NOMI
Fuck.I flex my fingers into fists as I pace across my bedroom. That fuckerfiredme. And in front of Council-friends! Even if they forget the travesty they just witnessed, I neededmyXYB job to help cover start-up costs. My savings was hit hard by the deposits required to lease the building, and now, I have a month’s salarylessto pay my bills; keep me fed, watered, and smoked up;andbankroll Stranger Drugs?
A darker, more troubling thought hits—what’s going to happen to my health insurance? I haven’t had a bad flare in a few years, but the last one resulted in a brief hospitalization that would’ve bankrupted me without my XYB insurance. COBRA benefits should be available, but at a jaw-dropping cost. I squeeze my eyes closed. Thank God for this party because whatever we’ve managed to raise is now critically important to keeping me afloat.
I pull my vape out of my dress’s pocket and take three deep pulls, sighing as the calming chemicals hit my bloodstream. I’d vowed to stay clearheaded until I schmoozed with the Council-friends, but now that that ship’s sailed, been attacked by pirates, and is lying broken in Davy Jones’s Locker, I better head off this full-body panic attack before it sets in.
A knock rattles against my door. “Excuse me?”
I open it and find a random guy waiting outside. “Um, there’s a man on your roof? He’s freaking out. Thought you should know.”
“Great.” I stomp past him toward the internal staircase. We must’ve forgotten to lock Eve’s door, and now I have to go lure some stoned townie safely off my roof. What a fucking night.
I enter Eve’s empty apartment. “Hello?” Directly across from the front door, the tall window is cranked open, its curtains dancing in the breeze. Eve keeps it up whenever she’s baking to let out the heat, and since she was up here baking all day, I’m not surprised she left it open.
Iamsurprised to hear a man’s raspy cry for help on the other side of it, though.
“Stay put, I’m coming!” Sighing heavily, I sit on the open sash, butt first, then swing my legs over and ease out onto the gentle pitch of the gabled roof. I straighten, still holding onto the window dormer for balance, then nearly fall off anyway.
No.
My head rears back with a violence. I blink, but the malevolent specter haunting my chimney remains.
“Julian?”
Broad shoulders encased beneath pale pink linen turn first. Itcan’tbe Julian, but then that Clark Kent jawline appears, like a road that dead ends in those slutty little glasses, andJesus, itishim. The night’s humid breeze has re-formed his neat, black waves into a soft starburst of dark curls. With his navy chinos, brown loafers, and striking blue eyes, Julian is Wall Street devastating. He is soap opera gorgeous. He is—
“STUCK ON THIS ROOF!” he bellows, hands desperately gripping the chimney like they’re grinding on the dance floor.
“What are you doing on myroof?!”
“Being stuck,” he wails.
I have so many questions. Infinity questions. Why is Julian here? Why is he on my roof? Why is he humping my chimney and wailing about it? My mouth opens and closes several times, but there’s nothing for it—he’s actually scared, his torso rising and falling so rapidly, I’m worried he’ll faint.
Jesus.I have to rescue Julian D’Angelo.
Luckily it’s a pretty straightforward rescue. Five easy steps, and I’m already at the chimney and offering my hand. Our roof isn’t a big deal. If you can walk up a wheelchair ramp surrounded by handrails without losing your balance, then you can climb it. Still, Julian shudders in my grip. His eyes are so pale in the moonlight, they look almost clear. Like ice-melt. Shimmering, terrified ice-melt. But looking down at me, he seems to remember who I am, and a flash of that old Julian self-consciousness flares to life. He straightens as tall as he can, clutching the chimney with one hand and me with the other. “Okay, um. What’s the plan? 911? Firefighters?”
“We’re going to calmly walk four steps over there, to the flat part. See?”
“Move?You can’t be serious! That’s how people end up in my ER like sacks of broken twigs, Nomi! Goopy, squelching sacks of twigs!”
I wrinkle my nose. “Could you not get grossly poetic right now? I’ve done this hundreds of times. It’s fine.”
I tug him forward, but he shakes his head.
“Ican’t.”
“Yes, youcan.” I say the words firmly, a near verbatim imitation of him the night he stitched me up. The icy, authoritative tone works, because he finally relinquishes his hold on the chimney to grab me with both hands. One wrenches around my arm, the other bracketing my hip hard enough he might leave a mark.
I silently curse the shiver it sends down my spine. He whimpers a little, andoh, Jesus, I like that,too!
Goddammit,Spinster Nomi mutters from deep within her knitting cave.Someone vaped the HORNY POT AGAIN.
I forcibly shake off the effects of Julian’s proximity and lead him over the dry, wooden shingles to our destination. It takes a second, but he finally releases his grip on me so that I can ease down onto the roof and sit, tucking my dress’s poplin skirt beneath me. I pat the space next to me, and he sinks in a sad, shaking heap of long man limbs, the whole party below us.
“Now. Why are you on my roof?”
