Emily shuddered, and Nora cringed inwardly at Mr. Salas making things worse, but he wasn’t wrong. Nora had seen the return address on that envelope. Will Sterling (another betrayal: his last name wasn’t even Pasternak! Instead, he had a name like a doctor onGeneral Hospital, which Nora found extremely insulting) lived far south enough that coming up to this part of the city regularly would be a massive hassle, particularly given what he’d said about the way he worked. So he’d either neglect it or hire people to maintain it, which would mean more traffic in and out, more disruption.
Disruption was not the business of this building. Or at least it hadn’t been, not until lately.
“Can we stop this, Nora?” asked Mrs. Salas. “Do something about the bylaws?”
Nora swallowed, feeling shamed. If she’d been better about all this, she would’ve studied the bylaws right after Nonna had died. She would have paid more attention to the fact that they basically hadn’t been updated since the year Nonna had led the effort to take the building condo. She would’ve done whatever cleanup and updates were necessary while Donny was still alive, to make sure she prevented anything like this from happening.
But she hadn’t been better, at least not about this. She’d been figuring out her move and her work; she’d been dealing with paperwork from Nonna’s estate; she’d been grieving.
She cleared her throat. “We can’t, not really. When you all went in on this together, you made sure every decision about the building had to be made unanimously.”
Nora had always loved this part of the building’s story—a commitment they’d made to each other all these years ago, a seal on this found family they’d made together. Now, though—with Will Sterling out there, makingplans—Nora had to admit that it was, as Nonna might have put it,veryinconvenient!
“And so now we’d need Donny’s nephew,” said Mrs. Salas, shaking her head.
For a few seconds, the room was quiet, and Nora’s heart clenched. They’d all been so shocked to find it out—all this time, Donny had someone, and he’d never said a word. That, she knew, felt like a betrayal all its own.
“Terrible of him to do this,” said Jonah, his voice rough, and it wasn’t until he spoke again that she realized he wasn’t making the accusation against his longtime friend. “Turning that place into a hotel room.”
Emily sniffled, and Marian patted her hand again.
Mrs. Salas said, “How could he do this to Donny?”
Everyone fell quiet again, this silence more about sadness than shock, and Nora felt a surge of protectiveness for her assembled neighbors, for Nonna, for Donny. If Will Sterling had bothered to stick around the other morning (I’ll see you, he’d said!),thisis what she would’ve gotten around to telling him.Thisis what she loved about it here—people who weren’ttechnicallyfamily taking care of one another like they were.
She sensed something in the room changing, everyone looking up to where she stood, as though all of a sudden, they’d decided Mrs. Salas’s question wasn’t really rhetorical at all. Well, what did it matterhow? The fact of the matter was, no matter the how of Will Sterling’s betrayal, Nora owed it to Nonna and to her neighbors to try her best to stop this rental-property plan. After all, no one here had even batted an eye at the end, when Nonna had said she wanted Nora to take over for her. No one had questioned it, because they’d always trusted Nonna, and they’d always, always believed in Nora.
She straightened, letting that belief bolster her.
She would absolutely fix this. She had to.
“Hewon’tdo this to Donny,” she said firmly. “I won’t let him.”
But that’s when she realized that no one, in fact, had been looking up at her at all.
“Hello,” said a voice from behind her.
She recognized it right away.
It was a different sort ofHello, this one, not the soft, tentative inquisition that he’d spoken from his—no,Donny’s; on principle, she would keep thinking of it as Donny’s—balcony. ThisHellowas full-throated, confident, and even without turning she could tell that the person who’d said it was smiling. Or maybesmirking. It was the kind ofHellothat told her he’d beenstanding. right. there.for the exact moment she’d made an extremely confident promise about his future prospects in this building.
It was the kind ofHellothat made her dread turning around.
For a half second of stunned embarrassment she assumed the previous plant-dropping posture: statue-still and squeezed-shut eyes, a breath caught in her throat. It was so like that morning from a few days ago that she had to drag her attention to the details that made it different: the dusty smell of the laundry room, the letter in her hand, Benny’s late but pointed throat-clearing, and also the fact that she was wearing a full set of clothing.
She opened her eyes, and turned to face him.
And—well.
Well!
Taller and leaner than she’d thought initially, her perspective obviously distorted during her first high-above sight of him. Straight on like this, he seemed to take up the whole doorway, the definition of his chest more apparent in the long-sleeved T-shirt he wore, sleeves pushed up, and neither of his hands lifting to his not-startled heart. Instead, they stayed tucked into the front pockets of his loose, faded jeans, everything about his body as casual and comfortable as could be.
She decided that he was, in fact, smirking, a smirk to match his stance, and also a smirk that went obnoxiously nicely with his still very attractive face: wind-machine hair, thick and deep brown to complement dark eyebrows and lashes that would probably cost her at least a hundred and fifty bucks at Sephora, because there was no justice for women in this world. Maybe she would’ve noticed the color of his eyes, but the fact was, she was too preoccupied by the final betrayal in this balcony-to-basement transformation:
He wasn’t wearing his glasses.
She’d really liked those glasses.
