It’s late when Meadow gets home. And by home, I mean the last barstool, the one closest to the stairs to her apartment.

She has an exterior entrance as well, but she only uses it when she’s in a hurry.

When she hasn’t had a completely shit day.

When she doesn’t want to sit and have a drink in collegial silence.

Tonight is not that.

Tonight, I pour her a vodka tonic and set it in front of her. She drains it and wiggles her fingers, asking for another.

It takes all my willpower to not cover those wiggling fingers with my big paw, press her nervous little hands onto the bar, and make her say please.

But she’s my customer. My tenant.

I don’t get to demand manners from her.

It would be highly inappropriate to do so just to get a swift, sexual high from the exchange—one she would have no clue about.

So I stow my instincts deep and pour her another.

“That kind of day?” I finally ask, when she’s nursing the bottom third of the glass and rolling her head back and forth.

“Yeah.”

In the six months she’s lived upstairs, we’ve gotten to know each other some. She probably knows me better than I know her, because I’m a talker and a dreamer, and Meadow is…not.

She’s a listener.

She’s probably a fucking amazing doctor. She listens and watches and doesn’t miss a single thing.

She calls me on all my shit, and there’s a lot of shit there to call out.

“Bas?”

“Yeah?”

“I said, how about your day?”

I swipe my towel across the new granite counter. “Ah. My day.”

She narrows her eyes. Yeah, she sees everything. “What did you do?”

“Don’t say it like that,” I say, grinning at her. I’m charming. It’s my saving grace.

But not with Meadow. She shakes her head. “What’s the new project?”

“Project is an overstatement.”

“Mmm-hmm.” She swirls the last drop of her drink around the bottom of her glass. “Can I have one more?”

I love the earnest way she says it, like she’d accept it if I told her no. If I sent her packing off to bed for her own good, with a kiss on the tip of her upturned nose and a pat on her curvy bottom. “Yeah,” I say instead, pouring her another drink.

“So, what was it?”

“It was nothing. Just an idea I had.”

Her eyes dance as she watches me. Waiting. Knowing. “A good distraction from the zoning change application you swore up and down you’d get done today?”

“Well, it’s actually related to that.”

“Mmm?” Her entire face lights up with the pure pleasure of knowing I’m full of shit, and I let her have that, because this has to be better than whatever happened at work that had her dragging when she came in.

“I was looking at the patio regulations, and I noticed a segment of the bylaws about licensing an entire street.”

“An entire street,” she repeats slowly.

I gesture out at the dark window to Duke Street. My little corner of Metcalfe, gloriously ungentrified. My corner of the capital region that I am entirely committed to improving, growing, making vibrant and amazing. “This street, for example.”

“More than a patio?”

I nod. “A party. Maybe New Year’s, although that competes with the city events. Or Halloween, although that would be kind of tight to pull together. But a street party would be a great way to give back to the community and connect with new business partners, and it would—could—make a good chunk of change if properly planned.”

“A street party.” She nods. “Interesting.”

“Is it? Or are you humouring me?”

“Little of column A, little of column B? I don’t know. I had a long day at the hospital and know next to nothing about business. But I think Halloween is a holiday relatively underserved in the adult population, if my university friends are anything to judge by. People love dressing up. Is that what you were thinking? Costumes, beer, that sort of thing?”

Yes, in the broadest of strokes. “Something like that. The details need to be sorted out, and I’ll have to find—”

She bounces on her stool. “I’m in.”

That catches me off-guard. “What?”

“I love Halloween, Bas.” She leans across the bar, close enough I can see the spray of freckles across her pale skin and count the individual eyelashes that brush against the apples of her cheeks. “Didn’t you know that?”

“I did not.”

She pushes back and grabs her glass. “Now you do.” Tipping her head back, she drains the third drink. “Okay, that was probably two drinks too many, and I should hit the hay.”

“Are you working tomorrow?” I don’t know why I keep track. It doesn’t matter. She’ll come in when she wants a drink, text me when she needs something fixed.

As her landlord, I should not care if she’s getting enough sleep.

She shakes her head. “Day off. Thankfully.”

I’m relieved on her behalf, and I tap my palm against the counter. “All right. Sleep tight.”

“Night,” she says sweetly. “And I want to hear more about this street party tomorrow!”

“Come and find me,” I say. “I’ll probably be planning it most of the day, right here.”

I watch as she hoists her backpack onto her shoulder and flips her dark red curls out of the way. That’s all that’s polite, so I pretend to go back to work as she moves away from the bar and heads to the door that separates the bar from the corridor that leads upstairs to the rental unit.

But I don’t miss any of it. The way she takes a deep breath and pushes herself to the full extent of her small frame, like going to bed is a monumental task.

I’ve often wondered if it is. If the good doctor struggles with insomnia, but she’s never said anything, and we don’t have that kind of relationship.

We don’t have any kind of relationship, really. I’m her landlord—and I need to remind myself of that fact every hour on the hour. But she’s also slid into my life as a constant presence, even if it’s all superficial. If I were any other kind of man, I would ask her out and see where it might go. And if she were any other kind of woman, maybe I might do it anyway, knowing that it likely wouldn’t work out.

So I watch until she’s through the door, then I turn my attention back to the bar. She was my last customer for the night. I clean up, then lock the front door and take the till back to the office to balance up the books. I’m eight bucks out, which I berate myself for.

I should hire staff. But that would require doing payroll, and I’m already overwhelmed by the quarterly tax forms and basic accounting for the audit I just know is coming someday.

I flash back five years, to the restlessness I often woke up with, that had driven me out of the city centre that day and landed me here, in this building, talking to a realtor who looked me up and down like he wasn’t sure a guy like me could afford a building like this.

Except I could.

So I did—and I negotiated a hell of a deal in the end, too. Because that’s the guy I am. Smart, adventurous, and way too impulsive for my own good, but just clever enough to yank my mistakes out of the fire at the last second and turn them into decent saves.

I still love the building, but I stopped loving the daily grind ages ago. I started looking for new projects a few years back. I’ve started too many to count, and let nearly all of them fall by the wayside.

I’m untethered. Unfocused.

There is a strong argument to be made that I should focus on the bar, which has always been my strength. Listening, talking, selling.

My computer screen goes dark, sliding into a set of generic screensaver images. I click on the mouse and scowl at the screen. Accounting is not my forte. And when the bookkeeping program closes, behind it is the still incomplete zoning application.

No, Meadow, I didn’t do what I set out to accomplish today. I fucked around with a harebrained idea and pushed today’s to-do list to tomorrow.

I promise myself that I’ll finish the application in the morning.

Before I plan a street party.

Before I get distracted by my tenant’s teasing, knowing looks that make me want to cover her mouth and really give her something to be surprised by.