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His expression doesn’t change a bit from my brief tirade. I might as well have delivered a speech to a glorious marble statue. In fact, that is literally and figuratively what I probably just did. For all I know, the music is too loud to hear over anyway.
I abandon the living room, tired of everything—including myself—and push through the French doors into my room, which I find filled with no less than ten people, a few of them kicking back on my bed.
I stand there at the entrance of my room, and I can’t seem to move or say a word. I’m paralyzed to the floor, the limit of my patience at last reached. In fact, I might just stand right here and do absolutely nothing until someone or something pushes me over.
“Oh my goodness, guys, get the hint,” exclaims the timely voice of Lex as he plunges his way into my room, coming to my rescue. “This isn’t where the party is, fools. Out, out, all of you, come on!”
In a moment, my small room is cleared, and I am mercifully left alone.
Well, except for Lex. “You do realize who that was in the living room you chewed out on your little save-the-young-artists soapbox, right?”
It at once, and quite stupidly, clicks into place. “That gorgeous man is Dante??”
“Lord help you, you’ve poked the landlord bear. I do not want to be in your shoes. Or maybe I do. Let’s go out to the fire escape. I have to smoke, and your boy went out to get—”
“My boy? Oh, Alan!” I realize, cutting him off. “Where is he, exactly?”
“If you’d let me speak, you’d know. He went to get more beer, since you guys ran out. He’ll be back in a sec. Let me keep you company until then. What a sweetie … that Alan fellow of yours.” Lex smirks, then thrusts open my window and pokes a leg out onto the fire escape. “You got a lighter?”
“No.”
“Ugh, useless,” he teases me, then slides out.
I follow him, stepping out onto the fire escape for the first time. Leaning against the rusty railing, the pair of us stare down at the alley below where a pair of cats are playing tag with one another.
“Get used to it,” Lex says suddenly. “Brett’s place, no matter his roommate, is where all the party boys go. I can guarantee you—after the big letdown of his gamer-boy little-bro fantasy crush—poor horny Brett is going to angry-fuck two or three of your guests tonight, then forget it by the morning. You’ll have one hell of a mess to clean up after this weekend’s over, trust me. Oh, right, and yes, these things usually last the whole weekend. Phew, I won’t be envying you Monday morning.”
I sigh. My mind couldn’t be farther from this party. “I’m trying not to let this city crush me. I’m trying to be a good person. I’m trying so hard.”
“Oh, still torn up about Dante? Don’t worry. He seems like a toothy beast, but he’s really more of a gentle giant. Insanely forgiving. Well, not really.”
It wasn’t to Dante I was referring, but I let him assume so, since I’m not sure I’m ready to go into my whole thing with jerk-bag Jay yet. “Alright.”
“Y’know, this building was owned by Dante’s dad. He gave it to him … kinda like a test-go, to see if he could manage his own building. I’d say Piazza Place is a hundred times better with Dante running it. No offense to Mr. Piazza, but phew, that man was a block of Italian ice.”
“Italian ice …?” I ask, quirking an eyebrow.
“Yeah. Total hard-assed Italian dad, sweet and loving black mom. Dante’s a perfect combination of their personalities and their good looks.” He puts a hand to his face and gives it a furious rub. “I’ve got to stop obsessing. Dante is totally my type and it is anguish living in this building with him, I fucking swear.”
I smile. “You don’t get all of that from meeting him. I should probably apologize later.”
“Don’t bother, it’s already forgotten. And yes, there is a lot to Dante you still don’t know. Phew, just a peep into his basement apartment will easily tell you that.”
I shoot Lex a suspicious look. “Why? What’s down there?”
“First things first.” He eyes me. “You tell me what the hell is eating you. I can read it all over your face, and it isn’t that raucous party in there.”
I bite my lip, glance back at my window and my mercifully empty room, then sigh, giving in. “I realized today that I hate my dream internship.”
“Uh-oh. Why?”
“It’s one of the other interns. He’s …”
“A stuck-up jizz-stain?”
I press my face into my palms for an answer.
Lex pats me on the back. “Alright, hon. Here’s what you do. Ready? Do you all eat together?”
