“You’ll be home soon,” I tell her, and she mumbles something I can’t make out.
I managed to get her to unlock her phone for me back in the hospital and found that the home address on her Uber app matched the one on her driver’s license, so that’s where we’re going. I also convinced her to give me her keys back when she was still ‘loopy’ enough to ask if I was trying to seduce her.
All she’s done is shake her head and say she’s fine every time I’ve asked if there’s someone I should call, which seems pretty on par for Paige, drugged up or not. The orderly helps me get her into the front seat of the car when it arrives and then asks if we’ll be okay.
I shrug and give him an honest answer. “I guess we’ll find out.”
The drive takes us over to the Plateau neighbourhood. I sit in the back and watch the brightly painted walk-ups and street art murals this area is known for go by outside the window. The streets are filling up with people heading to work now. Cafe windows are opening and restaurant staff are putting signs advertising their brunch menus out on the sidewalk.
Paige’s building is a few blocks down from Avenue Mont-Royal, one of the neighbourhood’s main strips. It’s a plain brick low-rise that’s on the sketchy side of retro. I have to mess around with the front door key for almost a whole minute while the driver keeps Paige in the car.
She groans and tries to cling to the seat when the two of us start guiding her out. I give the driver an apologetic smile and remind myself to tip him extra well, but he just laughs and says it’s not the first time.
He offers to help me get Paige into the apartment, but I tell him I’m good once we’re in the lobby—if you can even call it a lobby. It’s a cramped little landing area at the bottom of the stairs with just enough room for a wall of mailboxes and a spindly little table with a display of potpourri that looks like it hasn’t been changed since the eighties.
“Okay, Paige.” I throw some fake cheer into my voice as I guide her to the staircase, one arm wrapped around her waist to keep her standing. “Which floor are you on?”
I know I should be ignoring the smell of her hair and the curves of her body where they press against mine. I don’t know how she still smells so good after a night at the hospital, but it’s all I can do not to stop her right here and bury my face in her neck. I want to trail my lips over her skin.
“Mmm-mm. Nope. I’m fine.”
She pulls away from my grasp and nearly collapses against the banister after taking one stumbling step, reminding me that this is not the time or place for any of that.
“Oh really?” I can’t hide my sarcasm. “You’re fine?”
She grumbles and makes it up two steps before letting out a groan. “Ðéo. Why do we live so high up?”
“I don’t know, Paige, but it looks like you’re going to have a lot of time to think about it, proceeding like that.”
“Screw you.”
She turns around and tries to give me the finger, which almost sends her tipping over onto her damaged arm. I lunge forward and steady her just in time.
“Okay, noble warrior, let’s make a deal. I won’t tell anyone I helped you up the stairs if you let me get us there before sundown.”
She looks about ready to pass out where she stands, and it only takes me shifting myself into position beside her to make her give in. She directs me to the right apartment once we’re on her floor, and I fit the second key into the lock before revealing a small entryway that leads into a living room furnished with a mix of IKEA classics and side-of-the-road finds.
It looks like a textbook example of a bachelor pad.
I don’t bother with our shoes as I shuffle us into the living room. There’s a kitchen off to one side, and two closed doors at the far end.
“Do you have a roommate?” I ask.
“He’s gone,” Paige slurs, her steps extra heavy after the exertion of the stairs. “Vacation.”
It’s stupid and primitive, but a flare of jealously sparks in my chest at the word ‘he.’
She lives with a guy—a guy who gets to see her every day, gets to know what she eats for breakfast, gets to say good luck when she’s heading out to play a show, gets to greet her when she comes home, maybe even gets to touch her and bring over to that couch right there to—
Not the time, Youssef.
I pour the mental equivalent of a pitcher of ice water over the envy now boiling my blood and steer Paige to the closest door.
“Other one.” She flops her head to the side to indicate the next room.
It’s so dark inside it takes my eyes a second to adjust. There’s a blackout curtain drawn over the window, but as the light from the living room seeps in, I can make out some of the details of the tiny bedroom.
The walls are covered in an array of tapestries and record covers used as art. Most of the floor space is taken up by a twin-sized bed with an ironwork frame, a navy blue duvet thrown haphazardly over the unmade sheets. The rest of the room has been overtaken by a huge collection of music production gear, stashed in milk crates or strewn across the desk she also seems to use a bedside table.
