, Seth’s gaze locked with hers.

  She turned around quickly. ‘Fuck. He saw us.’

  Vanessa cackled. ‘So?’

  ‘So, we’re staring. That’s rude.’

  ‘You may be staring, but I’m giving him fuck-me eyes.’

  April took another look. Now it appeared as though he was looking anywhere but at their table, and he seemed embarrassed.

  ‘Go invite him over,’ Abigail said, and gave her a kick.

  ‘I’m not going to invite him over,’ April said breathlessly, ‘but I am going over to say hi so he doesn’t think we’re being rude – and no, you can’t come.’

  ‘Bitch,’ Vanessa snapped, and Abigail nodded in agreement.

  April left them and made her way around the tables to where Seth stood.

  ‘Hey there, remember me?’

  There was no way he could have looked more uncomfortable. ‘Yeah, hey, April.’

  ‘Yup, upstairs. I hope I’m not being too loud.’

  ‘In comparison to what?’ he asked, raising his voice as the music changed to something with a lot of screeching guitar.

  ‘Are you meeting someone here?’ she asked, even though she knew the answer to that question. She was kind of hoping to get him to stick around, even if it did mean subjecting him to her friends until they made themselves scarce.

  ‘No, I’m just picking up. I’m not really a bar kind of guy.’ He looked apologetic after he said that. ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with having a few drinks out.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my friends, but it’s not bad here. Not too rowdy and not many people drinking to get drunk.’

  ‘Not yet, anyway. Give it an hour.’

  ‘Then I can’t talk you into staying for a beer, on me?’ Her nerves frayed into slivers as soon as she asked, and she quickly added, ‘For helping me move in, I mean.’

  To her relief, he really seemed to weigh the offer in front of him, and a smile appeared. ‘You don’t have to do that.’

  ‘No, it’s OK. I mean, good neighbours –’

  The waitress appeared with a paper bag, and April could have snatched it from her hands and thrown it across the bar. If he had been going to say yes, the arrival of his food had put an end to that. He handed the waitress a twenty, told her to keep the change and tucked the bag under his arm as he turned his attention back to April.

  ‘I’ll have to take a raincheck on the beer, if that’s all right.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ she chirped a little too eagerly, then glanced back at her friends. ‘I should probably get back before all the mozza sticks are gone.’

  Seth tapped his bag. ‘You should try the fried chicken next time.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll bring the fried chicken with the beer.’

  Oh, God, April. Shut up.

  He didn’t run screaming, thank God, but he did push the door open with his ass. ‘Enjoy your nachos and beer.’

  ‘You…too.’

  When he was gone, she gave serious thought to dying on the spot. She drained half her beer and trudged back to her table.

  ‘What happened?’ Abigail asked. ‘Did you ask him to stay?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I offered to buy him a beer. Then I offered to buy him supper, and then he ran off, because I’m so smooth.’

  ‘You asked him out?’ Vanessa snorted, and April glared.

  ‘You told me to!’

  ‘Yeah, well, I wasn’t serious. Are you nuts? He’s your landlord. He can walk right into your apartment and fuck your shit up if you break up with him.’

  April groaned and leaned back in her chair. ‘Can someone just get me another beer, please? Many beers, until I forget what just happened.’

  ‘At least you got that guy’s number,’ Abigail pointed out. ‘He’s cute, and he’s making his way back over here.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess,’ April mumbled. She put on a smile and hoped Todd proved awesome enough company to make her forget that, mortifying encounter or not, she was still getting a raging crush on her landlord.

  Chapter Four

  The first thing April did as she stepped into the lobby of Winsloe Court was pause at the mirror in the foyer opposite the mailboxes. After
staring at her reflection for a moment, she huffed out a disappointed breath and ran her hands through her newly dyed hair.

  She didn’t know what to expect. That going from blonde to this coffee brunette would instantly change her into something else? Maybe. It was still her, though. She turned her head this way and that. She supposed she could say that she looked more sophisticated as a brunette, and if she switched her contacts for some glasses she could rock the sexy librarian look.

  That wasn’t all she had done. While her eyebrows were naturally dark, the rest of her wasn’t. She’d gotten her first Brazilian wax. She’d teared up so much that her eye makeup was smudged, and she found herself keenly aware of how bare she was and how soft her panties were. It had made her kind of horny, even standing in line at the coffee place.

  This was the thought she was still contemplating as she went to the mailbox, and as her landlord came through the main door.

  I wouldn’t mind showing off what’s going on downstairs to him, she thought, as she took her time putting the key in the mailbox. Those big arms were going to kill her if she looked too long, and when he slowed down she noticed he had the most gorgeous hazel eyes, with the sort of lashes women paid good money to have glued to their lids.

  He glanced at her as he passed, but as he started up the stairs he stopped and raised his eyebrows.

  For a ridiculous second, April thought perhaps he could tell that she had been stripped bare and was wet between her legs.

  ‘Wow, that’s a change,’ he said. She couldn’t tell whether that meant he liked it or he didn’t, until he leaned over the banister and showed his naughty grin. ‘New hair?’

  ‘Yeah, to go with everything else new. I don’t know if I like it yet.’

  ‘I do. It makes your blue eyes stand out more,’ he said.

  April thrilled from head to toe. She couldn’t bring herself to say thank you. If she did, she’d start giggling like a moron.

  ‘I was thinking about a few tattoos as well,’ she went on, joining him on the stairs, and craned her neck. ‘Maybe a big skull with a snake coming out of its mouth?’

  ‘You seem more of a devil-riding-a-motorbike kind of girl. All across your back, of course.’