by Lauren Layne
“The neighbor did. He was outside my apartment.”
Her breath whooshed out in relief. “Thank God. Which neighbor? Why didn’t she call me?”
“The new neighbor,” Oliver clarified as he walked up Park Avenue. “She doesn’t have your phone number, but I’ll make sure she gets it.”
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Cunningham, it won’t happen again—”
“Yeah, it will,” Oliver said gently. “We both do our best, but we’re human, Janice. And for the hundredth time, call me Oliver.”
“Yes. Oliver,” she said stiffly, clearly uncomfortable. “But I really am sorry. I just went to the restroom, he wasn’t out of my sight for more than a minute.”
“I know,” he said, feeling a wave of regret. Not because of Janice—he’d meant what he said. Even a full-time caretaker couldn’t be with Walter every second of every day. But regret over the disease. Because while these scary moments were rare now, it’s possible they wouldn’t always be.
“The new neighbor’s in 2B, right?” she said, her tone returning to its normal no-nonsense mode. “I can be there in less than ten minutes to retrieve Mr. Cunningham.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m closer.”
She huffed in dismay. “You left work.”
“I did. Not a big deal, I didn’t have any meetings that couldn’t be rescheduled. Why don’t you take the afternoon off?”
“Oh, I couldn’t.”
“That’s an order, Janice,” he said as he let himself into the main door of the building. “Dad and I will see you later tonight.”
She apparently knew him well enough to know that arguing at this point was pointless. “All right. Thank you, Mr. Cunningham.”
He rolled his eyes. He didn’t know why he ever bothered with the call me Oliver bit. Oliver took the stairs two at a time until he was standing outside Naomi Powell’s apartment.
He heard the unmistakable sound of the History Channel playing softly on the other side of the door, and he gave in to a moment of weakness, resting his forehead lightly on the wall outside her apartment, acknowledging his relief that his father had been found by someone kind.
He pulled his head back at that. Kind was not a word he’d ever thought could be applied to the prickly Ms. Powell, but there’d been no mistaking the gentleness in her tone on the phone. It had given the low rasp of her voice a whole new level of intrigue.
He lifted his hand and knocked.
Naomi opened the door, and Oliver’s mouth went dry, his tongue sticking to the top of his mouth for a long, humiliating moment. She didn’t look glamorous. Far from it. Her hair was straight and tucked behind her ears, her face free of makeup, or at least any that he could notice.
It was the attire that got him.
Black pants snug enough for him to know the exact shape of her thighs, cut to midcalf, and until this moment he hadn’t understood why it had been scandalous for women to show their ankles back in the day.
It was because bare ankles and feet could be hot.
Thank God she wore a baggy sweater, because he didn’t think he could handle anything formfitting above the waist. Though the sweater did hang off one shoulder just a bit, revealing the slim strap of a bra or tank top and . . .
Naomi gave him an irritated look. “What’s with you?”
He shook his head. Right. “Sorry,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “It’s always a little unnerving when my dad gets out. Guess I’m still off balance.”
Oliver’s conscience was shaking its head disapprovingly. Had he really just used his sick father to avoid admitting he’d been checking out Naomi?
“’Understandable,” she said, hesitating for just the briefest moment before stepping aside. “Come on in.”
Oliver’s gaze went straight to the TV, where his father sat on Naomi’s white sofa. His conscience was slightly mollified by the fact that Oliver really was relieved to see his dad sitting peacefully. Safe and warm.
“Hey, Dad,” he said, keeping his voice breezy and casual as he walked over to the living room.
Walter’s eyes reluctantly dragged away from the television screen to Oliver. Walter lifted the glass in his hand. “The girl gave me Scotch. Pretty good stuff, but she watered it down too much.”
“Hmm, I’ll talk to her about that,” he said, noting Naomi’s eye-roll out of the corner of his eye, though she didn’t call him out on how she’d only been following his instructions.
