“You live on the second and third floor of this house.”
“Yeah, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to get to my apartment?”
“Your apartment.”
“In this building.”
“Shane, I really don’t have time for this, so if you could . . .”
That’s when it clicks. The apartment on the ground level has been vacant for a little while. Ursula, a sweet Dominican lady, had moved to assisted living a few months ago and her kids had refurbished it before putting it up for sale.
“You’re moving in.”
“We signed the paperwork this morning. They said the upstairs neighbor was quiet, travels a lot for work, that we’ll barely hear her.”
“Yes, well, I’m her.”
“Shane, can you help me with this?” a female voice calls from the other side of the truck. “I want to make sure we get a before shot of all the boxes in the truck and then some progress shots of everything moving where it belongs . . . oh, hi.”
“Hi,” I say, trying to wrap my head around this.
“Frankie.”
“No, no, you need to move somewhere else. Eight million people live in this huge city and you managed to find yourselveshere? How did this even happen?”
Then it occurs to me, a sinking feeling in my stomach that’s confirmed the longer I stare at him in silence. He was never able to hide anything from me for long, not when we were married (I figured out he was cheating within a couple of weeks) and he definitely can’t fool me now.
This is not a coincidence.
This is very, very, very much on purpose.
The perfect wrench to throw into their perfect influencerlives. The perfect thing to hook people with on their videos: “we live downstairs from his ex-wife . . .” on every video, getting those likes and views and followers, and the sponsorships and paid promotions that follow.
“Frankie.”
“No, absolutely not. You need to back out of the deal.”
“We’re not doing that.”
“Then you need to rent it and move somewhere else. You can’t do this.”
“You’re being unreasonable.”
“I’mbeing unreasonable?”
I can feel myself boiling over, all the pressure and the tension and the roller-coaster emotions of the last few days coalescing into what will for sure be a viral meltdown of epic proportions, the kind that makes it from TikTok to Instagram and, a couple of days later, to Facebook then to Page 6 and then, finally, to Hannah Vinch’s radar. Where it could cost me everything I’ve ever worked for.
And sure enough, Jessie has her phone out, ready to record.
Fuck. That.
I close my mouth, shaking my head, and sprint up the stairs, hopefully out of sight before she can press that red button and get a shot of my retreating ass.
As soon as the door is closed behind me, I whip out my phone and dial Bianca, kicking off my heels and falling back against the door.
“Hey, what’s up?” she answers, right away.
Thank God for my best friend.
