Page 5 of Levi

He waves a dismissive hand at me. “Butler, whatever. I don’t need anything right now except a few more hours of sleep, so if you could come back later, that’d be fucking fantastic.”

“No, you need to wake up and leave. I’m not your butler. This house is listed for sale. I’m the listing agent. And you have five minutes to get your stuff and get out before I call the police. You’re trespassing.”

He doesn’t react in any way. He doesn’t stand up, doesn’t look for his bag, doesn’t do any of the things a person does when they’ve been told to leave a place. He just blinks at me with startling green eyes from the cushion with the throw pulled up to his chin.

“Did you hear me? Five minutes.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “This house was rented for me. For a month.”

“No, that is not possible,” I tell him. “This house is for sale. It’s not a rental.”

“Well, somebody must’ve turned it into one, because I’ve got a code that works and a confirmation for a paid booking that says otherwise.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Don’t care if you believe me or not. Still not moving.”

“Show me the confirmation. I want to see it.”

“Christ, you’re annoying,” he says, sighing heavily. He reaches toward the floor without sitting up, finds a phone with a cracked screen that’s nearly dead, taps it, scrolls, and holds it up at an angle.

There’s a text message with a code, the same code I used to get in. Below it, a confirmation from a property management company with this address. Monthly booking. Paid in full. Nonrefundable within the booking window. Check-in was yesterday.

“Who rented this house for you?” I ask.

“Doesn’t matter who. Somebody did. I showed up, the code worked, I went to sleep. I’m here for a month. That’s the story.”

“It matters to me who rented it. I signed a listing agreement with the owner of this property weeks ago. This house is for sale. He didn’t mention it going on the rental program.”

He closes his eyes while I’m talking. Puts his head back against the cushion and shuts down. He’s taking me no more seriously than a television he’s decided to turn off.

“Somebody knew I was coming,” he says without opening his eyes. “They left a welcome package with a loaf of fresh bread. It was right there on the counter. And cheese in the fridge, but I didn’t care for it. Too squishy.”

I take a deep breath and close my eyes for a second. This man ate Benji’s staging bread because he thought it was a welcome gift.

“The bread was not for you. The bread was staging.”

“What are you talking about?”

“All of it. It’s staging. The bread on the cutting board. The flowers. The cookbook. The lemons. The cheese. The blanket in your hands. It’s presentation for the sale of this house. None of it was for you. We left the house perfect at ten last night.”

“Well, it’s unstaged now and I need to sleep,” he says, his drawl dropping deeper. “You can go sort out whatever this is with whoever you need to sort it out with. It’s not my problem. When you leave, don’t close the door.”

“I’m not leaving. I have brokers coming here at ten.”

“Then keep it down. I had a long flight and you’re hurting my head. A lot.”

“No, you need to leave. You’re trespassing.”

“I had a code to get in.”

“A code doesn’t give you—”

“A code means somebody gave me access to this house. I don’t know about your listing and I don’t care. Not one tiny bit. Whatever this is, you can figure it out on your own. You need to go away.”

“My showing is in four hours. In this house. With brokers coming from three cities.”

“Sounds like you have a big fucking problem then.”