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Me: Fine. I’ll see if I can get you the manuscript.
Mo: And tell me all about being in love with Brooke Baker!
Apparently, I was wrong. If I give my sister an inch, she’ll attempt to take a goddamn mile. After thirty-three years of dealing with her, you’d think I would’ve known that.
Me: Mo.
Mo: Fine, fine. I’ll let you deny it a little longer if you want. Men are always slow anyway. Oh! And I also forgot to tell you that I got a call from Glenn. Something about you leaving my number as an emergency contact.
My response is swift and instant.
Me: What the fuck? I didn’t leave Glenn any emergency contact numbers. And my address book was in my room.
Mo: Well, I’m assuming the rest of your stuff was still in your room too, but that didn’t stop him from moving it to a storage unit in Brooklyn and sending me the address.
If I had the power to strangle that freaky bastard telepathically, I’d be tempted to do it right now.
Me: HE DID WHAT?
Mo: I guess he didn’t tell you, huh?
Me: No, he didn’t tell me! Do these messages seem like the messages of someone who knows?
Mo: Come to think of it, no, they don’t.
I swipe an irritated hand through my hair and text her back with an equally irritated but short and succinct one-word response.
Me: Mo!
Mo: Relax. I called Brooke’s sister when I got the info from Glenn, and she was able to go to Brooklyn and check it out. Your stuff is really there. Even packed in boxes. So, at least there’s that.
At least there’s that? Pfft. The fucker was in my room, going through my shit and moving me out of my own place—albeit temporarily—without my permission. I see no silver lining in this scenario.
Me: My ghost roommate moved me out of my apartment, and I’m supposed to relax??
Mo: Well, yeah. You’re not supposed to live there long-term anyway. And your apartment has to be close to done. Have you spoken to Angelo?
I inhale a sharp breath through my nose, trying like hell to contain my emotions enough not to call attention to myself while Brooke is in the middle of these interviews.
She looks up to my face and frowns, so I paste on a smile, waving it off and hooking a thumb toward the door to the lobby in the universal gesture of “I’m going to take this outside.”
Something tells me I ought to find a little more privacy before making my next call to my contractor.
Me: I’m calling him now.
Mo: Okey dokey. Let me know if I can do anything else or if I should arrange to have Brooke’s belongings delivered to the new place too.
I roll my eyes. I also don’t humor her with a response.
Instead, I start scrolling through my contacts until I find my contractor Angelo’s number, and I do my best not to lose my shit in the lobby.
When Angelo answers on the third ring, I have to steel my voice against being angry.
“Hello, Mr. Chase,” he greets in his thick Italian accent. “How you doing?”
“I’m okay, Angelo, but I’ve been better. I just wanted to call and find out what our status is on the apartment. I just got some news that means I really need to be in there sooner rather than later. How’s it looking?”
“We’re getting really close here, Mr. Chase. It’s looking very good.”
I furrow my brow. “What do you mean by getting close exactly? Like, what is done and what’s left to do and how many days or weeks does that mean it’ll be until I can get in there?”
“These things, Mr. Chase, they are hard to say very specifically for many reasons.”
Is it just me or do contractors never seem to be able to give an exact timeline?
“Give me an estimate, then,” I say through a stiff jaw. “Are we talking days or weeks? Because you promised me I’d be in two months ago, Angelo.”
“Yes, yes, I understand this. But it will only be days, I am pretty sure.”
“Pretty sure?”
“Pretty, pretty sure.”
For fuck’s sake.
“Okay,” I say through a deep sigh. “Well, I’m going to be back in town in under a week, Angelo, and I expect to move in when I get back.”
“One moment, Mr. Chase,” he states, and the sounds of drilling and hammering reverberate from his end of the line.
While I’m waiting for him to respond, Brooke’s phone pings in my pocket, and I pull it out to check if it’s something important. There’s a Facebook message on the screen from someone, so I make my way back over to the door that leads to the conference room Netflix reserved for Brooke’s interviews and quietly step back inside so I can give it to her as soon as I’m off the phone.
“Sorry, Mr. Chase. I’m back.” Angelo’s voice is in my ear again. “One week. I think this will be no problem. We finish all the finishing things.”
