by Alexis Daria
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To Mom and Dad.
Thanks for everything.
1
A nap. That was all Natasha Díaz wanted. She had fantasized about it the whole drive home, in the brand-new blue Prius that had used her entire paycheck from playing a high school mean girl in a few episodes of Drama School. Not her finest work, but hey, the pay was okay.
When her last client canceled their private yoga session, Natasha headed straight home for a late afternoon nap. She’d taught six fitness classes that day on very little sleep—her own fault, for once again succumbing to temptation. Was a nap too much to ask?
Apparently so, because her entire mother-effing bathroom ceiling was gone.
Well, not gone. Just not where it was supposed to be. Instead of being where a ceiling belonged, it was all over her bathroom and half the bedroom—including her closet.
Cue the screaming of every Spanish curse word she knew, which was a lot of them.
This was what she got for wanting the master bedroom. When she and her best friend Gina had moved in nearly five years earlier, Natasha insisted she was cool paying more for the bigger room and private bath. Now, plaster, water, and a fine layer of white dust were everywhere, making it difficult to breathe. She covered her mouth and nose with one hand, creating a makeshift mask. Water still cascaded in from somewhere above.
And her closet? The door had been left ajar in her rush to leave last night. She opened it fully and bit back a sigh. The water from the leak upstairs had managed to seep inside, along with no small amount of plaster dust. It had gotten into her clothing. Her shoes. Her luggage. And everything else jammed into the top shelf she couldn’t reach without standing on a stepladder. It was a godawful mess.
Swallowing back tears, she pulled out her phone and put in a call to her building’s management company. No one picked up, of course, but she left a message explaining the situation in as calm a voice as she could manage, even as the water still flowed. Then she sent a text to the building’s super, hoping he was around.
Since a hollow whooshing sound still came from the pipes upstairs, Natasha grabbed a broom and banged on the bedroom ceiling, hoping it wouldn’t fall in as well. Nothing happened. She jogged upstairs to knock on her neighbor’s door. Again, no reply. The fucking nerve of them, ruining her apartment and wardrobe, and not even having the decency to be home so she could bitch them out.
No use dwelling on it. They had to come back sometime.
Trudging back to her own apartment, she got to work emptying the closet. Wet things in one pile on the floor, and dry things on the bed. Each ruined item she tossed aside brought a pang of loss.
Her clothes. Her beautiful, beautiful clothes.
Snap out of it. Okay, so this was bad, but not horrible. The apartment had a second bedroom, vacant now that Gina had moved out, and a second bathroom. She could still stay here while repairs were made. Or maybe the management company would finally reply to the emails she had sent asking if there was a one-bedroom available in the same building for her to move into.
A small part of her regretted turning down Gina’s offer to pay rent until the end of the lease, but it was high time she stopped leaning on Gina for support. She was twenty-seven years old, old enough to stop relying on her best friend and stand on her own two feet. She didn’t want a new roommate—didn’t want to have to learn to deal with another person’s quirks—and she had enough summer gigs to cover the full rent on her own until the fifteenth season of The Dance Off started filming in the fall. She’d make it.
Being a pro dancer on a hit reality TV celebrity dance competition paid well, although money still seemed to slip through her fingers as easily as it had when she’d been a teenager working as a waitress in the Bronx.
Exhausted as she was, Natasha separated out the clothing to be tossed in the washer and what would have to be dry cleaned. Laundry was the absolute last thing she wanted to do, but when there was a hole in your bathroom ceiling, plans changed. She’d just retrieved the detergent from under the kitchen sink when someone knocked on her door.
Opening it revealed Manny, the building’s super. “Hola, Manny,” she said, switching to Spanish for their conversation. And even though she was on the verge of hysteria, she asked in a polite tone, “¿Cómo están sus niños?”
It was their dynamic—when their paths crossed, they chatted in Spanish and she asked about his kids, and he came to her assistance more quickly than he did for some of the other tenants.
As he told her about his son’s latest achievement at computer camp, she ushered him into her bedroom and gestured at the water still pouring in. “I came home a few minutes ago and found it like this.”
Manny stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the ceiling, then sighed and removed a giant key ring from his belt. “I’ll go up and turn off the water.”
Natasha continued to move things out of the bedroom while she waited. There was no way she was going to be able to sleep in her room for the foreseeable future.
It was a while before Manny returned. Natasha looked up in surprise when he finally re-entered the apartment. “What took so long?” she asked.
Manny jingled the key ring on the end of his finger. “Lo siento, señorita,” he began. “It looks like a pipe burst. I had to shut off the water in the entire building.”
Natasha groaned. “For how long? I need to do laundry.”
He shrugged. “I have to call a plumber. I don’t know how long it will take.”
