Play Me

by Katie McCoy

  And the way he was looking at me didn’t help. Like he wasn’t sure if he was going to kill me or kiss me. He licked his lip and my pulse skipped. His foot was still jammed against my door. “Maybe I’m the one who should be calling the superintendent.” I lifted my chin. “To tell him one of his tenants is a Peeping Tom.”

  “Hey!” He looked offended. “I do not peep.”

  “Clearly you do!”

  “Look.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, okay, but you didn’t have any curtains and . . . ”

  “That’s not an excuse!”

  “I’m trying to apologize!” he argued, his foot still against the door. “It was a late night, okay?”

  “Perhaps if you were more responsible with your evenings, your mornings would be less . . . rough.” I tried to inject as much primness into my voice as possible.

  He frowned. Perfect. There was a reason that other students in high school had called me the Ice Queen. If I was good at anything, it was freezing people out. I had a black belt in resting bitch face.

  But instead of backing off, he merely crossed his arms. My one super power had failed.

  “I’ve never had complaints about my roughness before.”

  My face went hot again, but I was not about to let him get the upper hand.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard how easily it is to fake something like that,” I shot back.

  His eyebrows went up and I could tell I had surprised him. “I can tell when a woman is faking,” he responded, his voice very low.

  “That’s what all men think,” I told him.

  “Is that so?” he asked and leaned forward, just slightly.

  “No!” I said, far too quickly and too loudly. This Ice Queen was on the verge of melting in the face of his scruffy hotness. Don’t let it go, I told myself. Keep it together, Elsa.

  He laughed and leaned back. “Just wait a few more hours before practicing in the morning, please?” He ran a hand through his hair and for the first time I really saw the dark circles under his eyes. Maybe he wasn’t just hung over. But before I could respond, or even really react, he had removed his foot from the door, turned, and was trudging up the stairs.

  I let out a huff, annoyed that he had gotten the last word, and went back into my apartment.

  A few hours of not practicing later, I headed over to Mission Street to meet my sister for our weekly lunch and afternoon of shopping. Or rather, her afternoon of shopping.

  Like always, I spotted Nina from a block away, wearing a bright vintage wrap dress and big colored sunglasses. She didn’t even wait for me to sit down. “Ella,” she said. “Why must you always dress like you’re attending a funeral?” Lately she had been speaking with a slightly affected accent, probably her attempt to sound more worldly. I tried not to roll my eyes. I loved my sister, but sometimes she was too much for me to deal with. Sometimes meaning always. “Please tell me today is the day you’re finally going to let me find you something sexy and beautiful.”

  Nina lowered her sunglasses to give me the once-over I always got when I saw her. Usually I didn’t mind her scrutiny. But for some reason, this morning, after the conversation I had had with my hot but annoying neighbor, I really didn’t want to listen to the lecture I knew was coming. Nina’s hair, while naturally dark like mine, had been dyed a variety of colors over the years. Right now, however, she was sporting the latest trend—mermaid hair, the ends of her dyed platinum blonde hair painted sea green. Like always, it looked amazing on her, while it would have looked ridiculous on me. The same was the case with all the colorful clothes she kept urging me to buy. But it wasn’t new clothes that she wanted me to get. It was a new personality. One that was more like hers. Like my parents. I often wondered if I had been left at their doorstep or something. I was way too normal to be from the same gene pool as them. “I don’t need more clothes,” I told Nina, trying not to think of how my new closet looked so empty with my meager wardrobe in it. But I wore everything in there on a regular basis. I didn’t need anything else.

  “It isn’t about need,” Nina said. “It’s about want. About indulging yourself once in a while.”

  I didn’t bother to tell her that I knew how to indulge, and when I wanted to, I bought myself a new lingerie set. That, of course, no one saw. Except, of course, my new neighbor. For a moment I wondered what he would do if I didn’t buy any curtains and wore my red lace bra and panty set tonight. Would he be banging on my door the next morning, but for a different reason?

  The thought was so ridiculous and so out of character that I pushed it aside. What was wrong with me today? First I had wanted to check out his tattoos, now I wanted to willingly parade around my apartment in lingerie, hoping he would check me out again? The thought that someone like him, all rough edges and late nights, would be interested in me, with my practical clothes and love of following sheet music, was totally absurd.

  “So.” I unfolded my napkin and spread it out on my lap. I was eager to change the subject. “How are mom and dad?”

  After a lunch of hearing how my parents were distraught because I hadn’t stayed at home longer, Nina dragged me to her favorite thrift store. She piled clothes I would never wear into my arms, and I tried to ignore her as she insisted our parents were worried about me and how I was taking the break-up with Mark. They didn’t want me to be alone. But she hadn’t wanted me to move, either, so I took everything she said with a grain of salt and ignored the guilt pangs it gave me. I didn’t want to admit it, but it was nice to have some space from her. Even though I was the older one by two years, I always felt like I had been in her shadow. She was the one who had followed my parents’ ambitions, becoming the free spirit they wanted us to be. Everything about her was free and wild and exciting. I loved her, but sometimes she exhausted me. “What about this?” Nina asked, holding up a bright red dress. Although loud in color, the shape was pretty simple, a basic form fitting sheath, which wasn’t really her style. It was a beautiful dress, though. And it was hard to find something that my sister didn’t look amazing in.