“Say, Dad, what do you say we go finish this show upstairs so we can let Ms. Powell get back to her day?”
His dad’s attention was already back on the TV. “Not done with my drink.”
“I bet she’d let us take it with us and return the glass later,” Oliver said. Then he glanced over at Naomi for confirmation.
“You Cunningham men do like to keep my glassware.”
“Missing that mug, are ya?” he asked, referring to the coffee cup full of champagne she’d left over the weekend.
“It was a favorite.”
“What did it look like?”
She pursed her lips. She didn’t have a damn clue what it looked like, and they both knew it. “It was one of my only ones.”
Oliver walked into her kitchen, opened the cupboard to the right of the sink—guessing correctly the first time—and turned to face her, eyebrows lifted.
Her lips pursed even more. There were close to a dozen mugs in the cupboard, which he’d known, since he’d seen her unpacking them on move-in day.
“But by all means,” he said coolly, closing the cupboard once more. “I’ll definitely rush to return the one you lent me.”
Instead of replying, she rounded the kitchen counter toward him, opening the cupboard he had just shut. Their fingers brushed, just for a moment, and she went perfectly still before shoving his hand away and pulling two mugs out of the cupboard.
She set both on the counter and, in silent question, lifted the bottle of Scotch she’d poured his father’s drink from.
He nodded in silent response. Generally speaking, he wasn’t prone to day drinking, but then he also wasn’t accustomed to verbal battles with attractive women who lived next door.
“Ice?”
“Please,” he said as she opened the freezer. “One cube.”
She dropped one ice cube into his, two into her own, and handed him a mug.
Hers said Work, Play, Slay in hot-pink letters, his had a dumb cartoon kitten. Ten bucks said the selection was no accident.
“Cheers,” he said before she could take a sip.
Naomi looked at his mug skeptically. “To what?”
“Well, I’m not dead yet,” Oliver said wryly. “More than I expected based on our encounter on Saturday. And at your interview.”
He meant it in jest, but she winced slightly, and too late he remembered: Brayden Hayes. She may not have been married to the man, but presumably she’d cared about him if they were sleeping together.
“Shit,” he muttered. “I wasn’t thinking—”
“Forget it,” she said. “Also, before I forget . . .” She picked up Walter’s medical bracelet off the counter and handed it to Oliver.
He accepted the heavy weight of the masculine bracelet. He’d purchased it for his father after about a dozen fights over the old one being “too prissy.” When his father was in a lucid state, he was with it enough to know that in Walter Cunningham’s reality, men didn’t wear jewelry.
“I’m surprised you got it off him,” Oliver said, juggling the bracelet in his hand.
“Oh, we had a little you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”
Oliver choked on his Scotch. “Excuse me?”
She gestured at the coffee table, where an assortment of jewelry pieces lay scattered about. “The perks of running an accessory business. I’ve got plenty of pieces on hand.”
“Maxcessory,” Oliver said distractedly.
Naomi gave him a curious look.
“It was on your application,” he explained
.
“Speaking of that day, why did you put me through to the next round?”
“You mean after you stormed out of the office for no reason?”
“Oh, I had reasons,” she said into her drink.
“Mind telling me what they were?”
She set down her mug with a heavy thunk. “You’re just very . . .”
Naomi waved her hand over him, wrinkling her nose as she tried to think of the right word.
“Polite? Professional?” he prompted, recalling the interview from his perspective.
“Arrogant. Supercilious. You made it clear that I didn’t belong.”
“Supercilious? And you think I’m snobby.”
“I didn’t say snobby,” she said, taking a sip of Scotch. “I said supercilious.”
“You’re impossible,” Oliver muttered, tossing back the rest of his drink, relishing the burn. “Dad, let’s go.”
Walter didn’t respond.
“Dad.” Oliver’s voice was just a bit sharper than he usually used with his father, but he needed to get out of here before he did something absurd. Like kiss the woman who he wasn’t even sure he liked. And who definitely didn’t like him.
