by Jolie Day
“Don’t feel like talking?” Ethan said in a cool, almost irritated tone. “I’ll show you the apartment then.”
Ethan set off at a saunter into the living room, trusting me to follow, and to my great annoyance, I did. My hands balled into fists and then loosened again in a manic cycle. Who did he think he was, slipping right back into our old banter? Like five years hadn’t passed, and he didn’t just leave without a damn word? And who was I, to even entertain the thought of living with him? I should have thrown that stupid expensive coffee in his face and shown myself out, not tagged along beside him like we were on an episode of MTV Cribs. And yet…
A cozy armchair upholstered in plush deep blue beckoned to me from a reading nook by the gigantic living room window, and I couldn’t help but think of how inviting it would be in the winter months, especially with the modern fireplace crackling. Despite the cool color scheme used in the design, the entire living room had taken on a warm hue as the sun set over the city skyline. Coming home to this place after a long day at work must be heaven incarnate, even if the price of admission would be renting from the devil.
“How’s Rick?” Ethan asked. He said my brother’s name so casually that it almost seemed rude, a tone-deaf reference to someone who would probably punch his name right out of Ethan’s mouth if he heard him using it.
I glanced out of the window at the amazing view, refusing to make eye contact. “Still wants you dead.”
“Figures. Did he take over your dad’s auto body shop?”
I turned to face him this time, his interest in my brother a bit irritating after all these years. “He went into computer repair instead. Lives with his fiancé and their baby girl in a nice little house in Somerset. She’s in school to be a nurse. The fiancé, obviously, not the baby.” My stupid nerves were getting the best of me, and I could barely get my thoughts together. I wanted to slap myself.
“Obviously. Good for her.”
I tried to read Ethan’s face but found him to be as impenetrable as ever. Was he genuinely happy for them, or did he have it out for Ricky as much as my brother seemed to think? Moreover, was that a twinge of regret I caught in his eyes? No way. Ethan had never felt remorse for anything in his entire life. I wasn’t even sure if he knew how to arrange his features into an expression that adequately faked it.
Ethan swept his hand across the living room as he moved toward the spiral staircase. “What you see is what you get with the living room. The TV has Bluetooth, surround sound, the whole nine yards. Sunrise isn’t much to write home about, but as you can see, we catch an excellent sunset. I’ve always been more of a dusk guy myself, anyway.”
I couldn’t believe him. He was jumping from our past to our future like it was nothing, as if he could hold all of our interactions in the palm of his hand and toy with them as he pleased, never explaining his motives or taking responsibility for his actions.
“Seriously? You’re just gonna give me some breezy tour of your McMansion, business as usual?”
“Why not? I told the broker I would do my part to show you the digs, didn’t I? Lights, central air and heating are voice activated, if you know what to say. I’ll go over the operating manual with you once you’ve signed the lease.”
“And what makes you think I’m going to sign your lease?” I almost regretted the snippy way in which I asked the question. I could’ve been a little more courteous. Maybe. This wasn’t a civil war, after all.
Ethan looked back at me as we climbed the staircase, his face an unreadable mask, per usual.
“Sorry, I just assumed you were serious about becoming a tenant.”
I thought about pushing his sexy ass right down the staircase but restrained myself. I had to maintain the upper hand here. Through some sick twist of circumstance, Ethan Gladwell was back in my life, on top of his game, and looking better than ever. I had to present myself well and show him I wasn’t a lovestruck teenage girl anymore. I was a woman who was perfectly capable of going toe-to-toe with his suave, bossy schtick.
“You’ve asked plenty of questions of me—” I began, and he cut me off.
“Yeah, and you haven’t answered.”
“So now it’s my turn. What are you doing in the city?”
“Working, the same way I assume you’ve been going to school. Or, have you graduated?”
“I recently graduated with a BA in art history. Working where?”
“For myself.”
“Doing?”
He shrugged. “Consulting, among other things.”
I stopped short at the top of the stairs, refusing to budge another inch.