  “Sure.” I waved a hand at it. “You’d look great in it.”

  “Not for me,” she said, shoving it into my arms. “For you.”

  I shoved it back. “I told you,” I said, “I don’t need any more clothes.”

  After two hours of shopping I was itching to get back to my apartment and finally finish this morning’s practice. Surely Jake was up and about by now and wouldn’t be bothered by my playing. I absentmindedly ran my fingers over a rack of clothes, wondering what kind of dresses the women he dated wore. Not that I cared. Because I didn’t. Really.

  Nina hung the dress back up and came up behind me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders, enveloping me. I felt my frustration with her melt away. She was always good with hugs. She turned me towards a mirror and I looked at the two of us, at first glance so different, but the longer one looked, the more our similarities became evident. The same ski slope nose and large eyes, the same pale skin and long necks. In bare feet, I was taller, but she was wearing her usual funky heels and I was in my favorite black flats so we were about the same height. She was curvier, but we were sisters, no doubt about that. Guess I could forget my theory about getting left on my parents’ doorstep.

  “I just want you to be happy,” Nina said, squeezing me tight. “You know that, right?”

  “I know that.” I squeezed her back before giving her a big sister stare in the mirror. “But I’m still not buying that red dress.”

  5

  Jake

  “And who moves a whole fucking piano into their studio apartment? And then yells at me for having the nerve to want to sleep in past ten?” I fumed to Dakota over dinner prep, my knife flying furiously. “Who plays piano all day?”

  “A piano player?”

  I looked up from the onions I was chopping and found her staring at me, arms crossed. “What? You don’t think something’s a little weird about her?”

  “Like I said the first
three times you asked me, she seems a little intense,” Dakota said, raising one eyebrow. She was really good at being unimpressed with me. “Kind of like someone else I know.”

  “Oh, no.” I put down my knife and wiped my hands, outraged. “You cannot be comparing my ambition to her lunacy.”

  “It’s a short trip between the two,” Dakota said with a shrug. “And you know it.”

  I hated when she was right. But that didn’t mean Ella was any less of an annoyance. Sure she had stopped playing after my visit, but I still hadn’t been able to go back to sleep. Instead, I had gone back to my apartment and been annoyed, but awake until it was time to head to work. Now I was in my kitchen—MY kitchen, that I had worked so hard for—and grumpy as fuck.

  “Remind me why I hired you?” I muttered at Dakota.

  “Because I’m the best sous chef you know,” she informed me, calmly returning to her own prep. And she was right about that too. After we met in culinary school, we had gotten into the habit of hiring each other whenever we had the chance. We worked really well together—so well, in fact, that most people assumed we had a romantic history, which we didn’t. We both understood that nothing ruined a good working relationship like a romantic one.

  We returned to our work in companionable silence, until I got the sense I was being watched. Without even looking up—I could tell when Dakota wanted to say something—I let out a deep sigh. “What?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” she said in the way that meant it was definitely something.

  I put down my knife again and looked up at her. “Out with it,” I ordered.

  She gave me a grin. “I just thought it was interesting how much you’ve been talking about your neighbor today.”

  “Stop it,” I told her, knowing exactly what she was hinting at.

  But of course she didn’t. “I can’t remember the last time I heard you talk about a woman for longer than ten minutes. I’ve been listening to you bitch about this one for almost an hour.”

  “Annoyance is not the same as attraction,” I said, realizing too late I had just backed myself into a corner. Dammit. I was too tired to be interacting with someone as sharp as Dakota.

  “Aha.” Her smile grew wider. “So she was cute.”

  “I didn’t say that,” I argued, even though cute would not be the word I would use to describe Ella. She was hot as hell and just as irritating. But still, even my frustration with her hadn’t dimmed the intense attraction I was doing my best to ignore. She was probably nuts—again, who puts a piano in a studio apartment?—and I had a strict rule about that. Don’t screw with crazy. It had served me well during my dating life, and while I had had a few near misses with girls who got overly attached, for the most part, I had avoided worst-case scenarios. Messing with someone in my building however, well, that could go bad real fast if I wasn’t careful. Too bad I had told her about the curtains though, I could have built up enough fantasies to get me through this dry spell. Ten bucks the sexy lingerie Ella was wearing last night weren’t the only ones she owned.

  “I think you did,” Dakota responded playfully. “You think she’s cute. When was the last time you went on a date?”

