Rolling onto my stomach, I picked at the grass and attempted to outline my thoughts on the article I was working on, but I could not distract myself from the man who’d just been suckered into an impromptu soccer game by a group of preschoolers. One of the girls had accidently kicked the ball into his back, but instead of reacting the way I’d assumed Brooks would—an inconvenienced sneer—he gave a theatrical performance of acting as though he’d nearly been dropped from the power of her kick.
Jimmy, not missing the opportunity, panned along with Brooks as he volleyed with the kids. Their teachers were paying more attention to him than they were the four- and five-year-olds. At least I wasn’t the only one with Brooks North fever.
After passing the ball to a boy who was practically half the size of the others so he could score the goal, Brooks high-fived some of them before he stepped back in line at the ice cream truck. Was that a genuine smile on his face? Had I just heard an honest-to-goodness laugh?
The kids got back to playing their game while Brooks gave his order. Never had I imagined Brooks might have been a fatherly type.
Until now.
Plucking at the grass, I conjured up all of the instances when Brooks North had been an ass. The list wasn’t short. Still, I could not get rid of the tightness in my stomach, the sensation that seemed like a warning or a pre-cursor or something important. I’d never felt it before, and now that I finally had that feeling, I wanted it to go away. To go into hibernation until another man entered the scene and my life hadn’t been reduced to a damn circus.
When Brooks started to head back, I laid my head on my arms and tipped my sunhat just enough to shade my eyes from him. For all he knew, I was taking a nap and not having an internal panic attack that the first man I’d felt the je ne sais quoi for was the last person on the planet I could let myself feel anything for.
Behind him, a chorus of cheers echoed where the kiddos had been playing, but Brooks and Jimmy were blocking my view to see what had elicited such a response.
“Miss me?”
Yawning, I pushed up on my forearms. “You keep asking me that question.”
“I keep waiting for a different response.”
The sun was right behind him and I couldn’t look at him without being blinded, so I diverted my eyes across the field toward from where he’d just come. Then I saw the source of the cheering.
“You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?” I asked as the ice cream vendor handed a few more ice cream cones to the kids circled around the stand, their hands flailing.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” The smirk in his tone gave him away.
“You bought ice cream for all of those kids?”
Brooks glanced over his shoulders, lifting his hand when the young women attempting to corral the preschoolers waved. “And their nice teachers.”
I bit my tongue to keep from saying something snarky over the “nice” part. “You? The stoic, grumpy realist? Bought ice cream for a classroom of ankle biters?”
“What?” Brooks crouched beside me. Too close. But then his presence would be too close no matter where he was. “It’s a beautiful day, and just because I’m a realist doesn’t mean I don’t believe in random acts of kindness.”
I leaned away as discreetly as I could. “Sure. Like a stranger buying ice cream for a bunch of little kids in a park. The definition of a random act of kindness. Not at all creepy.”
His face froze for a moment as he glanced back at the ice-cream-inhaling young’uns. Then he laughed. “Christ. I didn’t think of it that way.” He continued laughing. “No wonder the ice cream guy gave me a funny look when I said I wanted to buy ice cream cones for them all.”
I found myself laughing with him. “You’re going to wind up on an episode of America’s Most Wanted.”
Jimmy slid around beside us, kneeling a little too close for comfort.
“Here.” Brooks held out a waffle cone towered with several flavors of ice cream. “I got this for you.”
I blinked at the cone that probably weighed as much as I had when I’d been born. “I said I didn’t want anything.”
He gave me a look, moving the cone closer. “Whenever a guy asks a girl if she wants dessert and she says no, it always mean yes.” He took a bite of his own massive waffle cone, practically setting mine into one of my hands.
“That doesn’t apply to everything,” I said, taking the ice cream. “No does not mean yes.”
He winked at me when I took my first lick. “Only when it comes to dessert.”
“I want to argue with you, but I’m not,” I said as I took another lick of the top scoop—salted caramel.
“Because I’m right?”
I lifted my index finger. “This one time.”
Taking a seat on the grass, he turned his face toward the sky. “Women might hate me for what I write, but I pay more attention than most guys. In fact, if you all could see past the pragmatic beliefs, there’s a pretty solid life partner hiding behind all of this realism.”
I stared at him for a while, wondering why I had to fight every instinct demanding I move closer. I should be leaning away, creating distance, wanting space. My mind dictated that. But my body told a different story. “Women don’t want a life partner. They want a soul mate.”
Brooks looked down at me. “What’s the difference?”
“It’s all the difference.”
My eyes were burning from staying awake so late. My stomach churned with nausea from going so long without sleep. But I couldn’t go to bed until I’d finished this article. I had a deadline, and all of the time I’d been spending with Brooks on camera had taken a serious dip into my work time.
I was on the final paragraph, the grand finale that would wrap up all of my thoughts into a few poignant sentences. The last words I’d leave my readers with, the ones that would resonate with them for days to come if I’d done my job right.
If only those words would come already.
