Chapter Three
Reid
I arrived at the hotel just in time to hear that they were still doing the wash from the night before. The housekeeper was giving the manager what for about having been the only one on the schedule the week of a wedding, and I could hardly blame her. One housekeeper for an entire hotel, even one as small as this one was? Awful.
As I made my way to the counter, she pointed at me before giving the manager a waggle of her finger and stomping off. I knew I was going to be on the bad end of the getting-a-room deal, and sure enough, my room had no sheets. I was able to check in and bring my bags up, but going to bed early was so very much not an option.
If I had any hope of staying awake, coffee was a must. Thankfully, the manager recommended a coffee shop only a few blocks away, so I left my luggage with him, bundled up, and made the trek, not wanting to drive for the foreseeable future. My back was still killing me from the long, stressful drive from the airport.
The coffee shop was blissfully empty when I arrived, and I settled into a table in the back corner with my black coffee and cinnamon roll. I had to give it to them. The roll was just as amazing as it smelled, and the coffee wasn’t bad, given it wasn’t a brew I normally would choose, but it was the barista’s recommendation.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see an email from my property management company. Nothing good ever came from correspondence with them. Last time, it was to raise the rent, the time before to “explain” why parking was no longer included in our rent, and the time before that was to threaten all their tenants with eviction if they didn’t make sure the dumpsters were closed each night. Yeah, they were just lovely.
A quick read of the email told me this one was no exception.
Dear Tenant,
It has come to our attention that the lease renewal date has come and gone without your signature on the new lease. As per our policy, we are taking this as a termination of our relationship as of the last day of this month. Please arrange with Sally in our office to have an inspection of your apartment upon your departure to determine how much, if any, of your security deposit will be refunded to you. Failure to do so will be considered your agreement to forfeit said deposit.
Sincerely,
Robert Jones
CEO of Jones Property Management.
“Fuck,” I grumbled as I read it for the third time.
When the lease was delivered, I’d put off signing it until I figured out things with Topher. How I ever thought for one single moment that he was someone I should date, much less move in with, was beyond me. I’d somehow allowed myself to get caught up in his success and charm. His decent ass didn’t hurt, either. But that didn’t make my decision-making skills any less crap. I knew he wasn’t the one for me, and I had contemplated settling enough to not sign a lease.
I dialed the number at the bottom of the screen and did like any self-respecting man would do: prepared to grovel.
“Hello, Jones Property Management. This is Sally. How may I direct your call?” She said it as if there were a twenty-person staff. The office included exactly two people: Sally and her mostly absent boss—aka my slumlord.
“Hello, Sally, this is Reid Latham and I’m calling about an email I received today.” And how it was filled with some sketchy content, legal-wise even though I brought it on myself by not signing the bloody thing.
“Reid Latham. Yes, about your lease ending. When would you like to schedule your walk-through?” The click of her tapping on the keyboard filled my ears. What was she pounding on it? “I’m sorry to say the last day of the month we have available is the twenty-fifth, but we do have two time slots that day—three p.m. or five thirty.” She sounded not at all sorry.
Leave it to my slumlord to illegally hold security deposits over us and then try to shave days off the lease in the same maneuver.
“I was actually calling because the lease was not signed in error, and I’d like to arrange to keep my place.” I spoke in a hushed voice, not that the barista was listening. She was too busy taking apart some fancy coffee machine.
“I’m sorry, sir. A new lease for your place has already been signed.”
Of course it had.
“Someone signed it sight unseen?” Because I had a feeling that was so not the case. I was beginning to get angry and not the shout-at-people anger, but that frustrated kind that has you on the verge of either crying or screaming into a pillow and you weren’t sure quite which.
“Of course not. We showed them around. The lease states clearly that the final month of the lease, the management may show the apartment without notice to fill the vacancy.”
Note to self: next time I get a lease, I need to read that bad boy all the way through to the end and not sign it without even glancing at the terms because it was a clean, cheap, and fairly safe place.
“So, you had strangers in my home.” I squeezed the bridge of my nose, trying not to let the unshed tears fall. I’d been missing a ten dollar bill I swore I left on the counter for the kid across the hall’s fundraiser. At the time, I thought I just was remembering wrong. Now, I knew it was more than that. I could only hope it was the only thing missing.
