I chew on my nail. It’s Saturday, so unless heisJude, then in theory Friday should be home ... unless he’s out beingsocial and enjoying the ... freezing weather outside. “Okay,” I say. “I’m going.”
This is Scooby-Doo-level investigation, but it’s all I have. I take the stairs down to the second floor, knocking at 2C. Silence on the other side. I knock again, and a door opens, but it isn’t Friday’s.
It’s Catalogs from 2A, leaning out into the hall, frowning across the landing at me. “I heard knocking.”
I look over to her, confused. “Yes ... but not at your door?”
“Are you looking for Jude?”
So FridayisJude. I exhale a huge breath, feeling shaky. Slowly, I nod. “Yeah, I was just seeing if he was home.”
“He’s not. He’s in Oregon until Tuesday.” Catalogs narrows her eyes at me coolly, like I’ve shown up wearing the same dress to a party, and I register that she’s threatened. She views me as a threat to her own aspirations to date Friday.
Perfect. I really hoped this situation would get more complicated.
“Did you need something?” she asks, and it’s on the tip of my tongue to ask whether Jude left her in charge of his Chicago life while he was gone, but I swallow it down, thinking. There’s still a slim chance that apartment 2C Jude who is in Oregon until Tuesday is somehow not the same Jude I’ve been emailing who is in Oregon until Tuesday, right?
“Oh, I just had a question for him about his company.”
She frowns. “Codeify?”
“Yeah.” Holy shit. There’s no doubt. “All good. I’ll catch him when he’s back.”
“Or, like,emailhim?” she says with Olympic-level pettiness.
“Cool idea, thanks.” I head back to the stairwell.
When I return to my apartment, Clara looks at me hopefully.
“He’s not there. It is Jude. The Codeify Jude. Catalogs confirmed.”
“That’s great!” Clara says, and watches me begin to pace again, the heels of my palms pressed to my temples. “Isn’t it?”
“Do I tell him?” I ask. “Do I text him and tell him this weird, crazy, rom-com coincidence?”
“I think it would be romantic to show up at the restaurant on Friday and surprise him.”
“What if I run into him in the lobby?”
She grins at me. “Flirt your ass off so he’s that much happier when he finds out it’s you.”
Chapter Nine
Veronica
Obviously, I’m a mess for the next few days. Now that I have a face to put with his name—and not just any face but the best face I’ve ever seen—I can barely focus on anything except thoughts of seeing Jude.
Saturday night, in an impulse that will leave me anxiously checking my approval status several times an hour, I request to follow him on Instagram. But throughout the weekend and into Monday, he still hasn’t approved the request.
I remind myself that, Saturday morning, he said he hadn’t been on the app in two months, so maybe he’s back off it after losing his marbles over the flat-earthers? But then again, he’s awake at dawn on vacation, before anyone else is up, so isn’t a daily Instagram scroll part of the routine?
Cranial chaos.
We text regularly, with everything growing more and more flirty, and it takes the full mass of my self-control to not blurt out,I am Your Neighbor From4C! Because what if he’s likeEw, no thank you?
But then again, if he’s likeEw, no thank you, wouldn’t I rather he have that reaction aimed at his phone and not looking directly at my face?
See? I’m a mess.