  “When was the last time you went on a date?” I fired back, knowing she was just as busy as I was. Then I wished I hadn’t said anything, remembering how disastrous her love life had been lately. Dakota was great at a lot of things, but finding good guys was not one of them. Her last boyfriend had been one hell of a prick. “I’m sorry,” I told her, but she brushed it off.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “In fact, I have one tomorrow night,” she told me, blushing a little.

  “What?” How did I not know? But before I could even ask, she reached over and patted my hand.

  “You’ve been busy with the restaurant.”

  It was true, but too busy to know that my best friend was dating again? Maybe I was getting a little obsessed. I quickly dismissed that thought. I was ambitious. Not obsessed. But still, I could make time for Dakota.

  “What are you doing after work tonight?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “Going home and going to sleep,” she said. “Exactly what you should do.”

  “Or we could do brownie night,” I suggested. It was something we did in culinary school when we were really stressed out—try to outdo each other with our brownie recipes. And hanging out with my best friend was exactly what I needed to shake off the stress of work and this lingering annoyance over Ella and her goddamn piano. And her legs. And hips. And ass. Fuck. Stop it, I told myself.

  “Brownie night, really?” Dakota asked. “That would be awesome.”

  “Bring your A-game,” I warned. “I’m going all out on chocolate chips.”

  “Oh, you know I will.” Dakota flicked a bit of cilantro at me. “Salted caramel, baby. Unbeatable.”

  “We’ll see,” I told her, tossing the cilantro back. “We’ll see.”

  Tonight was turning out to be a bitch of a night. By the end of it I was going to be in sore need of something with a kick. Ever since Patricia had left, we would always get at least one asshole customer that would declare fault with the food and blame it on the fact that we had a new chef. It was total bullshit—we were working off of Patricia’s recipes and all of us had worked under her for years—but it still managed to piss me off each time it happened. And tonight seemed to be an asshole convention of sorts. It seemed like every other meal would come back with complaints. The meat was overdone (it wasn’t), the mashed potatoes were too lumpy (they weren’t), and the greatest insult, the new chef (me) was taking liberties with Patricia’s perfect recipes (I wasn’t, though I was itching to try).

  “I’m going to go out there,” I said, after a dish was sent back twice. A dish that had been cooked to perfection each time. Not only did it piss me off, but also it was bad for the morale of my chefs who were working their asses off. “This is ridiculous.” I threw down my apron, but Dakota blocked my way. “Move,” I told her.

  “Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes up at me. She was several inches shorter than I was and I could have picked her up and moved her myself, but I knew that even attempting that would be the last mistake I ever made. “What are you going to do, Jake?” she asked. “Go out there and yell at some ingrate who has no idea what rare steak is supposed to look or taste like? He’s a moron and you’re an adult.” She gave me a once-over. “I think.”

  “Ha,” I told her, not finding this very funny at all. But the haze of anger had begun to lift and I saw that she was right, and going out there would have been a very, very bad idea. I rubbed my eyes. I was exhausted. The night had been long and my lack of sleep was catching up to me. I cursed Ella and her piano for what seemed like the hundredth time that night, even though I knew it wasn’t her fault that the restaurant was full of jerks tonight.

  “We’re almost done,” Dakota told me. “No new orders are coming in. Go sit in your office and calm down.”

  I took a deep breath. I hated that I had nearly lost my temper in front of my staff. They needed someone who would be calm during the storm, not cause it in the first place. I had to keep reminding myself that I was there to set an example. I was the head of the kitchen now. Patricia had always kept a cool head about shithead customers—I had to do the same.

  “Thanks, Dakota,” I told her, clapping her on the shoulder. “And let’s make tonight a whisky and brownie night. I’m going to need a stiff drink when this is all over.”

  6

  Ella

  A loud laugh startled me awake. I sat up in bed, heart pounding, forgetting for a moment where I was. My new curtains made the apartment so black that it took a few minutes before my eyes adjusted enough for me to make out the room in front of me. What the hell? I thought, reaching for my phone. The bright light made me squint. Three a.m.?

  I heard the laugh again and then a shriek and some giggling. What was going on? The noise didn’t sound like it was coming from across the hall, but actually from up above.
I went over to my curtain, pulled it back and looked up. All the lights in Jake’s apartment were on and it was pretty clear that’s where the noise was coming from.

  What a hypocrite! He really had some nerve. How dare he come down and tell me my playing was waking him up when he’s up at three a.m. partying and being an inconsiderate jerk. And after informing me how thin the walls were here. Well, he was right about that. Now that I had heard what was going on upstairs, it was hard to block it out.

  I went back to my bed, hoping that the noise would stop, but the moment I lay down, there came another shriek and I was done. No way was I going to let this guy tell me when I could or couldn’t play my piano when he was partying it up in the middle of the night. Clearly he liked to party and his annoyance about my playing was based solely on his apparently frequent hangovers. Not a surprise considering this is how he spent his nights.

  I grabbed my robe and shoved my feet into my slippers. How could none of our other neighbors said anything about the noise? He was being so completely rude right now.