AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter One
Callie
“Wait!”I yell as I race out of my apartment with one of my red-soled heels in my hand. “Hold the elevator!”
I slam the door shut before turning to face the open elevator at the end of the corridor.
Just as I suspect, my gorgeous neighbor is standing front and center in the elevator with a smirk on his face as he tugs his phone out of the inner pocket of his suit jacket.
Dammit.
He’s all perfectly styled dark brown hair, big brown eyes, and a body that I can’t stare at too long or all kinds of dirty fantasies trample every other thought I’ve ever had.
The man is the epitome of hot, but he’s rude.
He’s not just rude. He’s next level extra rude.
“Hold it,” I call out. “I’m going to be late for a job interview unless I get on it now.”
The smug-faced jerk raises his big hand in the air and waves at me like he’s on a float in a parade as the elevator doors slide shut.
“Asshole!” I scream just before they close, hoping this time he gets the message that he’s not a good neighbor.
He’s the worst neighbor I’ve ever had, and that’s saying a lot.
Until a few weeks ago, I lived in a cramped two-bedroom walk-up with three friends from college.
Our next-door neighbor was our landlord.
He never had one complaint about any of us, but he must have wished he were a chef in another life because every night, he’d cook up something that smelled like a sewer.
He always brought the leftovers over to our place.
Not wanting to insult him, one of us would accept the food with a grin.
Even if we sprinted down to the basement to toss it in the incinerator as soon as the coast was clear, the lingering scent of his home-cooked meal permeated our apartment until the next night when the same thing happened again.
That’s one of the reasons why I jumped at the opportunity to stay at my oldest brother’s apartment while he’s working in Phoenix for three months.
When Grady asked if I’d apartment sit to help him out, I knew that he was doing it as a favor to me.
Living rent-free in a luxury apartment in a building on Madison Avenue is a step up in every conceivable way.
Or it was until I realized that I live next door to one of Manhattan’s biggest jerks.
I glance to the left when I hear a door creak open.
“Calliope?” The woman who lives down the hall from me peeks out from around her partially open apartment door. “Is everything all right, dear?”
When we first met in the lobby, I introduced myself as Callie Morrow. She took it upon herself to ask if that was short for Calliope. Not wanting to start off on the wrong foot, I decided not to lie, so I admitted that was my name.
She hasn’t stopped calling me that since.
“Everything is fine, Mrs. Sweeney,” I call out to her. “I have a job interview, and I missed the elevator.”
“You can take the stairs,” she suggests.
I’m all for that, but we’re on the twenty-second floor, and I’m wearing a snug skirt. “I’ll wait for the elevator.”
