This is fine, Anne told herself as a kernel of panic lodged in her chest. After all, it was temporary. She just needed some earplugs. Maybe a few candles. That could help with the smell, too—which was definitely patchouli and not weed, right? Right. Once she got out of these old sweats and jumped in the shower, she would feel better. It was amazing what a conditioning mask could do.
She almost believed it.
Her phone let out a ping in her hand and she looked down to see her father’s message on the screen.
DAD
Is it asking too much to get an update or do I have to drive back to the city to find out where my furniture is?
And just like that, her tenuous morale deflated to nothing.
It would be easy to ignore the text, but she had learned from years of managing her father’s company that the longer you ignored Walter Elliot, the more attention he demanded until it became impossible to get anything done. This would only be compounded by the fact that he was currently without his personal belongings while trying to acclimate to his new loft apartment in Brooklyn.
ANNE
They picked up the furniture from storage at 9am.
They should be in Brooklyn by noon.
DAD
So I’m just supposed to wait around all day??
ANNE
If they’re not there by noon, we can call.
DAD
By that point my furniture could be floating in New York Harbor!
An array of responses flew through Anne’s mind, but in the end she just put her phone on silent and leaned back into the mattress again. She knew she should get in the shower, but at that moment, all she could do was lie there and stare up at where someone had put a collection of glow-in-the-dark star stickers on the ceiling, and wonder what else could possibly go wrong.
Another sharp knock echoed down the hallway from the front door. Anne almost called out to Cricket to tell her Bev was getting angry, but then she remembered that this was her home now—at least for a little while. Surely, she could answer the door.
She stood, using her forearm to push some of her blond hair from her sweaty face, then headed down the short hallway and swung the door open.
“I’m sorry, Bev. I—”
But it wasn’t Bev.
There was a man there waiting, his head bent down to look at his phone. Tall, in a well-tailored suit, with brown hair that wasslightly mussed. Then he turned to face her, revealing a smile she hadn’t seen in eight years.
Freddie Wentworth.
For a split second, she forgot she was covered in sweat and dust. Or that her hair was unwashed and sticking to her forehead, or that her sweatpants were awkwardly riding up her ankles. For that split second, she was twenty-two again and life wasn’t really that bad because Freddie was there, his green eyes crinkling at the corners, an easy smile turning up his lips.
But it was only a split second.
That’s how long it seemed to take him to recognize her. That’s when his smile faded, and suddenly the reality of the here and now crashed into her with mortifying clarity. Her hair, her clothes, the way his eyes traveled across it all and seemed to critique every detail.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he replied slowly, his brow furrowed.
She had never seen him in a suit before, and her pulse tripped at the altered view, how it sharpened the lines of his now-broad shoulders and accentuated his height. His dark hair was shorter now, so she could see the stern line of his brow.
She opened her mouth to say something, but it just hung there gaping for a long moment.
