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I shivered from the slight dampness in the air and rolled my suitcase to the steps and hoisted the heavy bag.
My new rental was on the third floor. I rolled my eyes at the spiraling set of stairs and searched for an elevator.
Once on my floor, I found myself in front of my new home.
The door was brown and plain—nothing terribly exciting. I had seen a few pictures from the Internet, but I wasn’t sure if I was truly prepared to go from wide-open spaces to eight hundred square feet—or whatever that was in meters.
My hand hovered before the small box outside the door, near the knob. My fingers trembled with nervous anticipation as I blew out a breath and tapped the eight-digit code. I had recited the code in my head on the flight over—my first ever plane ride—probably seeming like some crazy person, chanting to herself. Of course, in this day and age, a twenty-four-year-old who had never flown before was an oddity in itself.
I sighed as I dropped my bag just inside the front door and fumbled for the light switch in the dark, wondering why a place with high-tech code locks didn’t have automatic lights or motion sensors. “There you are.” I flicked on the light and found myself in the kitchen. Well, the three square feet I stood in probably counted as the “entryway,” but the refrigerator was directly to my left, and there wasn’t much but a wall to the right.
Shutting the door, I unwrapped the blue scarf from around my neck and let it hang loose down the front of my sweater. I moved deeper into the apartment, past the breakfast bar, which seemed like the closest thing to a table.
There was a brown leather chair, a black suede couch, and a large, flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. No pictures. No lamps. No rugs.
I’d been fortunate to find someone who would allow me to bunk with her for those three months at such a low rate. The internship barely paid, although I was lucky to get anything. Most of the other internships I had applied to were unpaid.
I shook off the weird bachelor-pad vibe I was getting and glanced down the hall. My new roommate had told me in her email that my room would be the first door on the right. My hand shook a little as I gripped the brass handle and pushed.
The room was small, like the rest of the apartment. There was a double bed and nightstand. And, hey, a lamp! Nice touch.
I fought back my sudden urge to wash the plain white linens on the bed. Who knew whom—or what!—they had touched before me. But the weight of my sleepiness was too much. Although it was daytime back home, after being on such a long flight, I was beat.
I went back out into the hall and found the bathroom, where I peeled off my icky airplane clothes and stepped into the shower. It felt a little awkward to take a shower in someone else’s home without them even being there, but if I was going to go outside the box, then I had to get used to doing new things.
That was the point of this trip. Well, in part, at least. I also didn’t want to be the girl who’d only scribbled her dreams in a diary and never attempted to live them. Well, sure, I would probably never achieve world peace. And playing opposite of Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing was off the table. But at least I was doing this. Coming to Dublin was pretty big, in my book.
I stepped out of the small, glass-framed shower and grabbed one of the drab blue towels from the hook on the back of the door. It smelled like sandalwood and spice. Maybe Leslie had a boyfriend. I probably should have unpacked my towel before deciding to take a shower.
I quickly patted dry, trying to use as little of the towel as possible, and then tugged on my gray cotton nightshirt, which had “Horses are Love” scrawled across the front.
The oval mirror in front of the sink was sweating from the steam, and I swiped at it. My mother’s emerald-green eyes stared back at me. For a moment, I wondered if I’d made the wrong decision, leaving Kentucky. I blinked a few times and combed my fingers through my long, strawberry-blonde hair—another feature of my mother’s I’d inherited.
“I can do this.”
Feeling refreshed—well, at least clean—I gathered my clothes and opened the door.
In the doorframe, I halted, narrowing my eyes at the figure hugged by shadows at the end of the hall. A scream escaped my lips, and I dropped my clothes from my arms as I backed up. I fell against the bathroom door as my momentum left my feet behind.
“Hey, you okay?”
I stumbled, upright, my mind and body prepared for the worst as my hands went tense at my sides. My heart smacked loud in my chest as I stared at the silhouette before me. The shape stepped closer and into the light, and I gulped. “You are not Leslie,” I accused, studying his blue eyes.
“No.” He paused and his lips gathered into a smile, his bright white teeth a flashing contrast against his tan skin and short, black hair. “No, I’m not.”
He took another step forward, which compelled me farther back, but I shook off my fear when I realized he was crouching down. He scooped up my clothes off the shag carpet, and my cheeks flamed red hot. I snatched my plain-Jane white cotton bra and panties from him and tucked them away inside my jeans and shirt before pulling everything close in my arms, pressing the bundle to my chest. I didn’t normally wear granny panties, but I hadn’t expected to impress anyone after the long flight.
Now, of course, I was braless in a nightshirt that went only to my mid thighs.
“Who are you?” I clutched my clothes like a shield and swallowed again.
“I was planning on asking you the same question.” He folded his arms and studied me, amusement flickering in the smirk of his cheek.
The threat of danger seemed minimal, but I couldn’t let my guard down altogether. After all, there was a stranger standing before me who clearly wasn’t my roommate. Just because he had reinvented the meaning of good-looking didn’t mean he was no longer an enemy. And sometimes the best-looking men were the most dangerous.
Was I in the wrong apartment? No. I had the code, and it had worked. This man must be a friend of Leslie’s. Or maybe the boyfriend whose smell was on the towel. She probably sent him to make sure I got in okay since she was out of town this weekend. Of course that was the case. I tried to breathe a little easier.
“I’m Leslie’s new roommate. Are you friends with her?” I stepped out of the bathroom and around him, then quickly flipped on the hall light. I tossed my dirty clothes on the floor of my new bedroom and spun around, finding him only a few inches from me.