Walter gave him a baleful look over his shoulder. “What?”
“Let’s go.”
His dad got a mutinous look on his face, and Oliver softened his tone. “Janice said she recorded yesterday’s Yankees game. I haven’t seen it yet.”
Walter shrugged and turned back to the History Channel. “You go watch it, then. I already saw it. Five–four, Angels.”
Sure, that he remembers. Oliver immediately regretted the frustrated thought and dropped his chin to his chest, defeated. Tired.
He’d nearly forgotten Naomi was there, until her low voice came, quieter than usual. Softer. “When was he diagnosed?”
“A few years ago.”
“I’m sure it was a shock.”
Oliver lifted a shoulder. “There’d been some warning signs, so a part of me was braced for it, but . . . yeah. It still came as a shock, especially so soon after my mom’s death.”
“I’m sorry,” she said genuinely, if a bit stiffly. “That must have been difficult.”
He exhaled. “Up until then, I thought cancer was the worst diagnosis one could get. It was in the case of my mom. She was gone eleven months after the doctor told us the news. But this . . .” Oliver tilted his head toward his father. “It’s a whole other level of hard. It’s slow, it’s inconsistent. Some days it’s almost like I have my dad back, other days he’s lost to me completely.”
Naomi glanced back at the back of Walter’s head, rolling her mug between her small hands. “Who watches him while you work?”
“A full-time caretaker. She’s great, but Alzheimer’s patients are unpredictable. One second they’re watching TV and you think you’re fine to take a quick bathroom break, the next moment . . .”
“Does it happen a lot?”
“No. Thankfully. But if it increases, I’ll have to consider a home for him. I’m just grateful he’s not violent.”
Her eyes went wide. “Was he . . . before . . .”
“No,” Oliver said quickly. “I mean, he could be a cold son of a bitch before the disease, but he never lifted a hand to me or my mother. Mostly he was just . . . indifferent. But Alzheimer’s patients can get frustrated easily and lash out. Not as big a deal when it’s a frail five-two woman, but a sixty-something male with a lifetime of regular squash games behind him . . .”
Oliver exhaled and loosened his tie. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. But again, thank you.”
“Anyone would have done the same.”
He shook his head. “Invited a strange man into the home of a single woman? I don’t think so.”
Her dark red eyebrows winged up. “Not sure the single differentiator was necessary there.”
“A woman living alone,” he amended.
“Better, I guess,” she said begrudgingly. “Though why do you keep assuming I’m single? Brayden passed a few months ago, and I didn’t date him for that long. Time enough to move on.”
For some reason the thought of her being not single made his bad mood even worse. “Sorry to be presumptuous. Who’s the lucky man?”
He put just the slightest sarcastic emphasis on lucky to needle her.
She dodged the question. “What about you? Any little lady dying for the role of Mrs. Cunningham?”
Was there a note of interest beneath her snide tone? Or just wishful thinking on his part? And then, appalled at what he was about to do, even as he hoped his father would keep his mouth shut, Oliver nodded. “There’s someone.”
“Oh yeah? What’s her name? No, let me guess—”
“Lilah,” he blurted out. It was the first name he thought of, courtesy of his receptionist always trying to set him up with her cousin of the same name.
“Mmm. And what do you and Lilah do for fun? Opera? Caviar tastings?”
“Naturally. When we’re not at our thrice-weekly Met visit or discussing Tolstoy over tea. Unless it’s our Friday-night glass of sherry and poetry.”
Her lips twitched in a giveaway smile that she pulled back just in time. “Nice.”
“And you and . . . Bob?” he said, supplying the first name that popped into his head.
“Not your kinda guy. Lots of NASCAR. PBR. Spitting contests.”
“Spitting contests.”
“When he’s not adding to his ink.”
“How do you know I don’t have a tattoo?”
He meant the question teasingly, but the way her gaze quickly roamed over him felt teasing in an entirely different way.
Her blue eyes came back to his. “Skull?”
