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After a sleepless three hours on Weston’s couch, mostly spent staring at a spot in the ceiling where I’m convinced the unit above him sprung a leak, the property manager texted me to let me know he was on his way. At nine-thirty, I crept out, doing my best not to wake Weston, because my unlikely savior needed the sleep, and I didn’t trust myself to talk. Between our encounter at the window, the weirdness of our first shift together, and now the whole Jesse thing, everything was just too much for me to cope with. By ten o’clock, I had a shiny new lock, but no amount of lavender spray on my pillow or my most comfortable shorts could get me to sleep. After being so wound up for so many hours in a row, my mind wouldn’t shut off. It felt like Jesse would show up again at any minute, like a monster hiding in my closet or under my bed, ready to scare me the second the light snapped off.
So, when Eden called, offering to get mani-pedis on her dime, I barely hesitated. Even though I’m bleary-eyed and out of it, I have no desire to sit alone and be scared for the rest of the day. Much better to be away from my apartment with someone I can relax around.
“These are almost as good as sleep,” I admit, relaxing in the atmosphere of the spa. Mozart drifts over the speakers this morning. Or Bach. Or something. I never paid attention during music class. I usually find the classical music they play here a tad pretentious, but it’s helping to clear my mind this afternoon. And anything else would’ve made my headache worse. It already feels like someone is trying to scoop my eyeballs out with a melon-baller, no matter how much ibuprofen I take.
“Hard sleeping in a new place?” Eden asks, thumbing through color swatches to find that perfect shade of mauve, the one she always chooses. In the years we’ve done this together, I’ve never seen her get anything else.
“No, I—” Stopping my sentence cold, I try to figure out how much of the truth I want to tell her. I don’t like to worry this sister more than I have to. When she worries, she has a tendency to try and fix things for me. “I had to get up this morning to meet with a locksmith.”
“Oh, my god.” Her eyes widen. “What happened?”
“Remember the doorknob trick the guy warned us about? I was in such a hurry to get inside after I got home from work this morning that I snapped the key off in the lock.” It’s an old habit, blaming myself for something just to get people to move on and not look too closely at things.I’ve always done it, even as a kid, but after I started dating Jesse, it became worse. It felt like a necessity because I didn’t want to drag my family into my problems and have to see those looks of disappointment on their faces.“I felt like such an idiot. I was tired and clumsy. Botched getting into my own place the second you guys turned around and left me unsupervised.”
The strategy works again, complete with Eden waving a hand in the air dismissively, the concern on her face fading away into annoyance at the super. “Oh, please. That whole lock should’ve been replaced before you moved in. I mean… did they even bother to clean the oven?”
“Right?” I snort in agreement. It lines up with what Weston and I talked about this morning. “Weston was telling me he’s pretty sure that my unit used to be a maintenance room.”
His name falls out of my mouth before I think twice. The two syllables do not go unnoticed by my observant sister. Her eyes focus on me like tiny laser beams.
One eyebrow lifts. “Who’s Weston?”
“My—” I stop myself before saying “neighbor” and attempt to sidestep the question. “A guy I work with.”
The attempt fails immediately. Her unaffected demeanor often makes me forget that she’s the sharpest of the three of us.
“Why does some ‘guy you work with’ not only know what apartment you live in, but so much about it?” She pauses to accept a glass of lemon water from one of the technicians, taking a large gulp before continuing. The smile that she flashes the technician fades when she turns to me. “And what had you in such a hurry to get inside this morning that you broke your key?”
I waffle, hoping that an excuse will come to me if I stall long enough. The arch of her eyebrow and her patented big sister stare become too much for me. I end up spilling the truth, wincing at the words. “Jesse showed up.”
“Oh, no. Oh, baby,” Eden whines, brushing my hair with the palm of her hand, fingers spread dramatically apart so she doesn’t mess up her nails. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. I mean, not really.” Hot tears cluster up against my eyelids. I can’t explain it, but I always cry when people ask me if I’m okay and they really mean it. Like who am I to take up space in anyone else’s head, let alone be a receptacle for their empathy? I can hold it together just fine as long as I need to, but the second someone asks for real, I shatter like a porcelain doll.
“Physically, I’m fine. Nothing happened like that.”
She fiddles with the massage feature of her chair. “How did you get him to leave?”
“I didn’t. I mean, he left, but it wasn’t me who made him go. Jesse was yelling at me in the hallway, and my neighbor got annoyed at the noise and came out and told him to leave the building or he’d call the cops.” It isn’t the whole truth, but it covers all of the main points without creating meaning where there is none. I don’t want Eden prying any further about my hot neighbor.
She pauses for a minute, and I can practically see the gears spinning, examining the situation from every angle. Eden takes another sip of her water. “And where were you this morning while you were waiting for the locksmith? Please tell me you weren’t just sleeping in the hallway?”
I pause. “No, my neighbor let me crash on his couch.”
Her eyebrows shoot into her hairline, mouth open, caught between amusement and horror. I scramble to clarify.
I press my palm into my sternum. “No! Weston isn’t like that. It—it wasn’t like that.”
“Weston, again? So, this ‘guy you work with’ who knows about your apartment was also awake this morning and lives in your building and let you stay over?” She grins wickedly, a cat who’s got her little prey cornered. Eden knows I have nowhere to go and is going to make me say it all out loud.
“No—God, Eden—why do you make things so hard?” While I put my fingertips to my temples, I really wish I’d taken one of those lemon waters when it was offered to me. My mouth is so dry it’s like Eden’s third degree has disabled my salivary glands. “Weston is my neighbor. Weston istheneighbor. He’s the guy. It’s just one guy. Are you happy now? He let me stay at his place a few doors down, so I wasn’t just hanging out in the hallway for hours waiting to get into my place. It didn’t seem safe, and it was just a nice, neighborly thing to do. I swear to God. Don’t make a big deal out of this.”
“So, you’re saying …” Another pause, another slick smile as she finds another angle to torment me with. “He’s Tai chi guy, isn’t he? Tall, muscles upon muscles, tattoos, big package, sexy as all get out?”
I nod in defeat, certain that I’m blushing from my scalp to my toes. As embarrassment clings to me like a bad perfume, little bubbles of nervous energy pop in my stomach as I think of my time with Weston. Just looking at the man makes me feel… things.
Eden’s laugh busts loose and fills the space between us. “So, he’s hot and heroic. You’re so lucky. And you work with him? I just knew I liked something about that guy. Ensley did too. Obviously, the universe is trying to tell you something.”
If the universe has a message for me, I doubt it’s to get all tangled up with my hot neighbor. Though I don’t think the universe takes time out of its busy schedule to clarify things like that, so I can’t be sure. I also don’t want Eden to get the wrong impression. He’s a nice guy, but I’m definitely not ready for anything right now. And judging from his deliberate attempts to keep me at arm’s length, I don’t think he is either. Every time his words could have even beenconsideredan innuendo, he jumped to set the record straight. Despite saving me from Jesse, Weston couldn’t be any moreuninterestedin me.
