AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When I open them again Ben is approaching, a sorry look on his face and his hands in his pockets. I shake my head.
“I don’t think I need you as much as someone else does right now, Jamie.” I nod over to where Ben comes to a stop a few feet away, glancing nervously between us. Even in my anger I find myself aching to soften the blow; to fix up the broken pieces and hold him together if he needs me to. I hate his pain. I hate thinking of him as someone alone, someone who struggles, because if I picture him like that then maybe he isn’t the villain in our story.
Maybe I am.
With the memory of him broken and lost in the cold expanse of that church burned into my mind, as it had been in the weeks following his father’s funeral, as it is at this time of year every year, I sigh and shake my head. “Take him to dinner or something, yeah?”
“What happened with you two, Mik?” Jamie whispers as he leans forwards, his elbows on his knees.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do. The whole office knows what I’m talking about.” We both look back to Ben who shifts uncomfortably. “You two didn’t ever…” His voice trails off suggestively and I scoff at him.
Now he’s being ridiculous.
“Hell no.” My cheeks are burning and I force out a laugh. “Now stop digging for something that isn’t there and I’ll see you at home. Okay?”
Leaning in, I press a quick kiss to his cheek before making my way to the elevator.
In a moment of weakness, as the doors slide shut between us, I find myself looking over to Ben and, for the first time in a long time, I let my mind draw the painful image of his face at the funeral up to the surface.
Blue eyes meet mine and I offer him a small smile as the doors finally form a shield between us, and for a short, painful moment I’m not sure he even saw it. And then my phone chimes.
Ben: Truce?
I close my eyes and rest my head back against the cool metal of the wall before replying.
Me: Truce.
ThethirdapartmentIsee is a small and shabby studio in a rundown block in Inwood. It’s just one room with a small fire escape landing, a bathroom that seems too big for the space it belongs to, and a view of another apartment block wall.
I run my fingers over the wooden counter that sits against one wall and smile to myself as the overly-enthusiastic realtor babbles about the potential of the property.
“You know, it’s hard to find somewhere like this for such a low price.” He holds his arms out as he spins on his heels and smiles. “Now of course, we’d need references and a credit check, and there is another interested party-”
“I can put the deposit down today.” I grin as I take the two small steps to the raised platform I want to use as my bedroom, picturing the way I could press my bed against the exposed brick, box off the open ledge with bookshelves and push my dresser up against the back wall. I could wind an exposed bulb over the beams above me and hang it over the space, let its glow be the warm light of my room while the rest of the studio has brighter, cooler light. “It’s exactly what I’m looking for.”
“Fantastic.” The man claps his hands together and smiles. “We can get the paperwork over to you this evening and everything should be ready for you to move in within a week if everything runs smoothly.”
We talk through the paperwork quietly in the small, unkept area that would make my kitchen and breakfast space, before running over finance requirements.
Everything is within my budget. Everything is what I need and want. For a second I just sit with that and breathe. It’s as if the universe heard my pitiful admission earlier today and decided I deserved a break.
I deserve a break.
Thankingthemanpolitelyas we exit the apartment block and enter the bustling street, I pull my phone out of my bag and feel that giddy lightness in my chest finding weight again. Funny how a name can make you nervous like that. I click to call him back and lift the phone to my ear; laughing when his breathy hello fills the line almost immediately.
“Well hello, stranger.” I can hear the way his lips turn up as he speaks.
“Hi,” I speak softly, desperate not to show my nerves as I move down the busy street.
“Where are you right now?”
“I’m just heading home.” I hesitate. Although Josh and I had text after that night on the stoop, he’d returned to London for a visit home two days later and I’m suddenly unsure what thisthingwith him is and wary of oversharing. But he called me while I was viewing, right? That means something. It has to. “I actually just found an apartment.”
I hear him let out a low whistle and a laugh bubbles from my lips.
“Congratulations are in order then.” His voice is smooth as silk and intimidatingly sure. “Text me when you get home and put on something pretty. I’m taking you out.”