“You’ve obviously done well for yourself.”
He turned, giving me an inquisitive stare, and I felt penetrated by those hazel eyes. Still, I held my ground and pressed for more information.
“The last time we spoke, you couldn’t even afford to put gas in your shit Camry. Now, suddenly you’re Jay Z. It doesn’t add up. What kind of consulting are you doing?”
The look he gave me was appraising, almost cold, and for a moment, I felt a bit uneasy that maybe I’d overstepped a boundary. What right did I have to come into someone’s home and demand to know where their money came from? What if I’d overshot the whole witty banter thing and misread the situation? What if Ethan was just being polite and hardly remembered me beyond his estranged friend’s hyperactive little sister. Suddenly I felt no more than an inch tall, and I opened my mouth to apologize. But he cut me off instead.
“Finance. Investing, specifically.” Ethan quirked an amusing brow, then turned to saunter down the hallway. “I’ll show you the master bath.”
The master bedroom was just as impressive as the rest of the home, sporting huge, spotless windows, a minimalist layout, and a deep-blue accent wall. Ethan drifted through the room almost without care, flicking a hand toward the door that stood open to a bright, gray-tiled bathroom. I caught a glimpse of a waterfall showerhead and a large whirlpool bath.
“The secondary bedroom has its own en-suite bathroom as well, but it doesn’t feature a bathtub. If you’d like to use the spa bath, you’re welcome to, especially when I’m out of town. I rarely take baths—you might get more use out of it.”
It was a tempting thought, imagining myself lounging in a whirlpool bubble bath with a view of the city most people would kill for. I could line up all my beauty products and bath oils on the tub, light some candles, and slip into luxurious bliss. Every other apartment I’d viewed had featured a run-down, grimy bathroom shared by at least three people. Still, I wasn’t sure the promise of in-home spa days was enough to entice me into such a strange living arrangement. Was I seriously considering this? Playing house with Ethan, after everything he’d done to me and my family?
Ethan swept past me back into the hallway, and then pushed open a door to a smaller bedroom, just down the hall from his.
“This would be your room. If you choose to move in, of course.”
He seemed so unaffected, so calm and collected, as he watched me take in the accommodations. I desperately wished I could read his mind as he stood there straightening the rolled cuffs of his shirt.
“The bedroom is a bit small, I’ll admit, but guests have always told me it’s comfortable.”
While the second bedroom was smaller than Ethan’s, it was still more spacious and more inviting than most of the rooms I’d been frantically viewing over the past couple of weeks. A plush stuffed bed waited on a low frame next to a sleek chest of drawers, and warm light streamed in from the window. The adjoining bathroom sported a large mirror and cozy-looking walk-in shower.
“Why rent it out? It’s obvious you don’t need a roommate to defer the cost of your mortgage. Why not just keep this as a guest bedroom?”
Ethan surveyed the room thoughtfully and then shrugged. “I’m away on business trips probably a third of the year. I don’t like the idea of the house sitting empty. I figured that someone who needed a place to stay would be more likely to take better care
of the apartment while I’m gone, hence the discounted rent. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t pricing out the right fit.”
I stood awkwardly on the hardwood floor, trying to come up with an adequate excuse for why I could not, would not be moving in. It was just too strange. I felt like I was on one of those prank shows where people jump out and tell you to smile for the camera. But Ethan wasn’t laughing, he wasn’t even smiling. He was just watching me with something that hardly counted as a passing interest.
“Let me know if I can answer any of your questions,” he said when I didn’t fill the silence between us.
“I…” I fiddled with the tassel on my purse. “I appreciate the tour. But I don’t think I’ll be able to make an offer on the apartment.” I swallowed, worried I’d been a bit too rude earlier, was still being rude. “Not today, anyway.”
“Of course not, you need time to think. I’m happy to hear an offer any time in the next week or two. There’s no rush, Maya.”
He said my name with a gentleness that seemed out of place with his businesslike exterior. I wanted to press him for more information, to ask if he remembered that rainy night in his car, to ask why he’d left both me and my brother without so much as giving us his new address.
