My eyes were burning from staying awake so late. My stomach churned with nausea from going so long without sleep. But I couldn’t go to bed until I’d finished this article. I had a deadline, and all of the time I’d been spending with Brooks on camera had taken a serious dip into my work time.
I was on the final paragraph, the grand finale that would wrap up all of my thoughts into a few poignant sentences. The last words I’d leave my readers with, the ones that would resonate with them for days to come if I’d done my job right.
If only those words would come already.
Letting out frustrated sigh number one thousand thirty-seven, I drilled my fingers into my temples as I closed my eyes. Focus, Hannah. The article’s already written, you just need to finish it. The final paragraph’s done, you only need to get it down on paper.
My typical pep talk was not working, and I couldn’t help blaming my writer’s block on one good-looking stiff in a suit.
Right then, I felt something totally unexpected, though it wasn’t the stroke of genius I’d been hoping for.
Rain drops. Pattering on my head. Inside my apartment.
My eyes snapped open at the same time my head fell back to stare at the ceiling. No, the ceiling had not opened up to reveal a night sky bloated with rain clouds.
“What the . . . ?” I muttered, shielding my laptop with my body as drops of water rained down from the ceiling.
More drops fell as the wet spot on the ceiling spread. After tucking my laptop into my bag and hiding it below the table, I rushed to the kitchen to collect as many pots as I had stuffed in my cupboards. Which wasn’t nearly enough given the amount of water falling from the ceiling.
Still, I scattered the pots around on the floor, hoping to catch at least some of the water, before rushing toward the bathroom to procure some towels. As I was rounding into the bathroom, there was a pounding on my door.
Scattered, I didn’t think to check the peephole before whipping the door open. On the other side I found Martin, sporting a pair of plaid flannel pajamas and one of those nasal strips.
He looked surprised, his mouth opening but nothing coming out. I understood why when I realized where his gaze was aimed. It was almost two o’clock in the morning, and I’d ditched my bra and blouse in favor of a cozy camisole hours before.
“This isn’t a good time. I’ve got a bit of a situation on my hands,” I said as I ducked into the bathroom for towels and a bathrobe.
“That’s why I’m here.” He moved inside a step, cleaning his glasses off on his pajama shirt. “The apartment right next to me, the one directly above yours, is experiencing some issues.” His face actually fell a little when I emerged from the bathroom with my holey old bathrobe cinched on.
“Some water issues?” I said as I hustled toward the table, but when I got there, the water had spread into the living room too, leaving dark spots on my light pink couch.
“She started a bath, then I guess walked away to pour herself a glass of wine and got distracted.”
“By the whole bottle?” I muttered as I mopped up what I could on the floor. The water was dripping faster now, holes opening up in the ceiling as rivers of water burst out.
“The apartment manager is having everyone below her apartment evacuate until they can get everything cleaned up and fixed.” Martin kept coming in, so I tossed him a towel.
“And where are we supposed to evacuate to? This is New York City. Space is a limited commodity.” All of my towels were soaked through and the water wasn’t easing up. I’d be lucky if anything was salvageable after this mess.
“I guess he’s checking with some hotels to see if he can secure rooms for all of you. I told him I’d let you know and help with whatever you needed. Might want to pack a few bags because who knows how long it will take to clean this all up.”
Giving up on my mopping up endeavors, I beelined for my bedroom to put a few bags together. The moment might not have fully caught up to me yet, and I had no idea where I was going once those bags were packed, but I knew having some dry personal effects would be better than none if I waited any longer.
“You know, you could always stay at my place.” Martin followed me into my bedroom, his eyes almost instantly moving toward my bed. The water hadn’t made its way in there yet, but I guessed it was only a matter of time. “I’m only a floor above and my apartment’s bigger than yours. There’s plenty of room for one more person.” His throat cleared as I threw clothes into a large duffel. “That’s why I got it.”
I made a face into my closet. I’d rather move into a run-down roadside motel with owners named Bates than into Martin’s sweet pad. For a bunch of reasons, all of them starting and ending with me not wanting to wake up to the sound of heavy breathing in the middle of the night. “Thank you, that’s a nice offer, but I’ve been living on my own for too long. I’m sure I’d drive a roommate, even a temporary one, crazy.”
Martin’s slippers squeaked across my floor. “You wouldn’t drive me crazy.”
I kept focused on my frantic packing, trying to think of a polite way to ask him to leave. “I’m going to look into a hotel. But thanks again.”
My eyes cut toward the door, but he wasn’t getting the hint. So as I stuffed another couple bags full of odds and ends and toiletries, I made use of Martin’s lingering presence to carry a couple of them.
“Are you sure you don’t want to spend the night at my place tonight? It’s practically morning.” Martin dropped my bags in the hallway with a grunt, as though I’d stuffed them full of steel plates.