“Clown.”
“Of the crazy Stephen King variety?”
“Naturally. Is there any other?”
For a split second, they smiled at each other, amusement replacing animosity. But before it could blossom into something more, Walter decided he’d had enough History Channel, coming into the kitchen and making a beeline for the Scotch bottle.
Oliver swiped it out of reach, and his father gave him an exasperated look. “Give me that.”
“It’s not ours, Dad. It’s Ms. Powell’s.”
She opened her mouth, likely about to offer more to be hospitable, but she shut it before saying anything. He was grateful that she saw his comment for what it was: less manners, more limiting his father’s alcohol consumption.
Oliver let his dad drink sometimes. The doctors frowned on it, but the man had already lost so much. Oliver couldn’t bear to take away this one simple pleasure as well.
But he was careful about it. And he wanted to see how the drink Walter had already had would mingle with his current mood.
Walter glared at Naomi. “Who’s she?”
“I’m Naomi, Mr. Cunningham,” she said, probably not for the first time that day.
He gave her a hard look, up and down in a degrading way that was very much Walter before his illness, but there was no relief at this glimpse of the old Walter. The old Walter, plainly put, had been a womanizing ass.
Walter smirked at Naomi. “You look just like your mother.”
Oliver inhaled for patience, knowing it was pointless to tell his father that Walter didn’t know Naomi’s mother.
“All right, Dad, time to go,” Oliver said firmly, picking up his briefcase.
His father didn’t move. Neither did Naomi—they stood, locked in a strange staring contest. He expected Naomi to look unnerved, and she did a little, but she also looked angry, and that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t Walter’s fault he was sick.
“He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Oliver told her stiffly. He hated having to explain his dad’s condition in front of his father, but he had to say something to get that look off her face.
She swallowed and gave Oliver a fleeting look, but the earlier flirtation was gone.
Instead she nodded stiffly, and a moment later he and his
father had been ushered out into the hallway like unwanted garbage.
Walter looked down his body and frowned. “Where are my pants?”
“Hell of a question,” Oliver muttered.
He put his hand on his father’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go get you some pants.”
“I could go for some eggs,” Walter was muttering. “And maybe some Scotch. Where’s my bracelet?”
Oliver dutifully answered his father’s questions, handed over the bracelet, then started to follow his father to the elevator.
But not before he cast one last thoughtful glance toward Naomi Powell’s closed door, more certain than ever that he was missing a crucial piece to the puzzle.
And more determined than ever to solve it.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10
Okay, you can’t expect me to listen to all that and not beg you to sign a contract.”
Naomi gave a noncommittal smile and took a sip of her cabernet. It was mediocre, but the producer had insisted on picking the wine, and she wasn’t enough of a connoisseur to care.
“Seriously, Naomi.” Dylan Day leaned forward and gave her a smile a good deal more earnest than her own. “You’ve got a hell of a life story.”
That was one way to put it.
“Now, which part was most enthralling,” Naomi said, putting her elbows on the table and resting her chin on locked fingers as she looked at him. “The part where there was no father figure? The fact that my mom was a hot mess whose primary talents were getting fired and getting evicted? Or that my idea of high living was being able to buy name-brand peanut butter to go along with my rice cake dinners?”
“Gold. All of it,” Dylan said without hesitation. “You’re a fighter. An underdog. People love that shit. Your story’s got almost everything.”
“Almost?” Naomi couldn’t keep from asking.
Dylan lifted the wine bottle and topped off her wineglass, then his own. “Romance, babe. Your story’s decidedly lacking men.”
“Maybe because I’ve been focused on building an empire,” she said with just a bit of edge. Honestly, were there still people who thought a woman’s life wasn’t complete without a man?
“Sure, sure,” Dylan agreed readily. “And Maxcessory will be the heart of the story. I’m just saying there’s a gap there. Nobody’s going to believe that someone who looks like you hasn’t left behind a string of broken hearts.”