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“You never know,” she teased in a singsong voice. “Okay, I have to get to this laundry. You can let yourself out?”
I nodded as I slipped my arms into my coat. “No problem.”
“Okay.Tchau, Skylar!” She picked up the basket and sashayed downstairs. It was no wonder Eric liked her—the girl managed to make carrying laundry look sexy.
That was my cue. After rinsing my dishes quickly, I left a short note of thanks on the island, right next to the three other croissants I hadn’t touched. For a moment, I considered leaving my phone number, but then thought better of it. Why would a man like Brandon Sterling want the number of someone like me?
* * *
Just after nine,I walked into my apartment to find my roommate, Jane, sitting cross-legged on our sofa. She thumbed through a textbook and marked occasional pages with sticky notes. She was surrounded by a well-worn copy ofRules of Criminal Procedure, textbooks, yellow legal pads filled with her scrawl, and at least three empty coffee cups.
Jane and I had been roommates since starting law school. Even though a lot of law students moved off campus or into the coveted single housing as they gained seniority, we had continued rooming together.
Jane was one of the only real girlfriends I’d ever had. With utter ruthlessness that predetermined a successful career as a criminal prosecutor, she was my opposite in a lot of ways: outgoing where I was more withdrawn, raised in the Chicago suburbs whereas I was a city girl through and through, extremely messy while I tended more toward order. But we had a lot in common in the ways that counted, including a direct streak that often veered more toward abrasive. She was loyal to a fault and always had my back.
“Well, well, well,” she taunted, slipping her cat-eyed glasses down her nose so she could give me the once-over. “Look at what the cat dragged in.”
Jane had thick black hair cut into a bob that was gloriously untamable. It tended to riot around her face in the mornings until she conquered it with a lot of product. She wrinkled her button-shaped nose, which boasted a shining stud in one nostril. Her dark-brown eyes twinkled.
“And where did we spend the night last night, hmm, Miss Lady? Did you finally give in to Steve the Goon’s advances?”
With a snort, I set my messenger bag on the small table that served double duty as a dining and study area and began pulling off my winter layers. Jane waited patiently as I hung my coat, scarf, and hat on the small coat rack next to the door and tossed my mittens into the basket below it. I slipped off my shoes and examined them briefly. Despite walking to and from the subway in the salty, slushy streets, the conditioning balm that Sterling had applied the night before had done its job and kept them free of any salt stains, although they’d still benefit from a proper cleaning.
“God, no,” I finally answered. I walked into the kitchenette on the other side of the table. “Not with that Muppet. Never in a million, billion years. But you’d be proud of me—I did dance with someone I met at a bar. And then spent the night with someone else.”
Jane dropped her book with a thump and scurried into the kitchenette while I rummaged around for a cup of tea. She parked herself at the bar that split the space from the rest of the apartment and stared at me resolutely.
“Dish,” she ordered, pointing a black-polished fingernail on the countertop. “Now.”
“The bar guy was lame. Kissed like a lizard. Investment douche, you know the type.” I quickly imitated the jerky motions of Trevor the banker’s tongue, which made Jane break into a loud peal of laughter.
“Oh, you poor girl!” she exclaimed. “You got tongue-fucked at Manny’s, didn’t you?”
“So, I left early,” I continued as I finished pulling out the other requirements for my tea. “But I couldn’t find a car in the snow, so I went to wait with Eric and his…well, I guess you could say she’s his lady friend. We all had a few drinks until the T wasn’t running, and when I still couldn’t find a car or anything, I ended up having to stay there.”
“Ew, as a third wheel with Eric, the walking boner?” Jane scrunched her face up like a pug, a trademark expression that always made me laugh. “Doesn’t he have, like, four strains of venereal disease?”
Jane and Eric had a notably love-hate relationship that stemmed from the “one-month stand” (as she put it) they’d had after our first-year orientation. Sexually, they were basically each other’s doppelgängers. As a result, it was a constant argument between the two of them just what had happened that month and who had left whom. I had heard at least seven different versions.
“Uh, not exactly,” I said as I put the kettle on.
Jane moved back to the couch and waited patiently as I continued about my routine. I avoided her suspicious gaze. It wasn’t until I had poured us both mugs full of tea, doctored them up with milk and honey, and found a seat on the sofa next to her that I finally continued. My best friend was patient, but she was also tenacious.
I relayed the rest of the story: my mistake of wandering into the house above Ana’s apartment, seeing Sterling with the group of people, being chased through the snow, and his eventual invitation to stay the night.
“Wow, Sky,” Jane finally said at the end. “I think he might be in love with you, girl.”
I choked on my tea. “Doubtful. He wasn’t even there this morning. Ana gave me a little breakfast and sent me on my way. It was…awkward.”
Jane, however, wouldn’t be deterred.
“No way,” she said. “Rich guy like that? If he was really feeling altruistic, he would have just put you up at a hotel. There are literally five within a block of his house. And people like that don’t usually just invite strangers into their homes.” She took a long sip of her tea and shook her head. “Definitely into you.”
“I don’t know, Jane. I think maybe he’s just lonely. I mean, the place is huge. I only saw a few rooms in it, but there are at least four stories, maybe more. All for one person.”
“Didn’t he walk in with friends?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know who they were. I didn’t ask. They were laughing, but they looked like colleagues or something from his office. When I came back to the house with him, they were gone. There was this one chick who stared daggers at me, but he didn’t seem to notice.”