“I’ve got a good friend who lives close by.”
“You’ve got a friend who lives one floor up too.” He pointed above us.
“A girl friend,” I added as I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my contacts.
“It’s the twenty-first century. Nobody cares about that stuff anymore.”
“Except God. And my priest.”
Martin’s forehead folded. “I didn’t know you were religious.”
“It’s more of a newfound faith. A born-again type of thing.” I chewed on the inside of my cheek before I said anything else and dug myself into an even deeper hole. Knowing Martin, he’d be waiting outside the building door on Sunday morning with his Bible in hand, waiting for me.
“It’s not like we’d do anything inappropriate. We’d just sleep. You in one room. Me in another.” Martin rubbed the back of his head, shifting in place.
I was damp. My apartment was a rain forest. And I was exhausted.
My patience ran out.
“Thank you again for the help, but if you could just give me some space to figure out my next steps, that would be much appreciated.” I capped my request with a smile as he headed for the stairway.
“You’ve got my number?”
I shook my phone. “I’ve got it.”
“You’ll call if you need anything? At any hour?”
I made an X over my chest. “Cross my heart,” I said, my fingers doing some crossing of their own behind my back.
He paused when he made it to the first step. “Can I help you carry your bags at least? That’s quite the load—”
“Goodnight, Martin.” I took a calming breath and held it while he climbed the stairs to his floor. Finally.
I heard some commotion coming from upstairs and heard the apartment manager’s voice from down the stairs, but the rest of the building was quiet. Everyone was sound asleep while my apartment was filling with water.
Leaning into the wall behind me, I wrung out my hair with one hand as I scrolled through my contacts with my other. Quinn was the obvious choice, but thanks to her student loan payments, she lived with two roommates in an apartment half the size of mine. One bathroom and four women might not have qualified for third-world conditions, but it was a first-world problem for sure.
If I asked, she’d say yes and would give up her twin bed for me and sleep on the floor that should have been replaced two generations ago. She’d be pissed if she found out what had happened and I hadn’t called her, but I couldn’t take advantage of a friendship when I had the means to put myself up in a hotel.
Contact after contact I knew I could call and, without hesitating, would tell me to get my butt over to their place, but I couldn’t force myself to ring a single one of them.
However, I found my finger twitching over one name. The last name I should have considered when it came to sharing a living—and sleeping—space.
Chiding myself for even considering it, I was about to pull up a search engine to book a hotel, when my damn traitorous thumb slipped.
Right over Brooks North’s phone number.
It had barely started ringing before I hit the end button, cursing as I did. It couldn’t have gone through. I’d caught it and ended the call too soon. Brooks would never have to know about the time my finger had slipped at two in the morning, calling him.
Not even three seconds later, my phone rang. Guess who?
“No, no, no.” My head thumped against the wall behind me in time to my words.
I wasn’t sure what to do. If I didn’t answer, it would be obvious I was ignoring him, especially since I was the one who’d just traitor-thumb-dialed him in the middle of the night.
If I did answer, what in the hell was I going to say? What legitimate reason, other than severe bodily trauma, could I have for calling Brooks at this time of night? I mean, other than the handful of texts we’d exchanged having to do with our dates, I’d had no talking interaction with him over the phone.
At the last minute, I made my decision and answered. “Hello?”
Another head thump when I realized how dumb that sounded.
“Hello? Hello yourself. You’re the one calling me at two-oh-four on a Thursday night. Make that Friday morning.” Brooks’s voice didn’t sound like he’d been rocked awake by my call. It sounded the same as any other time I talked with him.
“Sorry about that. I accidently butt-dialed you.” I frowned at my apartment as more water poured inside.
“What are you doing still awake?”
“What are you doing still awake?” I echoed back.
“Finishing an article.” The sound of ice clinking against a glass whispered through the phone.
“Me too,” I said in a rush when I noticed the apartment manager marching up the stairway toward me. “I’m going to let you get back to your article. Sorry again about the butt-dial.”
He gave a low rumbling chuckle. “Your butt can dial me anytime she wants.”
“You’re not funny.”
“I’ve gotten you to laugh a few times. I have to be semi funny.”
Andre, the apartment manager, didn’t seem to notice I was on the phone. Before I could cover it or end the call, he started talking a mile a minute. “Miss Arden, we are so sorry for this significant inconvenience.” When he got his first look inside my apartment, his face looked as though he’d witnessed a Great White flopping around in that spray of water. “I’ve called a dozen hotels already, all of them are full, but don’t worry, I’ll keep making calls until I find you a place, even if that means forfeiting my room for the remainder of the night.”
When his phone rang, he lifted his finger at me and answered the call. Andre was wound tight on a standard summer Saturday, so tonight he looked as though he were clinging to the last thread of his sanity.
“What’s the matter with your apartment?” Brooks’s voice streamed through my phone.
