“Help me, please.”
“I’ve got you, don’t worry.”
She opens her notebook. Pages of layout sketches with images of furniture, fabric samples, and paint chips. I’m impressed. She goes through each option with me, glowing while she discusses the benefits of the one that is clearly her favorite. Minutes pass, and I realize I haven’t looked at her plans the whole time. I can’t stop staring at her.
“Do you like it?” she asks when she’s done with her design proposal.
“Yes.”
“Really?”
She doesn’t need to know I have no fucking idea which design I just approved. “Yes, really. I trust you with my life, so whatever you think.”
“Were you really wanting to use your whole budget? I can do it for way less.”
“No, go for it. I work too much to come home to a budget-friendly solution.”
She laughs. “Whatever you say, boss.”
I give her my credit card without a second thought. Bri is notoriously bad at spending my money. My money is safer with her than it is with me most days. “There’s that, and here’s the fob for the entrance and elevator. You can get all this done in twelve hours?”
“Will you really be at work that long? You got up so early today.”
“Sadly, yeah. That’s my life.”
“Okay, well, thank you for not making me Uber. I’ll go get therest of the stuff and have most of it put up by tonight.”
“Are you sure you don’t need any help?”
“Very sure. Have a good day at work, and try not to miss me too much.”
I’ll be lucky if I get anything done while knowing she’s a few blocks away. “No promises.”
~
Work dragged by. Ten hours of staring at the same presentation for the same project, and Sai still can’t make up his mind enough to pass it to me to finish. It’s 9:00 p.m., and my patience ran out at 7:00. While I watch over Sai’s shoulder, my knee bounces so hard it causes my chair to squeak out an annoying club remix of my impatience.
He looks down at it, and I stop. “Go home,” he says.
“We’re not done.”
“You are. With me. Clearly.” He’s not wrong. “I’ll wrap this up while you spend time with your lady friend, then I’ll send it to you.”
I’m already pulling my backpack from my drawer when I ask, “You sure?”
“Yes. Go.”
Say less.
The elevator whizzes down, and I bound from the lobby and up the hill with athletic speed, only acknowledging I’m out of breath when I force myself to catch it in front of my apartment door. I take a minute, but my heart rate barely calms. I forgot she’s been working on my apartment all day, that I’ll walk into a completely different space than I woke up in this morning. The excitement of seeingheris what’s stealing my breath.
When I open the door, the first object to catch my eye is a little table in the foyer. A dish sits on top of it with my keys inside, and a framed redwood leaf hangs above it.
“Bri?” I walk past my bed nook, which now has lux sheets, decorated walls, and an intricate gold and green pattern behind my headboard, but no Bri. The living space looks like a hotel lounge, warm, earthy, the same forest scheme from her plans mixed with reds and oranges like an autumn canopy. “Yo. . .”
“Do you like it?” Her voice behind me makes me jump.
“I love it!” Between her in that dress—a short, dark purple piece of fabric that hugs every curve—and the beautiful decorations around me, I can’t decide what I want to look at more.
