Seven

IT REALLY WAS the craziest thing.

His new next-door neighbor, the woman renting Owen’s loft, was none other than the brunette in red heels that he’d seen last Friday at The Violet Hour. Currently there were no actual red heels—not that he had any objections to this weekend-casual look she had going on. Wearing a cotton zip-up and black yoga pants that made her legs seem as long as sin, she had her long, glossy, chestnut-brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.

He assumed the comment about his busy week had something to do with Charlotte’s surprise drop-in last night. And, as it happened, that was the reason he’d come by. To apologize. “The woman who showed up at my place last night said she knocked on your door by mistake. I’m really sorry about that. I had no idea she planned to come over.” He flashed her a playful grin. “Any chance you were still awake at the time, so I can feel like less of a jerk here?”

Her eyes were a warm chocolate brown, framed by thick lashes. “Dead asleep.”

Damn.

“Ah. Well, I promise that won’t happen again.” Last night, he’d had a nice but honest conversation with Charlotte in which he’d made it clear that they were not looking for the same thing. She’d apologized for dropping by uninvited, and had sheepishly joked about feeling like she was in college again, using alcohol to make her bolder when it came to men and inevitably making the wrong decisions. And Ford got that—she certainly wasn’t the first person to make a bad decision while drinking. But seeing how that definitely wasn’t a situation he wanted to get dragged deeper into, he’d called her a cab, waited with her downstairs to make sure she got in safely, and wished her well when he’d said good-bye.

Figuring the less said about that awkward topic, the better, he focused instead on the woman standing in front of him—the very cute and seemingly single woman with whom he shared a bedroom wall. He held out his hand to make the introduction official. “Your name is Victoria, right? I hear you’re a divorce lawyer.”

She nodded as she slid her hand into his. “I run a family law firm here in the city.”

Interesting—her own firm. He knew her last name was Slade from the mailbox next to his, so he made a mental note to Google her later. “Let me guess. You’re off to squeeze in some work right now.” He pointed to her laptop bag and winked. “I have several friends who are lawyers, so I know the drill. You guys are always working.”

“Actually, I was just heading out to do some work.” She stepped into the hallway, putting them very close to one another as she turned and locked her front door.

“So how do you like the building so far?” Ford asked conversationally.

She turned to face him once again. “Oh, like any place, it has its positives and negatives.”

Perhaps he was reading her wrong, but he got the distinct impression from her pointed look that she was including him in this assessment.

So . . . he was one of the “positives,” was he?

Suddenly, he had a feeling that Victoria the Divorce Lawyer or Something was going to be a great addition to the building.

He stepped a little closer, his tone teasing. “If you’re on the fence, you obviously haven’t seen all the building has to offer. I mean, you really haven’t lived until you’ve experienced the wonder that is our common storage room.”

That got a slight smile out of her. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Just be sure to watch out for the guy in 4B,” he warned.

That caught her attention. “Why? What’s wrong with the guy in 4B?”

“He’s a borrower,” Ford whispered. “Pots, vacuum cleaners, stepladders, heck, the guy’s even got two patio chairs of mine. And you’ll never see it again, except maybe on eBay.” He paused, sensing that he had her hooked. “But that’s nothing compared to the people in 3A.”

She waited. “What’s the situation with the people in 3A?”

“Long story. I should probably fill you in over coffee sometime.”

It took her a half second, and then she smiled. “Ah . . . I see what you did there. That’s pretty clever, sneaking in the coffee invite that way.”

He grinned, guilty as charged. “So, is that a yes?”

“No.”

Ford waited for the punch line. Kidding!

Then he waited some more.

And . . . now this was getting a little awkward.

He cocked his head, seeing no reason not to be direct. “Sorry, but last Friday at the bar, I thought we had a vibe going.”

“We did.” Her tone was surprisingly pleasant for someone who’d just rejected a guy without a second thought. “But unfortunately, I’m not interested in joining the cavalcade.”

“The cavalcade?” No clue what that meant.

“Of women coming in and out of your place.”