“Not alone, sir.” She paused, and I sat there, unsure of what to say. My apartment had new inhabitants in only a couple of weeks, and I had no place to go. Nowhere. All because I’d thought with my dick. “So, three or five thirty p.m. on the twenty-fifth?”
“That would mean I needed to be out days before my lease expires.” And I didn’t even have a place to go after that.
“Which is why you should have called as soon as you knew you weren’t going to continue your lease, sir.”
Because I am a freaking moron.
“Are there any other apartments available in my building?” I hadn’t heard of anyone planning to move, but I didn’t know everyone, either.
“No, but we have some in other parts of the city.” She started tapping away again.
“In the same price range?”
“No, sir. Would you like me to email you an application? Upon its acceptance, we can schedule some viewings.”
“Application? I have rented from you for years and have never once been late.”
I would not cry, yell, or otherwise make a scene. I would not.
“It is our policy, sir. So should I mail it?”
“Yes. Please. And would you be able to email me a copy of my old lease? I’m out of town and unable to see the original.” If I’d kept it.
“Very well, sir. Anything else I can do for you today?”
Give me back my apartment?
“No.” I hung up as the first tear fell. I stood up to grab a napkin to wipe away the tears, catching the top of my cup on my coat sleeve, tipping it over and spilling all the places, which, of course, led to the full release of my tears. So much for being an awesomely graceful person. I was a flipping hot mess.
I was a soon-to-be homeless single man going to a wedding on the most romantic night of the year, currently renting a hotel room with no sheets, my shirt and pants covered in tepid coffee. My life was going fan-freaking-tastic.
I was able to grab enough napkins to clean up the mess but still had an hour before my room was going to be ready, so my choices were to sit in the cold lobby looking like a loser, or to grab a fresh cup of coffee and also look like a loser but with less of an audience. I picked grabbing a coffee.
I walked up to the counter and ordered my drink, this time opting for the hazelnut I preferred. There must’ve been a shift change in the middle of my coffee catastrophe because, this time, a young man around my age waited on me.
“That will be three seventy-four, please.” He placed the hot beverage in front of me.
“I grabbed my wallet, thankful it wasn’t wet, and pulled out my library card, followed by my hotel key, followed by my license before finding my I-probably-shouldn’t-use-this card from the back and handed it to him.
“Do you have a cafe card, or are you playing coffee roulette?” a voice asked from behind. Not just any voice, either, the sexiest voice I’d heard in a long time that wasn’t attached to a foreign accent. It was just deep and rich enough to tell me his bedroom voice would be out-and-out dangerous, but not so low you wondered if he was doing it on purpose.
I turned in the direction of the voice, and my mouth dropped open as the most clear cerulean eyes caught mine. “W-what?” I stammered like a weirdo.
“Do you have a cafe card you are looking for?” He eyed my array of cards on the counter. “Or would you like to play coffee roulette and use the communal one. Both get you the free refills, but with the communal one you might get a free coffee or you might make the free coffee possible for the next person.”
Why had the first barista not told me about that earlier? I could’ve not been paying an extra four bucks for spilled coffee.
“Ummm, roulette?” I wasn’t going to be here long enough to get a free coffee on my own, not that I had enough money to, given the extent of my awesome new predicament.
The barista took out a card and scanned it before handing me a receipt.
“Congrats, you won coffee roulette.” He smiled, more at the hot man behind me than at me. Not that I could blame him. Yum.
“Umm, thanks,” I said to both men as I slid my cards back into my wallet. “That was nice of you. I didn’t know it was an option, and I spilled my first coffee, so this is nice.” Why was I babbling?
“Anytime.” He leaned in a little closer, and his scent of amber and clove had me wanting to rub my nose into the crook of his neck. Alphas always smelled amazing, but his scent had me thinking things I most assuredly should not be thinking in a coffee shop. “You okay?” He spoke in a hushed voice.
“Umm, yeah. Bad day.” I stood up straight, trying to regain some semblance of dignity before picking up my cup. “Thanks again.” I made my way to the station with the lids and slapped one on as the sexy man ordered two cups to go. Of course he wasn’t single. No one both that good-looking and kind ever was.
I buttoned my coat and forayed into the cold, deciding it better to sit in the lobby alone for most of an hour than to let him see me at a table all alone as if I had nowhere to go and no one to go with, even if both of those were true.