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“Then order something.”
“You want anything?” I ask, once again trying to poke around in his personal business without asking directly.
“No,” is all he gives me, and it could mean literally anything.
Fine. “Are you going out tonight?”
“Yes,” he says. Miserably.
“Elodie?”
“There’s no one else who’ll talk to me, so yeah.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
He casts me a look all too reminiscent of the dismissive attitude I used to hit him with every time he walked through the door of the building trying to show me up. “Did you not notice the crime scene tape outside the door when you came in? No one comes near me anymore. Even my parents are barely speaking to me.”
“Ah… not allowed to fuck up at all, huh?”
“Not on camera.”
“You know,” I say as I open my food delivery app, “There is a world beyond the Upper East Side where no one gives a shit about you.” I say this from experience. I would never have heard about Olivier Arnaud if I didn’t work in the building. But this neighborhood is its own microcosm of old money, massive wealth, reputation, and appearance. It’s almost cartoonish—the eccentricities—the extravagances. Babs occasionally wears a fox stole in the winter. Made out of an actual fox, no joke.
The widow in 808 has a spiritual healer who comes at noon three times a week. I’ve never met the healer, but I’m aware of everyone’s appointments. But a spiritual healer? What even is that?
“You’d be surprised how many people read the society pages,” Olivier argues.
“Just because they read them doesn’t mean they’d shun you for getting a DUI.”
“And resisting arrest.”
“Still.” I stand by my point.
“So, you’d have no problem introducing me to your friends,” he says, testing the theory.
I laugh, shaking my head as I scroll through my nearby dining options. “That’s not what I said.”
“Right.” He pushes off the bed and walks to a dresser that looks like it came straight from Louis the XVI’s boudoir. Opening a drawer, he pulls out a clean black t-shirt and puts it on. It distracts me momentarily, watching him move, realizing I enjoy watching him move. I already had mixed feelings about my two days off coming up, but now there’s a slight creeping dread moving in along with the thought of...
Missing him isn’t the way I’d put it. That implies feelings, and I’m not sure I have many feelings for him beyond physical urges. It implies longing, and there’s no longing here.
It’s more like FOMO. Knowing where he is and who he’s with is a habit of mine. Lately, it’s become more of a hobby, something I enjoy keeping track of. One of the few things in life that entertains me.
“I won’t be here Saturday or Sunday,” I say, aware no one asked what my plans were.
He turns to face me, rearranging his hair now that his shirt is on. “Why not? Where will you be?”
“Off. I’ll be home.”
“Home downtown or home in New Hampshire?”
I frown at him. “How do you know I’m from New Hampshire?”
“Instagram.”
“You looked me up?” I ask.
“You’re gonna tell me you haven’t looked me up?”