He smiled, because, well, that was a bit of an exaggeration. Obviously, he needed to clear the air here. “That cavalcade. Look, I’m not sure what you—”

She held up her hand. “Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against casual dating. I’m a big believer in it myself, actually. Between the blonde, the brunette, and the redhead you undoubtedly have on deck for tonight, it looks like you’ve got a nice arrangement for yourself here. And under different circumstances, I’d probably say, hey, rock on with your frisky self. But as the person who has to share a wall with you, these antics with the partying, and the penis pops, and the late-night hookups showing up on your doorstep—and mine—are starting to wear a touch thin. And frankly, it all seems a little . . . juvenile.”

Ford blinked.

“But hey—to each his own, right?” With a smile, she gave him a wave in good-bye. “See you around the building, Ford. And thanks for the tip about the guy in 4B.”

Without so much as a second glance in his direction, she headed for the stairwell, pushed her way through the door, and disappeared.

Ford stood there, taking a moment to digest the fact that yes, that had just happened. Some perfect stranger who didn’t know jack-shit about his personal life had just given him a smug talking-to.

All of a sudden, Victoria the Divorce Lawyer or Something didn’t seem like such a great addition to the building, after all.

*   *   *

WANTING TO GET some writing done that morning, he grabbed his messenger bag from his loft and then texted Brooke on his way to the coffee shop. Just yesterday, during dinner, she’d asked what his new neighbor was like. At the time, he hadn’t yet had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Victoria Slade, Esquire, but now he could give his friend a full update.

Just met the new neighbor. She SUCKS.

He shoved the phone into his bag, Victoria’s speech still ringing in his ears.

Fine. Perhaps bringing the bachelorette party back to his place wasn’t something he would do under normal circumstances. Admittedly, he’d been off his game that night, not wanting to be alone. And yes, he did feel a little guilty about the situation with Charlotte. As soon as he’d seen her on his doorstep last night, he’d known that Brooke had been correct, and that he had, indeed, given Charlotte the wrong impression. But in his defense, he’d been trying to be a gentleman last weekend and not hurt her feelings. As he’d learned the hard way, having any response other than “Hell, yes” to a woman who strips off her clothes in one’s living room was some damn tricky business.

But . . . juvenile?

Hardly.

He got along just fine with women. He’d never had any complaints when it came to dating, at least not in recent years—although, admittedly, he generally kept things superficial enough that there was never much to complain about. And, granted, he was pretty careful about the women he went out with. Either they were like him and not looking for anything serious, or they were women who were in the market for commitment, marriage, and kids, but who were also savvy enough to understand that he was the dating equivalent of a layover. A brief, hopefully fun, pit stop on the way to their final destination.

It wasn’t that he’d entirely ruled out marriage for himself. Or, at least, living with someone. But he’d learned in his twenties, from his short forays into semi-real relationships, that women expected more than what they got from him on an emotional level. They wanted—probably not unfairly—an openness and trust that he just couldn’t deliver.

He’d attended more than one Al-Anon support meeting, and he knew that his so-called difficulty with intimate relationships and trust issues were, at least in part, the product of growing up with an alcoholic parent. And while he supposed it was nice to know that he wasn’t alone in his screwed-up-ness, at the end of the day all that self-awareness did was make him more careful not to drag anyone down into a likely dead-end relationship with him.

“You hear yourself, right? You’re trying to control your feelings and the feelings of others,” Brooke had said one night during their junior year of college when she’d come down to visit him from the University of Chicago. They’d been out at the bars that night, and somehow had gotten into a long conversation about relationships. “That’s so common in adult children of alcoholics.”

In response, he’d told her exactly where she could stick her Psych 300 analysis.

But, seeing how she was a woman, he’d naturally said it with a lot of charm.

He walked into The Wormhole and smiled at the female barista, determined to put his encounter with Victoria out of mind. “I’ll take a twelve-ounce of your darkest roast.”

As he waited, he got a text message from his sister. Finally.

Sorry I’ve been MIA. It’s crazy here. Can’t do lunch tomorrow b/c I’m teaching a lesson, but we need to talk. Are you around monday?

He texted Nicole back—I should be home from work by 6—then grabbed his coffee and headed to his regular table underneath the Ghostbusters poster. Settling in to knock off some work, he pulled out his laptop and read through the file he’d obtained from the Cook County probation department on Darryl Moore.