Natasha sucked in a deep breath. It wouldn’t do any good to take out her frustration on the super. “Okay, well, I’ll just move my things into the second bedroom for now. I can stay there until this is fixed, unless there’s another apartment in the building that’s open. I don’t need a two-bedroom anymore, so I’d be happy to move into a one-bedroom until my lease ends.” If she got a new apartment out of this whole ordeal, maybe it would be worth it.
Manny cringed. “Señorita, I don’t think either of those options will work.”
Natasha went still, and tried to ignore the prickling sensation on the back of her neck. Whatever Manny was about to say, this was going to get worse. “¿Por qué?”
“The problem is there’s a bug infestation in the apartment upstairs. And . . . some of the other apartments in the building.”
The prickles spread down her back. “How many other apartments?”
“A lot of them.”
Fighting panic, Natasha squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose. “What kind of bug—no, you know what, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
Bugs. Carajo. Just the thought made her skin crawl.
Manny’s eyebrows tilted downward in sympathy. “The management company wanted to keep it quiet. I wasn’t allowed to let everyone know.”
That’s why the jerks hadn’t replied to her emails. “I get it. Okay, so, what does this mean? How long will it take to fix all this—the bugs, and the ceiling?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Hopefully not too long. You’ll be able to leave your furniture in the apartment while the exterminator and contractors work, though you should wrap it in plastic first. And you’re welcome to move back in when it’s all done, but it means we have to hold on to your deposit and you have to pay rent.”
Of course. The prickles intensified, and her eyes burned. “I see. Gracias, Manny.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help,” he said. “I’ll be upstairs cleaning if you need me. It looks like the guy who lives there moved out without notice.”
After Manny left, a cloud of despair descended.
She was going to have to move out. Immediately. Chest tight, she eyed the piles of clothing, wondering how fast bugs could move.
If only Gina were here. Gina would know what to do. She’d take care of everything, and their lives wouldn’t even skip a beat. All of this would be a minor nuisance, flattened by the force of Gina’s efficiency.
Natasha gave herself a shake before she could pick up and dial her best friend. No, she could do this. She could be an adult, and handle the obstacles that arose.
Closing her eyes, Natasha thought, What would Gina do?
Research. Gina always started by informing herself of the topic at hand. When they’d learned ballroom dance styles, Gina had made them color-coded study guides and playlists.
Natasha pulled out her phone and started a search, grimacing at the photos of bugs. A bit of digging revealed a ray of hope: if she washed and dried on hot, she could salvage most of the clothing. The more delicate items had to get to the dry cleaner immediately, which would cost a fortune, but it was worth it to save her wardrobe.
There. Adulting wasn’t so hard.
Except she still didn’t have a place to live. And she had a whole apartment to pack up.
And she was exhausted
Stupid Dimitri and his late-night texts. Stupid her for not ignoring him.
Shit. Enough wallowing. She had to get to work.
2
An hour later, Manny stopped by to tell her the water in the building was back on. Natasha grabbed the first two piles of clothes and hustled to the laundry room on her floor.
While the washer ran, she vacuumed and dusted everything else in the house. According to the list she’d found online, she was going to have to wrap all the furniture in plastic, and either put it into storage or move it into Gina’s old bedroom.
What a fucking chore. Her eyes and throat burned from exhaustion and plaster dust. She took a break to swap out her contacts for the red-framed glasses she wore at night.
Her phone rang while she was loading the dryer. Dimitri’s handsome face flashed on the screen, cropped from a selfie they’d taken one night swimming naked in his pool. She answered out of habit, then bit back a curse. Sangana. She didn’t have time to talk to him, to be tempted by him. Holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder, she grabbed a handful of socks that had fallen to the floor.
“What is it, Dimitri?” Frazzled, she snapped the words out, then winced. She’d never spoken to him that way, but she was inches from a meltdown and too tired to care.
“Tasha?” His deep voice tickled her ear. “Is everything okay?”
“Okay?” She let out a hysterical giggle, which seemed to shatter her common sense. Everything came tumbling out, even though he was the last person she should confide in. “No, nothing is okay. My bathroom ceiling fell in, there’s a leak in my bedroom, and my building is infested with bugs. I have nowhere to live, and I’m running on three hours of sleep because I spent all night with you. So, no, I’m not okay. And I don’t have time for whatever kinky thing you have planned, so just . . . ask someone else.”
And then she hung up on him, something else she had never done before. Before she could call him back to apologize, she slapped the phone down on top of the dryer and kept shoving wet clothing inside. It was better this way. She was trying to keep her distance from him—and doing a terrible job of it, if last night was any indication—so maybe this would push him away and give her some breathing room. Their interactions didn’t extend to hysterical babbling into the phone about real-life things, things that had nothing to do with dancing or fun or sex.
No, their interactions were strictly the carnal sort. Dimitri was a judge on The Dance Off, a TV show that paired celebrities with professional dancers for a ballroom dance competition, and she was one of the pro dancers. They weren’t friends, just coworkers who sometimes banged. It was ridiculous to want to spill to him about the whole situation, and even more ridiculous to worry her snippy words would push him away. This was what she wanted. Distance. Space.
