Page 27 of Until We Come Home

Tasha gasps. “Stop it.”

“It’s the truth,” I say, not slowing down. “And search and rescue. Basically a general do-gooder. Loves running in to help people and all that good-person stuff.”

“You’re lying to me right now. So are you two sleeping together?”

“No!” I laugh, unlocking my car and tossing my bag into the backseat. The inside of my Corolla is roughly the temperature of the sun, so I start it and crank the AC, and we both stand outside the open doors waiting for it to become survivable. “He’s like my best guy friend. It would be so weird.”

“How is that weird?” Tasha throws her hands up. “Look at him.”

“Because it’s Mateo,” I say, as if that settles it, and for me it does.

The car is finally survivable, so we drop into our seats, pull out of the lot, and crawl down Lankershim with the rest of the morning traffic.

Tasha picks right back up where she left off before the photo sidetracked her: the tour she’s leaving on next month as a backup dancer for a pop star. We swap rehearsal horror stories the rest of the way to Toluca Lake.

When I pull up to her place, she reaches across the console for a quick hug, making me promise to FaceTime the second I unlock my Seattle sublet. With a final wave, I navigate the car over the hill toward Silver Lake.

My building is a tiny, pastel-pink 1940s stucco fourplex perched on a hill so steep my Corolla groans every time I park on the incline. Bright pink bougainvillea spills over the courtyard wall, and Louie, the sweet orange tabby belonging to my neighbor, is usually lounging on the steps. The whole block has that warm, lived-in feel of a neighborhood where people put down roots for decades.

Mrs. Delgado is already out front in a patterned house dress and sun visor, tending her tomato plants with the intense focus of a surgeon. Over the four years I've lived here, she's adopted me as a mix of surrogate granddaughter and constant worry.

"Mia!" she calls out as the gate clicks shut behind me. "You're back! How was Washington? You look pale already."

"Hey, Mrs. D. One afternoon of Pacific Northwest rain and my tan washed right off," I laugh, rummaging through my tote until my fingers catch the jar of local wild blackberry jam I picked up at the airport. "Brought you a little gift."

She squints at the label with deep suspicion before giving a satisfied nod. "Thank you, dear. I'll spread some on my toast tomorrow."

I give Louie a quick scratch behind the ears and head up. My apartment is a top-floor studio, compact and cluttered, with a kitchen the size of a broom closet, a fold-down bed I almost never stow away, and one grand window framing the rooftops toward the reservoir.

Kicking off my sneakers, I turn on the box fan and survey the damage. My suitcase from Dark River is still exploding in the middle of the floor, and the big empty suitcase I dragged out of the closet this morning is lying open beside it like a mouth waiting to be fed.

I throw on a playlist, twist my hair into a high knot, and start pulling piles from the dresser. I’m right in the middle of debating whether owning fourteen plain black tank tops is practical or excessive when a soft knock echoes at the door. I pause. Mrs. D never knocks; she just bellows up the stairwell. Stepping over a pile of clothes, I wander across the hardwood and open it up.

Derek is standing on my landing with a bouquet of grocery store sunflowers and an uncertain smile.

"Hi," he says.

"Oh my God. Hi." I blink at him. He looks the same as always, sun-streaked brown hair falling into his eyes, loose linen shirt, beaded bracelets stacked up one wrist, a little tan from wherever he's been. "What are you doing here? You never said you were stopping by."

“I know. I’m sorry, I should’ve texted first.” He runs a hand through his hair, his automatic nervous habit. “I ran into Carrie down at the studio yesterday and she mentioned you were in town for a couple days before heading back up north. And since I was in the neighborhood, I figured...”

“You were in the neighborhood?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. Derek lives out in Venice, and nobody casually finds themselves in Silver Lake from Venice.

He has the grace to look embarrassed. “Well, I was emotionally in the neighborhood.”

That gets a laugh out of me, and the weird awkwardness hanging between us instantly thins out. I step back, waving him into the apartment. “Come on in, come in. Excuse the total disaster zone—I’m currently packing my life away.”

"I can see that." He hands me the sunflowers as he steps inside. "These are for you. They looked lonely at the Trader Joe's."

"They're beautiful. Thank you." I fill a water glass at the sink, since I don't own a vase, and prop them up in it on the counter. They immediately flop over the side of the glass. "Perfect. Very rustic."

Derek wanders into the middle of the room and looks down at the suitcases, the piles, the leggings draped over every surface. He lets out a low whistle. "That's a lot of stuff. How long are you going for?"

"Three months," I say.

His brows shoot straight up toward his hairline. “Three whole months? Stationary in one location? The Mia Monroe I know?”

“I know, I know,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Don’t go making a whole production out of it.”