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I hated to admit it, but this made sense, and it felt good, which I hated to admit even more.
“Two,” she carried on, “he’s catching you probably not quite ready, which gives him an opportunity to see you in your natural element, without the full mask of makeup and armor of clothes you’ll don to either repel or impress him. In other words, he’s so interested, he’s angling for a shot at seeing the real you. Three, you’re probably wearing that kimono, which covers everything, but it’s still gorgeous and clingy, and he couldn’t know that was what he was going to get, still, he knows you, so he could guess he was going to get something like that when he showed before you’d be ready, and he wanted to see it. Shall I go on?”
“No, I’m at the door,” I replied, looking through my peephole to see it was indeed Hale and he’d changed clothes since that morning.
Now he was wearing what appeared to be a cashmere sweater in crocodile green that did incredible things for his eyes, a hickory-colored blazer over it. He had a scarf looped around his neck, which meant it was cold outside. I couldn’t see what was on the bottom.
But I could see he appeared displeased, though what could displease him when he was early, which displeasedme, I couldn’t know.
However, I was about to find out.
“Have fun, thank me later,” Felicity said, and I heard the disconnect.
I was fuming when I opened the door.
“You’re early,” I pointed out the obvious.
He looked me top to toe to top again, then down to toe before he found my eyes.
“Your intercom doesn’t work,” he stated.
“It hasn’t worked for months,” I informed him.
“Your elevator doesn’t work either,” he continued.
“I don’t think that’s worked the entire time I’ve lived here.”
I moved out of the way because I had no choice, seeing as he moved in.
I closed the door behind him, noting the dark wash jeans and oxblood shoes were the perfect complement for the rest of his outfit. It was also the perfect outfit for a meet-the-parents: casual, but still dressy, like he could be himself, but he’d still made an effort.
Yes, Felicity was correct.
He was good at this.
And I was grateful he didn’t look around. I not only hadn’t had time to tidy, decorating my apartment had never been a priority. As such, it was a mishmash of things I liked that I picked up along the way.
Even so, regardless of the fact it was a happy accident, I personally thought it worked.
It was dark and eclectic.
Uncharacteristically of me, I’d become obsessed when I happened onto some removable wallpaper printed in light green leaves against a dark gray-green background. As such, it set me on the first (and only) nesting mission I’d ever experienced. I put the wallpaper on one wall. I then hadn’t bothered to ask the landlord (that being Hale, but I didn’t know it then), if I could paint the other walls that same gray-green. I just did it.
The sofa was small because the space was small. I had a cranberry-colored wing chair I found at a vintage store. My coffee table was an old trunk. The gallery wall above the sofa was an assortment of original art from local artists I’d bought off the walls of coffee shops or at street fairs. And every lamp I owned came from flea markets.
Hale didn’t take any of this in. He’d pulled out his phone, stabbed the screen with his finger, and was now putting it to his ear.
I knew I should go to my room and finish getting ready, but curious, I stood there and watched him.
“Yeah,” he said into the phone. “I just got to Elsa’s. I want you to contact the property management company I’m paying to look after this place and tell them I want a representative at the office whenever you can fit them in my schedule for Monday. I don’t give a fuck if it’s nine at night. Since they’re coming so I can fire them in person, with urgency, I need you to source another management company as well as a project manager that can assess repairs to the intercom system, the elevator and anything else in this wreck of a place that might need fixing. At the very least, I want the intercom and elevator fully functioning by the end of next week.”
Short pause.
And then, “Yes. Thanks.” He dropped his phone hand and scowled at me. “Why didn’t you tell me this shit?”
“Sorry, somehow it slipped my mind I had a direct line to The Man.”
“There’s a brick sitting on the ground to block the front door from closing.”