As he’d suspected, the probation department had completely fallen down on the job—and April Johnson, seventeen-year-old honors student who’d planned to go to Drake University in the fall, had paid the ultimate price. Her killer, who was obligated to report to his probation officer once a month, stopped showing after two meetings. On top of that, probation officers dropped by his home on nine occasions, never once finding him there despite the seven P.M. curfew the judge had ordered as part of his sentence. Over the course of the next five months, Darryl Moore managed to get arrested three more times—including for criminal trespass at the high school just a block away from where he shot April Johnson. Yet, according to their records, the probation department knew nothing about any of his arrests.

Not surprising, Ford thought dryly, given the fact that the probation department had wholly failed to maintain any sort of contact with the guy.

So much for the “supervised” part of supervised release.

He made a note to call Moore’s former probation officer—a veteran with twenty-eight years on the job—to see if he’d agree to an interview. Then he checked the clock on this laptop and saw that it was nearly time for him to meet Charlie and Tucker at the gym.

As he was packing up his notes and computer, he spotted her.

Victoria.

She sat at a table near the back of the coffee shop, underneath the Goonies poster, with her cappuccino mug and laptop in front of her as she read through some documents.

He slung the messenger bag over his shoulder, not thrilled to see her leisurely hanging about in his coffee shop. He debated whether to simply ignore her and leave, but ultimately decided, since she seemed to be so interested in his personal life, that there was something he would like to say on the matter.

She looked up from her laptop when he stopped at her table. From the flicker of surprise that crossed her face, he gathered she hadn’t realized he was in the coffee shop.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, without preamble, “the blonde is just a friend, and the most intimate thing the brunette and I shared last night was polite conversation before I walked her downstairs to a cab. As for tonight, there’s no redhead currently in the lineup, most unfortunately, but given your proclivity for spying, I’m sure you’ll be the first to know if that changes.”

Victoria threw him a wry look. “I wasn’t spying. The brunette knocked on my door, and you and the blonde were out on your deck, which happens to be the one next to mine.”

“Huh.” Ford rubbed his jaw, pretending to consider this. “See, it’s funny, because I’ve been inside your place. Owen and I used to hang out. And if I remember correctly, if you’re standing inside, it’s not exactly a direct line of sight to my deck. You have to sort of press yourself against the glass door”—he leaned against the table, demonstrating—“and then crane your neck to the side in order to see anything. See that?” He repeated the move. “Press, and then crane. Now some people, Ms. Slade, might call that ‘spying,’ but you’re right—it’s unfair of me to make that assumption when we don’t even know each other. For all I know, you often spend your Saturday evenings just hanging out, smooshed up against your sliding glass door. If you ask me, that sounds a little uncomfortable, but hey—to each her own, right?”

In response to his speech, she said nothing at first. Instead, she took a sip of her cappuccino and then set down the mug. “Point made.”

From her begrudging tone, Ford got the distinct impression that Victoria Slade, Esquire, didn’t enjoy being proven wrong about anything.

Score one for the juvenile.

*   *   *

“WHAT ARE THE odds?” Victoria paced in front of one of the racks in Rachel’s shop. The boutique was only a few blocks away from The Wormhole, so she’d dropped by to tell her friend that the man they’d been ogling last weekend just happened to be her new neighbor.

And to vent.

“You should’ve seen him with his little press-and-crane routine. As if I am the person who overstepped boundaries here, when he’s the one sawing through walls and has women coming and going at all hours of the night, waking me up and knocking on my door.” She caught Rachel’s look. “What?”

Standing behind the counter while folding jeans, Rachel appeared amused. “I think the whole thing’s hysterical.”

“Yes, well, you don’t have to live next to the guy.”

“We are talking about the same man from the bar, right? Gorgeous, dark hair, a smoldering gaze that promises hours of dirty, mind-blowing sex? Yeah, it’s a real hardship having to sleep ten feet from him.”

Victoria shot her a wry look as she passed by a dress rack. “You forgot annoying, smug, and— Ooh, I love that dress.” Her attention temporarily diverted, she checked out a red, polka-dotted, vintage-inspired shirtdress.

“We’re flying through that one,” Rachel said. “I don’t have your size in the store, but we should be getting in more next week. Want me to put one aside for you?”

“Have I ever mentioned how much I love having a best friend who owns a clothing store?” Victoria checked her watch. “Shoot. I have to get going. I have this . . . thing this afternoon.” She was deliberately vague, not wanting to get into the whole Dr. Metzel, Girl-You-Have-a-Panic-Disorder saga.

