Goddamn Jack.
“Hajde bre, Penny. Please. Please.Boll tash. You know it’s quiet hours now. Why the TV need to be on so loud?”
I dip my chin, shamefaced, and return to the sofa to retrieve the remote like a toddler forced to confront their crayon art on the wall. I mute the TV and return to the door.
“Let me guess: the nightmare in 5B complained?” I ask loudly, masking my regret at putting out our poor, long-suffering superintendent under a thick layer of Jack-directed anger. “I—ah—I left you a little something, Gence. Did you see it?”
I’ve been bribing Gence with batches of homemade cookies every week for the past few months, in the hopes of getting him to do something about soundproofing or give Jack the boot. Fingers crossed all those snickerdoodles and lemon shortbreads have made the latter option irresistible.
Gence sighs loudly, ignoring my question. “Everyone in this building gets along. Nice! Nice people, everyone. You two, oil and water. If you hate him, why don’t you move already? Huh? I have real estate business on the side. I can help you,t’hangert dreqi.”
My jaw sets.You can help me by catapulting Jack into the street. “This apartment is everything to me. I’m not leaving. He can move,” I fume. “Or maybe you can do something about soundproofing the walls? I can’t hear the people in 4A, and they can’t hear me. It’s just between my apartment andhis.” I make “his” sound like the vilest of four-letter words. Gence’s mouth, surrounded by rough salt-and-pepper stubble, firms ominously.
Gence escaped awful conditions in Kosovo, then braved war and hunger and poverty to come to this country with his family. He deserves better than having to put up with two childishly idiotic Americans. He’s sick of us, and if I tell him that today’s dust-up started over some vacuuming—thatthat’sthe reason he had to hike up four flights of stairs at 7:30 PM—he might grab me by the back of my shirt and toss me out a window. I wouldn’t blame him, either, honestly.
I sigh. “I’m sorry you had to come up here. He was vacuuming and… It won’t happen again. And you can always just call instead, if—”
“Dreq o dreq.” He harrumphs and turns on his heel, mumbling something else in Albanian. I follow him into the hall and call out, “Natën e mirë, Gence!”, wishing him good night in an Albanian accent I’m almost proud of. I mentally high-five the elephant mascot from my language-learning app. Gence lumbers down the creaking, dark stairs without a backward glance.
The door to apartment 5B opens. Jack steps out, hands on his hips, to watch Gence’s retreat. He’s a tall drink of cyanide, standing barefoot in his olive-green sweats and dark-blue T-shirt.
His head, I begrudgingly admit to myself, is not huge. It’s a normal size, and topped with dark-brown hair, currently mussed. On days like today, Jack reminds me of Han Solo without the charm, slightly disheveled and with an arrogant swagger that tells you he’s convinced of his own appeal. But there is no appeal. Or if there is, I’m immune. Physical beauty is negated by an ugly soul every day of the week on my calendar. Mom’s advice to take a cue from Sarah and find myself a homely boy to settle down with floats through my mind, and I nearly laugh out loud.
Jack cocks his disgustingly average-size melon to slant me a casual glare before I can spring back into my apartment. I brace for impact.
“Was he able to fix your TV?” he asks, his deep voice tinged with faux concern. He turns to face me more fully, taking in my veg wear—threadbare short-shorts covered entirely by a long Rolling Stones concert tee—with raised eyebrows.
“Great job, forcing an old man up all those stairs for your nonsense.”
“That old man could bench-press four of you, you know,” he says.
“Is that what you do with women? Bench-press them? Be still my heart.”
His eyes light up with a look that usually precedes what hethinkswill be a return zinger, but then they dip to the hem of my shirt. There’s a mocking edge to the speculative look, and Jack most certainly means it to be insulting, but…
The back of my neck prickles. I’m never reading a romance novel again. GoddamnPirate Duke. It’s given my body ideas that my brain finds revolting.
The silence lasts a beat. Two.
“Oh, suck it,” I spit out.
“Sure. If you beg,” Jack says immediately. He leans against his doorjamb, one leg crossed in front of the other. “Gence was already in my apartment trying to fix a plumbing thing when you started blaring your TV.”
“Sure he was,” I scoff. “You call him for everything.”
“No more than you.”
I narrow my eyes, noticing his shirt.I knew it.“You took my clothes out of the washer,” I grit out. “I had to pay for two cycles to get rid of that mildew smell. And Iknowit was you because I canclearlysee certain articles from that wash load on your”—I glare at his chest, then quickly avert my eyes—“person.”
“Sorry, having trouble hearing you. Someone was clanking pots and pans during my playoff game last night. Still got some ringing in my ears,” he says, reaching up to tug on his earlobe.
“Do you vacuum at all hours because you’re such a dirtbag?”
“D’you know you talk in your sleep? And moan.”
I go rigid with shock, then cross my arms protectively against my middle and gawk at him, my mouth open like a carp’s.
His glance dips again to my legs, and he smiles—not the snide smiles he’s lobbed like cannonballs across the hallway at me from time to time, but arealsmile. The first I’ve gotten from him since the week he moved in. It’s boyish and blinding and causes dimples to bracket his mouth in what would be a distressingly appealing way if he wasn’t a demon. He backs into his doorway.