I exhaled. “It’s kinda flooding as we speak.”
“Flooding?”
“Flooding.” I motioned inside my apartment. “The lady above me forgot she was drawing a bath. From the looks of it, she forgot last month.”
“What are you going to do?”
“The apartment manager’s booking me a hotel,” I said.
“He just said he couldn’t find a vacancy.”
“He also said he was going to keep checking.”
Brooks exhaled. “Come to my place. It’s not far from you, and it’s big enough for the two of us.”
The tightness had now wound its way around my throat instead of my stomach. What the heck was going on with me? “No, I couldn’t do that.”
“But you could shack up with your apartment manager, who sounds like he’s this close to losing his grip on sanity?” Brooks gave me a few moments to process. “Really, just come over tonight and if it’s so terrible being here, you can check into a hotel tomorrow night. No one needs to know.”
A wave of exhaustion pulsed over me, and the lure of sleep became overpowering. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
I hadn’t been prepared for him to ask that question. “Because. It just doesn’t seem like it is.”
“Are you afraid Conrad or Jimmy or the viewers are going to find out?”
I hadn’t been, at least until now. “A little.”
“Worried I’m going to sneak into your room at night?”
My arms crossed. “No.”
“Worried you’re going to sneak into my room at night?”
“No!” I hollered, louder than I’d intended. “I just don’t think it’s the best idea, okay?”
“It probably isn’t the best idea.” In the background, I made out a sound. Was that typing? “But it isn’t the worst idea either, and quite frankly, it’s your only option at this time of the night-slash-morning.”
“I can call one of my friends,” I said as I crouched to dig a pair of shoes from my bag. Wherever I was going, I couldn’t get there barefoot.
“But that means you’d have to wake one of them, and I’m already awake.” The typing came to a pause. “Just come over. You can figure something else out tomorrow.”
I was preparing to stave him off when out from my mouth came, “Okay.”
There was a long enough silence I could tell he was as surprised by my agreement as I was. “Can I come and get you? Do you need help with anything?”
I’d already stuffed my feet into my sneakers and shouldered my last few dry belongings in the world. “No, I’ll catch a cab.”
“You’re sure?”
“You might ask that because you’re trying to be helpful—maybe—but all I hear is you questioning my capability and competency to complete a basic task on my own.” My feet squeaked in my shoes as I crept down the stairs.
Brooks made a sound of amusement. “I might question a lot, but not that. Never that.”
After saying goodbye, I was almost to the doors when Andre caught me. He’d gone full-spectrum frantic. “Where are you going, Miss Arden? I’m still working on finding you a hotel room.”
“I’m heading to a friend’s place.” The word felt wrong, but was it? “If you need to reach me, I’ll have my phone.”
Andre’s shoulders relaxed some. “I’ve got an emergency cleaning crew en route, and they’re going to get your apartment back to normal before you know it.”
The last image of my apartment flashed through my head. “Could you let me know when they think I’ll be able to move back in? I’ll probably need to come back tomorrow to grab a few things I forgot.”
Andre’s head never stopped nodding. “I’ll take care of everything,” he said as he pulled the door open for me. “I am so very sorry for the inconvenience, Miss Arden.”
I liked how he made it sound like I’d had to wait five minutes over my reservation time at dinner, instead of the neighbor above unleashing a torrential downpour on all of my worldly possessions.
Andre waited at the door as I flagged a cab, and he waved at me after I crawled inside, before whipping around and rushing god knows where.
What a mess.
My apartment.
Me.
The night.
My current situation.
For something that could be so peaceful and refreshing, water could really rip open a vortex of suck in a person’s life under the right circumstances.
The drive to Brooks’s apartment wasn’t long, not even ten minutes. After paying the driver and climbing out, I stood on the sidewalk long enough to give myself an opportunity to change my mind.
My feet made the decision for me.
When I buzzed the apartment number he’d texted me, the doors unlocked instantly. This apartment building was nicer than mine—newer, but also colder. The designer had clearly forgotten to work in some warmth in the midst of all the sharp edges and cool colors.
In the elevator, I took a moment to tighten the belt on my bathrobe and comb my fingers through my damp hair in an attempt to make myself look like less like a drowned gerbil. When the doors opened on the seventeenth floor, I tiptoed out of the elevator like I was in a library. After finding my way to the door with number 123, my fist froze before knocking.
What was I doing?
I couldn’t just spend the night with Brooks North in his apartment. If my readers found out . . . if Mr. Conrad did . . . if my inhibitions lowered for one fraction of a fraction of a second . . .
This really was the worst idea.
Just as I was about to whip around and leave, the door whispered open. Brooks had that smirky grin, his hair almost disheveled. “Looked like you were having a difficult time with the knocking part, so I thought I’d give you a hand.” Tapping the peephole, he swung the door open all the way and stepped aside.
