“They only had scones left.” I wrapped a hand around Calvin’s bicep, and we started walking again. I didn’t need to be at the Emporium for another half hour, so we zigzagged around the neighborhood for a time—down one street, across an avenue, down the next street, across another avenue. It was nice. Being punted back and forth between Calvin’s place and Pop’s like a football meant our already vastly different work schedules aligned even less than usual. So when I managed to grab free time with Calvin, being together to enjoy coffee and watch the city wake up for its morning hustle—it was something to cherish.
Dillon stopped to read the doggy correspondence on a tree, and as he did his thing, I shielded the tops of my sunglasses to study the street of historical tenements, all beautifully restored—a mixture of walk-ups and multiuse buildings that had shops on the ground floor.
“Maybe we should consider Brooklyn,” I said at length.
Calvin sipped his coffee and looked at me. “You don’t want to live in Brooklyn.”
“No. I definitely don’t. But Max has been trying to convince me to move out there since February.”
“Max wants a buddy to hang out with.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I’ve got a decade on Max.”
“You’re still his friend.”
“Because I pay him and provide health insurance.”
Calvin shook his head but was smiling as he pulled me close enough to kiss my forehead. “Keep telling yourself that.” Stepping back, he looked over his shoulder to the cross streets we’d just passed. He plucked the empty cup from my hand and said, “I’m going to toss these real quick.”
As soon as Calvin backtracked to the trash cans on the corner, a woman in a smart business suit stormed out of the side door that provided access to apartments above what looked like an expensive café and some kind of frumpy tie-dye shop—becauseEast Village. She was obviously upset, with a death-grip on a cell in one hand while she shoved her perfectly curled dark hair away from her face with the other. She stormed by me to the curb and waved for a taxi, but it was occupied and kept driving. I recognized the look on her face as she stomped a foot. She was close to rage-crying. There was nothing I hated more than a woman so upset that she had to cry in order to keep herself from throttling someone.
“Ma’am?” I spoke up.
She spun to face me. “Mr. Stevenson?”
I held both hands up like I were trying to defend my innocence. “No.”
She rolled her eyes and checked her phone again.
“I, uh… I won’t insult you by asking if you’re okay….”
She shoved the phone into the purse slung over one shoulder, then turned and pointed at the building she’d exited. “I woke up at the asscrack of dawn to show this apartment to that entitled shit.” She turned her gaze on me. “Do you have any idea how long it takes to do my hair?”
“Probably a long time,” I answered.
“Anhour,” she retorted.
“It’s very pretty.”
Her shoulders came down about an inch from her ears. “…Thanks.”
“Sure.”
“I had to come in from Queens for this,” she continued, growing agitated all over again. “This is the third client to blow me off. They have my phone number! They can’t text? Are their fingers broken? The owner is going to pull this unit from me if I can’t rent it, and if I have no properties, I’ll never get paid, and then what the hell was the point of getting my real estate license and moving to this city?” She directed her index finger at me this time. “Explainthat. God, Ihatetenants.” Then, realizing what she’d said aloud, she hastily added, “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay,” I told her. “I hate Realtors.”
For some reason that bit of honesty caused a smile to split her face, and then she laughed a bright and happy laugh. “This industry is bonkers.”
“No kidding.”
“I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I just had a meltdown on the street in front of a stranger.”
“It’s New York.” I offered a hand. “Sebastian Snow.”
“Joyce Kelly,” she said, shaking it.
I eyed the multiuse briefly, then asked, “So what’s the place Mr. Stevenson missed out on?”
