She gave me a half grimace, half smile. "Good luck, then, I guess."
"Thanks for your help. I owe you. Office marathon this weekend?" I started digging through the pile of stuff in front of the elevator, looking for my shampoo and towels. Although, whoever had lived here before had left a bunch. They were mine now, right?
"Only if you have lo mein," Ruth said with a yawn before checking her phone. She froze, features tight. "Oh. I forgot to tell Cal where I was all day."
I rolled my eyes. "That's so creepy. Is that even healthy? Why do you have to tell him anything?"
Ruth shrugged with a genuinely confused expression. "I literally have no idea. You think I know anything about actual relationships?" Her phone buzzed, and a picture of Cal standing in front of a sea lion lit up on her screen. She cleared her throat, bringing the phone to her ear and booking it to the elevator. "Hey." Her worn-out sneakers squeaked against the polished wood as she turned in the open elevator. She winced away from the phone. "Oh dear." To me, she mouthed, "Sorry." To him, she rushed to say, "I'm fine. I'm fine. Yes, I'm alive, I promise."
The elevator doors closed, and I snorted out loud. Monogamy looked positively stifling. Why was I trying so hard to find that? I'd gone on dating hiatuses before. The one I'd enacted in August hadn't lasted more than a week after I'd met Francis. But maybe it was time to revisit. Maybe I didn't need a partner as much as I needed some clarity. I couldn't gain clarity if I was worried about matching myself to fit another human.
Ah, but touch. Hugs. Sex. I groaned as I pulled my lilac-scented shampoo from the bathroom box. I really loved those things. Damn the men they were attached to. Mini's nails clacked across the hardwood as she explored, sniffing corners and lifting her head to the counter where she intuitively knew there might be food. "Who's a curious girl?" I cooed.
She immediately darted for me, slipping and sliding comically across the slick floors before crashing into my legs for pets. I laughed, scratching her ears. "What do you think? Do we like it?" She lifted her head and gave me an eyebrow wiggle before nuzzling me for scratches. I obliged, but then I shooed her over to the kennel I'd set up in the dining room area. "Bed. Comeon. I don't trust you in a new place until we have everything put away."
As always, Mini obliged obediently. I'd trained her on a few things—bed, sit, come. She had "bed" down the best, and that was mostly because she was the laziest Doberman I'd ever seen. She loved her bed, and she didn't mind being closed in her huge kennel for short periods of time. She loped over to her fluffy bed, nuzzled her favorite stuffed animals and blankets around, and then slumped into a donut for sleep. Smiling, I gave her one more ear ruffle before closing the kennel and latching it.
Outside, the day had quickly deepened into dusky night, and I gave the enormous apartment one last, unsure glance before heading into the master bedroom and its attached bathroom. There was a powder room near the foyer, but this was the only full bath in the place. Which was perfect, because who wanted to clean more than one bathroom all the time? And this bathroom happened to be really luxe, with its marble double vanity, enormous mirror, and spacious, glass-enclosed shower. Everything had been done in natural tones with river rock on the shower floor and a window six feet up the wall to let in extra light.
There were extra rolls of toilet paper on the back of the toilet, towels on the towel rack, and a few folded washcloths on the bathroom counter. It felt more like a BnB than a new apartment. There was a half-used bar of soap on the sink counter, and as I turned on the shower to warm up, I even noted shower gel, shampoo, and conditioner in the corner. Gross.
As the shower steamed up the bathroom and I undressed, a shiver traveled down my neck and arms. Why would Sylvia leave shower items in a show apartment? Had she not had time to clear it out before giving it to me? Shehadsaid that it had just opened up. I wished I'd known it still had remnants from thelast tenants before I'd officially moved in. I would have cleaned it before getting naked and taking a shower.
Rubbing my arms, I stepped into the hot shower stream and stared at the fogged-up glass nervously. As I turned in the water to get my hair wet, my heartbeat accelerated for no reason. What the fuck was I so nervous about?
Mini barked suddenly, loud and insistent. I jumped, my arms covering my breasts and my thundering heart leaping into my throat. If Mini was barking, that meant there was a person here. Before panicking, I thought through the possibilities. It could be a person downstairs. It could be someone outside those enormous, floor-to-ceiling windows she was barking at. Or a car. Or a cat. Or Ruth.
Wait, Ruth didn't have a key card.
Before I could come up with any other nonsense to banish my fears, the bathroom door flew open. I froze in place, too seized by fear to even scream. The shower door clanged open, releasing a burst of steam from the glass panel. A strong, muscled arm shot through the fog, and although I came to my senses enough to scamper away, the hand caught hold of my wrist. The stranger yanked me out of the shower before pushing me hard against the cold tile wall. Two hands pinned me to the wall, naked and sopping wet.
In a shocked stupor, I stared up into a pair of arctic eyes.
Rook.
Chapter five
Rook
Rule #3: No dogs larger than a toaster.
Ihad a very naked, very wet Gemma Daise pressed between my body and the bathroom wall. I would have been less shocked if I'd pulled Mickey Mouse from my shower. "Gemma?" I asked incredulously.
She stared up at me, her long, strawberry blond hair plastered to her head and her eyelashes flecked with water droplets. "Wha—?"
I gave her a little shake, furious and more than a little confused. "What are you doing in my shower? How did you get in here?" It had been alarming enough to come home from a long day to find boxes and hastily packed shit piled in my foyer. But then there was a dog—a fuckingdog—in my dining room. Actually, scratch that, it might be a small pony. That thing wasmonstrous. When I'd heard the shower running, I'd seen red, because either this was a very badly timed prank from someone, or I had an intruder in my house.
It turned out, she was an intruder. A gorgeous, naked one, but an intruder nonetheless. She spluttered, blowing the stream of water from her lips onto my shirt before struggling against my hold. "What do you meanyourshower? This is my apartment."
That drew me up short. Gemma was crazy, but she wasn't delusional crazy. There weren't many plausible reasons a young woman would claim that my apartment belonged to her while I had her pinned naked to the wall. The boxes, dog, and brazen use of the shower added substance to her claim that shethoughtthis apartment belonged to her. I gave her a hard stare. "What do you mean your apartment?"
She shifted under my hands, slowly warming from bewildered shock to burning anger. "I mean I signed a lease with your mother, and this apartment ismine."
Oh, that's bad, I thought with a cold wave of horror.That is just insane enough to be true.I reached over to grab a towel from the rack, and Gemma flinched, shrinking away. I slowed the movement, eyes raking over her from head to toe in concern. Was she that afraid of me? "I'm just getting you a towel."
Gemma peeked one eye open, her arms pressed over her full breasts. "Oh."
I slid the fluffy, black towel off the rack before handing it to her and stepping away. "There's been a miscommunication here."