It took me a few moments before I moved inside, better judgment still warning I should turn and abort, but once I crossed the threshold, I was stuck. All resistance drained out of me as the night caught up to me all at once.
“Damn, you look rough, Arden,” Brooks said after locking the door.
I shot him a look that didn’t need any translation.
“You know what I mean.” He waved at me. In my old bathrobe that no eyes other than mine should be expected to see. Wearing my sneakers that had been on trend last decade. Wrangling a hodgepodge of bags overflowing with the odds and ends of my life.
“Can you please be nice for a whole five-minute stretch?” I said, finally noticing what he was wearing. Or more like what he wasn’t wearing. “And can you put on a shirt? This is already awkward enough without you running around half naked.”
He gave a small laugh as he pointed at a room just off the hall. “That’s the spare room. You can drop your stuff in there if you want. There’s only one bathroom, but I cleared out my stuff to make room for yours.”
Brooks disappeared into the kitchen, so I stuck my head inside the room he’d indicated. Flipping on the light, I was surprised by what I found. It was tidy, the blankets on the bed had been folded down, and there was a bottle of water on the nightstand.
I wasn’t sure what to make of it all; if this was Brooks doing an honest-to-goodness decent thing or if this was some play to make me fall for him. It could have been either, and quite honestly, one felt as likely as the other at this stage. Whatever the reason, I didn’t have the mind-power to stew on it, so after propping my bags against the wall and sliding out of my sneakers, I moved back into the hall.
“I boiled some water if you want a cup of tea.” His voice streamed from the kitchen as I wandered into the living area.
“Do you have anything without caffeine?”
“Eh, yeah, I think so.” The sound of shuffling through cupboards followed. “I’ve got chamomile or jasmine.”
I wasn’t a tea person, but if ever there was an occasion to sip a warm cup of steeped dried leaves, it was tonight. “Jasmine sounds good.”
“Coming right up.”
Padding around the room, I didn’t find anything of a personal note. Except for the laptop sitting on the table like mine had been back in my apartment. It seemed both of us were having a difficult time meeting our deadlines while playing the modern version of The Dating Game.
“Working late?” I said when he wandered out of the kitchen with two cups.
“Always,” he replied as he handed me my tea.
“What are you drinking?” I glanced at the dark liquid in his.
He lifted his chin at the laptop. “Darjeerling. I’ve still got an hour’s worth of work before I can call it a night.”
“I thought you get up at five in the morning.”
“I do.”
When I tried peering at what he was working on, he closed the laptop completely.
“That means you’re going to get less than two hours of sleep,” I said.
“And that’s better than no hours of sleep.” He lifted his cup before taking a sip.
“I didn’t paint you as an optimist.”
“I’m not. That’s the realist in me talking.”
Taking a sip of my tea, I felt a fresh nudge of heaviness push me. I was about to fall asleep standing up if I didn’t get to bed soon. “Sounded pretty positive to me. Seeing the glass half full kind of thing.”
His eyes lifted. “And yet it wasn’t because, in fact, two hours of sleep is better than no sleep. That’s just the truth.” Moving toward my room, I didn’t miss the way he was inspecting me. “Nice bathrobe.”
My eyebrows lifted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s supposed to mean . . .” He held out his arms. “Nice bathrobe.”
“Yeah, but the way you said it—”
“It’s nice, Hannah. That’s what I said, and that’s what I meant. No hidden agenda.” His mouth moved before he could cover it, and that’s when I knew he was messing with me. “It looks well-loved.”
“Jerk.” I slugged his arm, which was still bare, along with the rest of his upper half. “At least I have the decency to put on clothing when I’m in people’s presences.”
“Actually, I’d find it much more decent if you refrained from clothing.” The corners of his eyes creased when he realized what he’d said. “When it comes to that antiquity,” he added, pointing his cup at my robe.
“I’m going to bed now. Before you move on to insulting my sneakers.”
He moved just out of arm’s reach. “I don’t need to insult them when their very existence is offensive enough.”
When I lunged to land another thump, he laughed and managed not to spill a drop of his tea.
“I kinda hate you, you know that?” I said as I backed into the bedroom.
“Yeah. I know that.” With a wink, he wandered to his laptop. “If you need anything, just ask or help yourself.”
Before I closed the door, I stopped. My attention was fixed on him focusing on his laptop. The pale light coming in from the window behind him cast highlights along his back, drawing lines eyes and fingers were made to follow.
“Hey, Brooks?” My throat moved as his gaze flitted my way. “Thank you.”
His face changed, relaxing under the constant restraint he maintained. In that moment, I caught a glimpse of the man I’d so quickly and carelessly fallen for that night in Chicago.
“Hey, Hannah?” he replied with a slow smile. “You’re welcome.”