Not that she was embarrassed to tell Rachel and Audrey about the teeny, tiny issues she’d been having ever since the break-in.

Okay, she was a little embarrassed.

Rachel raised an eyebrow, her tone sly. “A go-home-and-pretend-not-to-ogle-your-hot-neighbor thing?”

Ha, ha. “Not happening. Trust me, my press-and-crane days are over as far as that man is concerned.”

Forty minutes later, Victoria sat in Dr. Metzel’s office, in the same leather chair as last week.

“I couldn’t help but notice last time that you seemed hesitant when we talked about including psychotherapy as part of our sessions,” Dr. Metzel led in, after the obligatory chitchat part of the appointment was over.

And so it begins.

Now he would want to know why she didn’t like psychotherapy, and whether she had any experience with it, which would naturally lead into a discussion about her parents’ divorce and the aftermath.

“It’s not a process that comes naturally to me,” she acknowledged. “Putting all my feelings out there to be dissected and analyzed.” Ever since she was ten, she’d been pretty guarded with her emotions. Even when something was wrong, she’d sucked it up and kept her feelings to herself. Frankly, she hadn’t had much choice.

“Well, here’s the thing, Victoria,” Dr. Metzel said. “I want you to be as comfortable as possible during these sessions. So if having your feelings ‘dissected’—as you put it—isn’t something you’re ready for, why don’t we table that for now? Today, let’s focus instead on some breathing techniques and relaxation exercises that can help the next time you feel a potential panic attack coming on.” He smiled. “Sound okay?”

She hadn’t expected him to say that. The last time she’d done therapy, at her mother’s insistence, she’d felt pressured to talk even though the whole time she’d wanted nothing more than to move on.

She smiled slightly, exhaling in relief. “Okay.”

“Good.” Dr. Metzel folded his hands in his lap. “To start, we’re going to entirely change the way you’ve been breathing your whole life.”

All right. Now that she could handle.

*   *   *

THE NEXT MORNING, as Victoria sat on her bedroom floor, putting on her shoes to go for a jog, she heard a faint beeping sound.

She cocked her head, trying to place the noise. There it was again—coming from the direction of the wall she shared with Ford. She got up and climbed onto her bed, listening.

Beep.

Had the man left his alarm clock on? The beep didn’t sound quite that loud, although it would nonetheless be annoying if she had to listen to it all day.

The room fell momentarily quiet, so she pressed her ear up against the wall.

Huh. Nothing.

Suddenly, there was the loud whir of an electric drill right at her ear. With a yelp, she leapt off the bed and checked—no holes in her head, always a plus—and then glared at the wall.

Twenty seconds later, she knocked on the door of one Mr. F. Dixon.

After a brief pause, he threw open the door. Wearing a white T-shirt that stretched across his broad chest, jeans, and a tool belt slung low around his lean hips, he looked her over. “Ms. Slade. What a pleasant surprise.”

In response to his dry tone, she gave him an ultra-sweet smile. “I was hoping we could have a conversation about your home improvement projects. As in, how long you expect them to last.”

“Sure, we can have a conversation about that.” He lifted the bottom of his T-shirt to wipe sweat off his brow, revealing—hello—a six-pack of perfectly sculpted abs. “As long as we can also have a conversation about your hair-drying routine.”

She put a hand on her hip. “What’s wrong with my hair-drying routine?”

“You mean, other than the fact that it wakes me up at the crack of dawn every weekday morning and goes on forever?”

Please. “Six thirty A.M. is not that early on a weekday.” She considered this, looking him over. “You do have some sort of actual job, I take it?”

He grinned lazily, drawling, “Nah, no time, Ms. Slade. Not with the cavalcade to entertain.”

All right, so somebody had his boxer-briefs in a bunch over the “cavalcade” comment. “Look, maybe I was wrong in my assumptions about the blonde. But the brunette? I ran into her in the hallway that morning after she left your place. It seemed pretty obvious that she liked you.”

Something flickered in Ford’s eyes—guilt, perhaps? Then it was gone, and he cocked his head. “How long did you say you’ll be in Owen’s place?”

“All summer.”

“Funny. That’s exactly how long my home improvement projects are going to last.” He returned her fake smile.

And then shut the door firmly in her face.