Instead, I find wood floors, a modest living room with a single fluffy pink chair, three shelves overflowing with books, a small kitchen devoid of appliances or crocks full of cooking utensils or flour, and a glimpse into a bedroom where there’s a mattress on the floor, neatly made with a homemade quilt, piles and piles of books like she’s gotten rid of the bookshelves in there already, stacks of boxes, and cords on the floor for a computer and her phone.
She’s moving.
And she’s nearly ready.
She strides out of her bedroom, black peacoat in one hand, keys and her phone in the other. “Still up for this?”
I’mupall right. “Suffered worse.”
“I promise to introduce you to every athlete or athlete-adjacent person I spot, even if I don’t already know them. There are a lot who’ve been playing for at least ten years. I think you’ll get along well with them.”
I grunt once again.
She leads me out of her apartment and double-checks that it’s locked behind us, then we head for the elevator.
And then she slides me a look that sayshello, Mr. Grumpy Pants. “Have to ask. Is it the suit, the wedding reception, or going with me? I won’t be offended by any answer.”
It’s not her.
She’s unexpectedly enjoyable as a human being.
Even when she’s playing me for her own reasons.
Possibly even more then.
And that says all there is to say about why I don’t do relationships anymore.
“All of the above,” I tell her.
She smiles again as the elevator doors close, and I get the feeling she knows I’m lying. “Ididfinally read your bio. The juicy one on Wikipedia.”
“I read yours too. It was boring.”
“Did you have big weddings when you got married?”
“Did you take a pill to give you big balls tonight?”
The woman’s eyes aredancingin absolute merriment.
Ex-boyfriend must not have been that bad.
Either that, or she has some plans to use me for an even bigger revenge scheme than I’m aware of.
I look at the elevator doors. We’re only three floors up, but the thing’s slow as vegemite on an ice luge.
Which are two things that do not go together, in case you were wondering.
“First one was as big as we could afford. Second one was a booze-fest on a yacht she borrowed from some lady billionaire friend.”
“Six months after your divorce,” she muses.
We aren’t discussing what I did when I was only old enough to legally drink because I’d moved to Europe. “I don’t have to let you inside my car.”
She slips her hand into my elbow and squeezes. “I would’ve done the same after Miller, but Silas found out I had a date and set my new boyfriend’s shoes on fire. He broke up with me before I could propose. Probably for the best since the shoe thing happened about ten days after I met him and I was already ring shopping.”
The elevator door dings, and we step out into the small lobby.
My car’s at the curb, technically parked illegally, and I don’t care. I’d care if it got towed, mostly for the inconvenience of it, but I care more that my chest is itching and I have to sit on my ass to drive us to the botanical gardens.