Letting out frustrated sigh number one thousand thirty-seven, I drilled my fingers into my temples as I closed my eyes. Focus, Hannah. The article’s already written, you just need to finish it. The final paragraph’s done, you only need to get it down on paper.
My typical pep talk was not working, and I couldn’t help blaming my writer’s block on one good-looking stiff in a suit.
Right then, I felt something totally unexpected, though it wasn’t the stroke of genius I’d been hoping for.
Rain drops. Pattering on my head. Inside my apartment.
My eyes snapped open at the same time my head fell back to stare at the ceiling. No, the ceiling had not opened up to reveal a night sky bloated with rain clouds.
“What the . . . ?” I muttered, shielding my laptop with my body as drops of water rained down from the ceiling.
More drops fell as the wet spot on the ceiling spread. After tucking my laptop into my bag and hiding it below the table, I rushed to the kitchen to collect as many pots as I had stuffed in my cupboards. Which wasn’t nearly enough given the amount of water falling from the ceiling.
Still, I scattered the pots around on the floor, hoping to catch at least some of the water, before rushing toward the bathroom to procure some towels. As I was rounding into the bathroom, there was a pounding on my door.
Scattered, I didn’t think to check the peephole before whipping the door open. On the other side I found Martin, sporting a pair of plaid flannel pajamas and one of those nasal strips.
He looked surprised, his mouth opening but nothing coming out. I understood why when I realized where his gaze was aimed. It was almost two o’clock in the morning, and I’d ditched my bra and blouse in favor of a cozy camisole hours before.
“This isn’t a good time. I’ve got a bit of a situation on my hands,” I said as I ducked into the bathroom for towels and a bathrobe.
“That’s why I’m here.” He moved inside a step, cleaning his glasses off on his pajama shirt. “The apartment right ne
xt to me, the one directly above yours, is experiencing some issues.” His face actually fell a little when I emerged from the bathroom with my holey old bathrobe cinched on.
“Some water issues?” I said as I hustled toward the table, but when I got there, the water had spread into the living room too, leaving dark spots on my light pink couch.
“She started a bath, then I guess walked away to pour herself a glass of wine and got distracted.”
“By the whole bottle?” I muttered as I mopped up what I could on the floor. The water was dripping faster now, holes opening up in the ceiling as rivers of water burst out.
“The apartment manager is having everyone below her apartment evacuate until they can get everything cleaned up and fixed.” Martin kept coming in, so I tossed him a towel.
“And where are we supposed to evacuate to? This is New York City. Space is a limited commodity.” All of my towels were soaked through and the water wasn’t easing up. I’d be lucky if anything was salvageable after this mess.
“I guess he’s checking with some hotels to see if he can secure rooms for all of you. I told him I’d let you know and help with whatever you needed. Might want to pack a few bags because who knows how long it will take to clean this all up.”
Giving up on my mopping up endeavors, I beelined for my bedroom to put a few bags together. The moment might not have fully caught up to me yet, and I had no idea where I was going once those bags were packed, but I knew having some dry personal effects would be better than none if I waited any longer.
“You know, you could always stay at my place.” Martin followed me into my bedroom, his eyes almost instantly moving toward my bed. The water hadn’t made its way in there yet, but I guessed it was only a matter of time. “I’m only a floor above and my apartment’s bigger than yours. There’s plenty of room for one more person.” His throat cleared as I threw clothes into a large duffel. “That’s why I got it.”
I made a face into my closet. I’d rather move into a run-down roadside motel with owners named Bates than into Martin’s sweet pad. For a bunch of reasons, all of them starting and ending with me not wanting to wake up to the sound of heavy breathing in the middle of the night. “Thank you, that’s a nice offer, but I’ve been living on my own for too long. I’m sure I’d drive a roommate, even a temporary one, crazy.”
Martin’s slippers squeaked across my floor. “You wouldn’t drive me crazy.”
I kept focused on my frantic packing, trying to think of a polite way to ask him to leave. “I’m going to look into a hotel. But thanks again.”
My eyes cut toward the door, but he wasn’t getting the hint. So as I stuffed another couple bags full of odds and ends and toiletries, I made use of Martin’s lingering presence to carry a couple of them.
“Are you sure you don’t want to spend the night at my place tonight? It’s practically morning.” Martin dropped my bags in the hallway with a grunt, as though I’d stuffed them full of steel plates.
“I’ve got a good friend who lives close by.”
“You’ve got a friend who lives one floor up too.” He pointed above us.
“A girl friend,” I added as I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my contacts.
“It’s the twenty-first century. Nobody cares about that stuff anymore.”
“Except God. And my priest.”
Martin’s forehead folded. “I didn’t know you were religious.”
“It’s more of a newfound faith. A born-again type of thing.” I chewed on the inside of my cheek before I said anything else and dug myself into an even deeper hole. Knowing Martin, he’d be waiting outside the building door on Sunday morning with his Bible in hand, waiting for me.
“It’s not like we’d do anything inappropriate. We’d just sleep. You in one room. Me in another.” Martin rubbed the back of his head, shifting in place.
I was damp. My apartment was a rain forest. And I was exhausted.