Right. And she was a fucking liar. She wanted him with her every breath, but all he would ever do was break her heart, and that was fragile enough as it was. That was exactly why she needed to stay away from him. Finishing up with the dryer, she headed back to her apartment.
Halfway through vacuuming the living room rug—again—and cursing California’s propensity toward wall-to-wall carpet, the tears burst through the flimsy emotional dam she’d constructed.
Good thing she’d taken out her lenses.
The vacuum filled the room with its obnoxious roar, and all the stress and exhaustion crashed down on her. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she shoved her fingers under her glasses to swipe at her eyes. This sucked. Everything sucked. And she had no idea what to do.
The no-strings on-and-off shit she had going with Dimitri put her through the wringer. No sleep plus a day of teaching had left her physically drained. And now, faced with the prospect of being broke and homeless, she was done. So done. She’d been in tough spots before, had made hard decisions she hoped to never make again. Life had shown her early on that you could only rely on yourself, but the past few years had seemed like smooth sailing. She’d paid down her debts with her last payout from The Dance Off, and when her white Honda had up and died, she’d had the money from her recent acting gig to buy a new one.
And then Gina found true love and moved out.
She was happy for Gina. Truly. Cynical as she was, Natasha still believed in true love, and Gina of all people deserved happiness. Gina Morales and her celebrity partner Stone Nielson had fallen in love while paired together on the previous season of The Dance Off. Their win had opened more doors for them, and they’d left Los Angeles, vowing to navigate the waves of show business together.
Natasha hated herself for feeling jealous, but she and Gina had been friends since they were fourteen. They’d done everything together—high school, starting a dance career, moving to LA—mostly thanks to Gina’s limitless ambition and organizational skills. Now she was gone.
Still, Natasha had handled it. All of it. She had skills and a bit of fame on her side, so she’d secured a slew of side gigs to keep her financial situation steady. Some cameo spots, modeling gigs, and a lot of dance and fitness classes that would get money in her pocket quickly. Once the next season started, she’d be in the clear again.
Except for this. A hole in the damn ceiling. A leak in her closet. And bugs. Bugs! There was only one kind that struck terror into the hearts of building superintendents, and it wasn’t roaches.
A shiver ran down her spine. She had to get the hell out of here. But where could she go? Gina was her ride-or-die, and she’d send money if Natasha asked, but that was exactly why she didn’t want to ask. She could call Lori Kim or Kevin Ray, her friends and coworkers on The Dance Off, but Lori’s roommates were awful, and Kevin was weird about having people in his house.
A heavy knock sounded from the front door, audible over the roar of the vacuum and her sobs.
Sucking in a deep breath, she shut off the vacuum and wiped her eyes. She didn’t care if Manny saw her crying—she had a good reason, and he knew it—so she yelled, “Entra.”
The apartment door opened. It wasn’t Manny.
Natasha stumbled backward over the vacuum cord when Dimitri Kovalenko strode into the room
.
Before they’d met, she’d known his face from movies and magazines. In person, he stunned the senses. Dark hair and heavy brows, eyes the color of milk chocolate that focused on her with laser intensity, and always at least a few days of stubble darkening his cheeks and upping his masculinity even more. As if his commanding posture and broad shoulders weren’t already intimidating in a way that made her want to rub her body against his like a cat.
And she . . . god, she probably looked a mess. Sweaty, frizzy hair, glasses. No. No, he couldn’t see her like this. What the hell was he even doing here?
Dimitri froze, his gaze tracking over her tear-streaked cheeks, and his usually stern expression tipped toward concern. “Tasha? What’s going on?”
His voice, normally loud and forceful, was softer than she’d ever heard it. He advanced on her, and she trembled, both wanting his touch and fearing it. Don’t be nice to me, she wanted to beg. I’m too raw already. I can’t take it.
His hands clasped her shoulders, warm and solid, and the comforting green scent of his cologne surrounded her. She swallowed hard, wishing she could lean on him, just for a moment, just to know what it felt like to have someone there to catch her if she fell.
But that someone wasn’t Dimitri, would never be Dimitri. He wasn’t the type to stick around. Hell, he’d never done it before. Why would he start now? He was an occasional hookup. Nothing more.
Dimitri leaned in, and Natasha found the strength to press her hand to his chest to hold him back. Something flashed across his features—hurt? Probably annoyance. But she steeled her resolve. If he kissed her now, it would break her, and she had to stay strong if she was going to figure out the mess she was in.
Natasha lifted her chin, trying to appear in control. “What do you want, Dimitri? I told you, I don’t have time for you right now.” She’d meant to make the words harsh, but they came out weary.
He stepped back, his dark, intense gaze moving around the room, taking in the garbage bags stuffed with clothing, and the smaller pieces of bedroom furniture crowded in the kitchen. “You said you weren’t okay.”