I opened my mouth, but then the door slammed downstairs and a jovial voice drifted up the staircase.
“How are you two doing up there? Gorgeous views, right? And those floors are vintage walnut! Mr. Gladwell, did you show her the whirlpool bath?”
“I did,” Ethan shouted down. He turned and gave me a fleeting smirk, his voice hovering just above a whisper. “She’s something else, isn’t she? I feel like she must drink all the espresso in Manhattan just to get out of bed in the morning.”
There was a playful light in Ethan’s eyes that reminded me of our time together as kids, and it made me feel at ease. But then the broker’s arrival was heralded by the clicking of her heels, and the light dissolved back into Ethan’s untouchable persona.
“What do we think?” she asked, clasping her manicured hands together. “Ready to make an offer? I wouldn’t pass this up if I were you, Maya. Arrangements like this are once in a lifetime. If you ask me, Mr. Gladwell has priced the room far too low for this neighborhood, but you can benefit from his oversight.”
She was just making sales-y chit-chat, but my stomach was in knots. I knew that she was right. There were hundreds of fresh graduates just like me out there who would do anything for this apartment, and I was sure it was only dumb luck that I’d managed to set foot in the place before it was leased on the spot to the first person with a sound head on their shoulders. But I’d never been able to keep my head around anything having to do with Ethan Gladwell. And the thought of living with him, of waking up to find him making eggs in the kitchen in his boxers, and God knew what else, was just too much for me. As intriguing as the thought of living with him was, it was not going to happen. I wasn’t going to spend another month of my life crying in bed like a heartbroken little girl when he wronged me again. I would figure out something else. I always did.
“I was just telling Mr. Gladwell that I needed some time to think. Weigh my options, and all that.”
The broker’s face fell from her usual overly ecstatic expression. She’d been pulling overtime trying to match me with an apartment and collect her requisite fee for the last week, and we were running out of time before the leasing period for the next month passed by. Ethan, however, just nodded as though I’d said something sensible.
“I understand. Now, if you two will excuse me, I have a meeting across town in half an hour,” Ethan said suddenly, cutting the tension. “You’re free to keep looking around, but I really should get going.”
Once again, I couldn’t have told you what he was thinking if you had given me a hundred dollars to do it. Was he disappointed? Relieved? Either way, it seemed like we were politely being asked to make ourselves scarce.
I gave them a cordial nod, then slipped past Ethan without saying goodbye and began my trek down the hallway. I heard the broker and Ethan exchange a few more words, but then I could hear the click-clack of her heels as she followed me, sweeping across the living room toward the door. The espresso he’d made for me was growing cold on the kitchen counter. I gathered my jacket into my arms and waited by the door while the broker said her thank you’s and goodbyes. Ethan half paid attention to her and half watched me from the staircase, his eyes a mysterious tangle of green and brown that refused to reveal their secrets.
Moments later, the broker and I were in the elevator, making our way smoothly and quickly to the ground level. She said nothing, just tapping away at her phone to set up another apartment viewing for me, but I couldn’t focus on anything. Not the ceiling, not the floor, not my phone. I just stared down at my shoes, replaying the last twenty minutes in my mind. Ricky would never believe me. No one would.
The broker was saying something encouraging to me about trying again tomorrow at this great little loft in Greenwich, so long as I didn’t mind being the apartment’s fourth roommate. I nodded, still in a bit of a daze, and exchanged a meager goodbye as the elevator dinged and deposited us on the first floor. Once we were outside, the broker went her way, signaling for a cab, and I went mine, trudging toward the subway.
The streets were teeming with after-work traffic and the steady stream of pedestrians hustling home from long days at the office. My phone buzzed in my purse, and I fished it out and glanced down at the caller ID. It was Ricky again.
How was the viewing?
Not the best, I typed back. I was busting at the seams to tell him about my wild experience, but I knew hearing Ethan’s name would only upset him, and it didn’t seem like the sort of thing he needed to know. Why rub salt in old wounds?