My patience ran out.
“Thank you again for the help, but if you could just give me some space to figure out my next steps, that would be much appreciated.” I capped my request with a smile as he headed for the stairway.
“You’ve got my number?”
I shook my phone. “I’ve got it.”
“You’ll call if you need anything? At any hour?”
I made an X over my chest. “Cross my heart,” I said, my fingers doing some crossing of their own behind my back.
He paused when he made it to the first step. “Can I help you carry your bags at least? That’s quite the load—”
“Goodnight, Martin.” I took a calming breath and held it while he climbed the stairs to his floor. Finally.
I heard some commotion coming from upstairs and heard the apartment manager’s voice from down the stairs, but the rest of the building was quiet. Everyone was sound asleep while my apartment was filling with water.
Leaning into the wall behind me, I wrung out my hair with one hand as I scrolled through my contacts with my other. Quinn was the obvious choice, but thanks to her student loan payments, she lived with two roommates in an apartment half the size of mine. One bathroom and four women might not have qualified for third-world conditions, but it was a first-world problem for sure.
If I asked, she’d say yes and would give up her twin bed for me and sleep on the floor that should have been replaced two generations ago. She’d be pissed if she found out what had happened and I hadn’t called her, but I couldn’t take advantage of a friendship when I had the means to put myself up in a hotel.
Contact after contact I knew I could call and, without hesitating, would tell me to get my butt over to their place, but I couldn’t force myself to ring a single one of them.
However, I found my finger twitching over one name. The last name I should have considered when it came to sharing a living—and sleeping—space.
Chiding myself for even considering it, I was about to pull up a search engine to book a hotel, when my damn traitorous thumb slipped.
Right over Brooks North’s phone number.
It had barely started ringing before I hit the end button, cursing as I did. It couldn’t have gone through. I’d caught it and ended the call too soon. Brooks would never have to know about the time my finger had slipped at two in the morning, calling him.
Not even three seconds later, my phone rang. Guess who?
“No, no, no.” My head thumped against the wall behind me in time to my words.
I wasn’t sure what to do. If I didn’t answer, it would be obvious I was ignoring him, especially since I was the one who’d just traitor-thumb-dialed him in the middle of the night.
If I did answer, what in the hell was I going to say? What legitimate reason, other than severe bodily trauma, could I have for calling Brooks at this time of night? I mean, other than the handful of texts we’d exchanged having to do with our dates, I’d had no talking interaction with him over the phone.
At the last minute, I made my decision and answered. “Hello?”
Another head thump when I realized how dumb that sounded.
“Hello? Hello yourself. You’re the one calling me at two-oh-four on a Thursday night. Make that Friday morning.” Brooks’s voice didn’t sound like he’d been rocked awake by my call. It sounded the same as any other time I talked with him.
“Sorry about that. I accidently butt-dialed you.” I frowned at my apartment as more water poured inside.
“What are you doing still awake?”
“What are you doing still awake?” I echoed back.
“Finishing an article.” The sound of ice clinking against a glass whispered through the phone.
“Me too,” I said in a rush when I noticed the apartment manager marching up the stairway toward me. “I’m going to let you get back to your article. Sorry again about the butt-dial.”
He gave a low rumbling chuckle. “Your butt can dial me anytime she wants.”
“You’re not funny.”
“I’ve gotten you to laugh a few times. I have to be semi funny.”
Andre, the apartment manager, didn’t seem to notice I was on the phone. Before I could cover it or end the call, he started talking a mile a minute. “Miss Arden, we are so sorry for this significant inconvenience.” When he got his first look inside my apartment, his face looked as though he’d witnessed a Great White flopping around in that spray of water. “I’ve called a dozen hotels already, all of them are full, but don’t worry, I’ll keep making calls until I find you a place, even if that means forfeiting my room for the remainder of the night.”
When his phone rang, he lifted his finger at me and answered the call. Andre was wound tight on a standard summer Saturday, so tonight he looked as though he were clinging to the last thread of his sanity.
“What’s the matter with your apartment?” Brooks’s voice streamed through my phone.
I exhaled. “It’s kinda flooding as we speak.”
“Flooding?”
“Flooding.” I motioned inside my apartment. “The lady above me forgot she was drawing a bath. From the looks of it, she forgot last month.”
“What are you going to do?”
“The apartment manager’s booking me a hotel,” I said.
“He just said he couldn’t find a vacancy.”
“He also said he was going to keep checking.”
Brooks exhaled. “Come to my place. It’s not far from you, and it’s big enough for the two of us.”
The tightness had now wound its way around my throat instead of my stomach. What the heck was going on with me? “No, I couldn’t do that.”
“But you could shack up with your apartment manager, who sounds like he’s this close to losing his grip on sanity?” Brooks gave me a few moments to process. “Really, just come over tonight and if it’s so terrible being here, you can check into a hotel tomorrow night. No one needs to know.”
A wave of exhaustion pulsed over me, and the lure of sleep became overpowering. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
I hadn’t been prepared for him to ask that question. “Because. It just doesn’t seem like it is.”
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