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“Thanks.” Shayna jogged up the steps, feeling like she could finally breathe again. She made for the metro station for another appointment, unsure what to think about the place she’d just seen.
“Miss? Hey, miss?” came a voice from behind her.
She turned to find a woman about her age jogging toward her. Covered in colorful tattoos and a face full of piercings. “Yes?” Shayna asked, wary.
The woman caught her breath and began gesturing. “I know you don’t know me, but I saw you come out of the basement apartment at 519.” Shayna nodded though she had no idea what to expect next. “The couple who owns that place fights all the time. Like knock-down, drag-out fights. Everyone on the block can hear them. People call the cops on them but nothing ever seems to happen. I just thought you should know.”
Shayna’s jaw about hit the street. It’s an old house and sound can travel… “Holy crap, thank you for telling me. I was tempted by that place.”
“No worries,” the woman said, already retreating. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”
“I really appreciate it,” she called back, putting her hand to her forehead. Well that was a freaking near miss.
Which put her on edge as she knocked on door number two across town, a sublet of a one-bedroom plus den apartment. The woman had said she could have the bedroom, so at least Shayna would have a door.
This time when she knocked, a girl in pigtails and pajamas answered. A girl who was at least college-aged based on the conversation they’d had in advance, but who appeared much younger. “Hey, you Shayna?” she said by way of greeting.
“Yeah? Corinne?”
The woman yawned and nodded as she waved her in, and Shayna could immediately smell the cat. “So, this is the place,” Corinne mumbled as she shuffled her fuzzy slippers against the badly scuffed wood floors.
They passed the galley-style kitchen first, which was a little messy but not terrible, before arriving into the living room with attached den.
And Jeebus fannyflaps Christmas. The living room was a seven-layer dip of actual carpet, cat hair, discarded clothing, gum and PopTart wrappers, magazines, and hairbands. The coffee table bore the load of more than a few dishes growing their own ecosystems.
“This is the shared space and my room’s beyond the curtain,” Corrine said, still mumble-showing her the apartment despite Shayna’s growing freak-out. “Your room is there.” She pointed to a mostly closed door near the den.
Shayna was afraid to look. Like, legit had no idea what to expect.
She pushed the door open and was hit by a wall of acrid cat urine odor. Because the litterbox sat against one wall. Otherwise, it was empty. Unless you counted the tiny ants parading across the windowsill and the bug carcasses in the grimy ceiling light fixture. Stomach dropping, Shayna peered out the window and wasn’t at all surprised to find a view of an alley.
“I appreciate your time, Corinne. But I think I have too much stuff to fit here. I’m a photographer so—”
“Yeah, okay. Whatever. Can you see yourself out?” she said, collapsing into the futon couch.
“Uh, sure.”
Out on the street again, Shayna didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She almost wished someone had been with her so that she could’ve gotten a reality check about whether all that craziness had actually happened.
Thank God she hadn’t tried to rent a place sight unseen before she’d arrived in DC, because if she’d have been locked into either of the two places she’d visited tonight, it would’ve been terrible.
She arrived home at nearly eight o’clock still feeling a little shell-shocked. Billy stood at the stove sautéing vegetables in a big wok.
“Hey,” she said, too fuzzy-headed to remember that things were weird between them. From the way she’d broken her word to talk to him and run out of his room in the middle of a near panic-attack. After they’d given each other oral sex.
Amazing oral sex. Like, mind-blowing oral sex.
And then her past had caught up with her and ruined everything. Like it always did. On a sigh, she dropped into a chair at the breakfast bar. “That smells good,” she said, realizing she hadn’t eaten. Although dish ecosystems didn’t necessarily inspire an appetite.
Billy was studying her, a wariness in his eyes that she couldn’t quite read. “Want some? I made plenty. It’s just chicken and vegetables in soy sauce. And I steamed some rice.”
“Sounds amazing,” she said, heavily dropping her purse onto the chair beside her. Scrolling through her phone, she saw that a few other potential roommates and landlords had responded to her inquiries and wanted to set up meetings.
“You okay?” Billy asked after a long moment.
“Um, yeah. I, uh…” She put down her phone. No way could she respond to anyone in her current frame of mind. “I went to see a couple of apartments and they were legitimately terrible.”
The pan knocked loudly against the stove like Billy had nearly dropped it. “Sorry,” he said, intently stirring the veggies. “Apartment hunting already? No, uh, no rush, you know.”