That sucks. Do you want me to check Craigslist again for you?
I took a breath, wondering how to properly reply without giving away the owner of said apartment, and then someone crashed into me, hard. I was thrown to the ground and scraped my knees so hard, my tights ripped. My phone clattered a few feet away to come to rest in a filthy puddle. Someone above me was trying to wrestle my purse off my shoulder.
“What’s goi—”
I wound my fingers around the strap of my purse and screamed, nearly being dragged along the sidewalk as the mugger tried to wrest it away. The pain in my knees was blinding, and I could hardly make out his face through the hood and scarf he was wearing, but I refused to let go. If I got robbed today, it wouldn’t be because I didn’t fight back.
Determined, the mugger gave my purse one more yank. The strap gave me a rope burn as it was wrenched from my fingers. I collapsed onto the ground with a miserable cry, sure that my money, my credit cards, my photos, and social security card, were all now things of the past. The sidewalk swam in front of my eyes as they filled with tears.
The shouts of male voices made me jump, and when I looked up again, the mugger was entangled in a scuffle with another man. My rescuer was tall, with dark hair and forearms latticed over with tattoos.
“Ethan!” I shouted. I was half-relieved, half-infuriated, a hundred percent overwhelmed. The shock of being knocked on my ass in the middle of the street was beginning to set in, and as I watched Ethan grapple with my attacker, I felt like I may have been dreaming. Only the throbbing pain in my knees and the gritty scrapes on my palms reminded me that somehow, all of this was real.
I tried to clamber to my feet and do something, anything, to break the two men apart, but a wave of dizziness kept me on the ground. Ethan had managed to yank my purse back from the mugger, and it lay half-forgotten on the ground, its contents spilling along the sidewalk. I scrambled for the wayward lipsticks and dimes, and the doorman from Ethan’s apartment shouted and began to hustle over.
Ethan had the mugger by the collar of his shirt, and was halfway to wrestling him to the ground, when the other man squirmed out of his grasp. He set off down the sidewalk at breakneck speed, shoving people out of the way as h
e made his escape.
“Call the police,” Ethan snapped to the doorman. “I can give a description if they need it.”
“Yes, sir,” the doorman said, already dialing the number on his phone and signaling to other members of the building staff.
In an instant, Ethan was by my side, crouched down next to me with his hands settled over my shoulders.
“Are you all right?”
“I—Yes. I’m fine, I just…”
I continued scrambling for my rolling compacts and the key lanyard that had flown into the gutter. Ethan scooped up the contents of my purse quicker than I could in my baffled state. He dusted off my sunglasses and tucked them gently back in my purse before placing the whole bundle into my arms and pulling me up. His fingers were spread protectively across my shoulders, and I had the overwhelming urge to collapse into his chest and cry.
“Maya, you don’t look fine,” Ethan said in a quiet and concerned tone. “Come back inside.”
“I just… He came out of nowhere, I didn’t…” My voice was thick with tears. Fear was catching up with me, and my knees felt like jelly. Ethan felt like the only solid thing in my spinning world, and I staggered toward him in desperate need of a little stability. I swiped a tear off my face, angry at myself for crying. I considered myself a street-smart person and never lost my cool when I missed the subway or got catcalled on my daily walk. Muggings were a normal part of life in the city—they happened every day.
But it had never happened to me, and now, I was shaken up.
“I’d like that,” I croaked.
5
Ethan
I could feel Maya’s narrow frame trembling against me as I led her back inside the apartment complex. I’d stood by the living room window, allowing myself the indulgence of watching her leave, and had just been about to turn away and get ready for my next meeting, when the mugger jumped from the alleyway and attacked her. It probably would’ve been better if I’d just called the police and buzzed the security guard at the front door and told him to help her. But I couldn’t do that. I’d always had trouble standing by when things went wrong, and Maya brought out a protective instinct in me, an instinct to be reckoned with it seemed.
