Chapter Four
After a twelve-hour shift—his fourth consecutive this week—Scott’s standing up through sheer force of will.
So of course he goes to take out the trash within five minutes of arriving home and accidentally locks himself out.
Fuuuuck.
He texts the super, but Craig is in Cleveland with his cousin. His brother, Danny, has Scott’s spare key, but he and Dez are in Michigan, visiting her family until New Year’s.
It doesn’t take more than ten minutes to confirm everyone Scott knows either is out of town or already has their guest bed and/or couch taken by relatives.
He checks the time on his phone. It’s after six thirty. There’s no way he’s going to find a locksmith that’s open this late on Christmas Eve.
Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a blur of dark green—the snake plant—and his heart does something violent as he realizes he could text 3B.
He’s already pulling up her contact, pounding out hey, any chance you’re home right now? when he deflates. It seems absurdly optimistic to hope.
It’s fine; he lives in the hallway now. This is what Scott gets for trying to manage his expectations around the holidays.
He slumps down onto his butt and leans his head back against his door. He’s so fucking tired.
His stomach chooses that moment to rumble, protesting the fact that his last meal was a granola bar, oh, ten hours ago.
Scott turns his head to make eye contact with 3B’s goose.
At least he’s got company.
Something about the slight uptilt of the animal’s beak makes him look sympathetic.
Scott reaches out with a fingertip and jingles the tiny brass bell at the end of his elf hat.
“I know you’re not the big man himself. But since I assume, based on your uniform, that you work for him, can I put in a request?”
He accepts silence as tacit acquiescence.
“I’d like a square meal, a hot shower, and to sleep for ten to twelve consecutive hours.”
Right now, it looks like he’s coming up oh for three.
Bah humbug.
Scott groans, long and loud, and it feels so good—frustration made vocal—that he does it again, even louder.
It’s not as if there’s anyone around to hear him.
“Don’t worry,” he tells the goose. “No matter how bad things get, I promise not to eat you.”
That’s when the door to his right opens.
Scott looks up at the woman backlit by a cacophony of multicolored lights. She’s wearing a pair of gray sweatpants cuffed at the ankles and a soft-looking long-sleeve Chicago Fire T-shirt.
“Piper?!” Scott’s immediate thought is that he fell asleep and dreamed her, but frankly, it feels a little heavy handed of his subconscious to make her a soccer fan. Probably not a dream, then.
He scrambles to his feet.
“Dr. Harrison?” She takes a step toward him, sliding a little on fuzzy snowflake-patterned socks.
“Why are you—?” they say at the same time.
There’s a lot of blinking happening. And shy, hazy, confused smiling.
Scott finds his voice. “Do you live here?”
He wants the answer to be yes so bad. He’s not even sure how he’s going to handle the combination if the electric feeling he gets from being around Piper mixes with 3B, who feels a little like home. But god, he wants to find out.
She nods, still holding on to her doorframe, looking confused and slightly wary.
Because, oh yeah, she still doesn’t know why he’s in her hallway.
Scott quickly scrolls to their message thread on his phone and holds it out to her as evidence.
“I’m 3A.”
“Oh,” she says, squinting at the phone for a minute with her brow scrunched.
Then she looks back at him, her hand going to touch the Band-Aid he carefully placed on her forehead to cover her stitches at the beginning of the week.
“Oh!”
“I managed to lock myself out of my apartment,” he explains.
She looks between him and the goose, putting together puzzle pieces.
What sounds like a kitchen timer dings behind her. She turns back to her apartment.
Now that Scott’s paying attention, he can smell something delicious, sweet and spicy, wafting out around her.
She’s got an impressive fire going in the fireplace, the flames crackling merrily. Scott has one, too, a luxury for Chicago winters, to be sure. But the most he’s managed so far this year is pulling up the YouTube Yule log while he does ab exercises on the rug.
“Don’t let me keep you,” he says, working very hard to keep the longing off his face.
He doesn’t actually know what he’s going to do once she disappears behind that door. Shedding a single silent tear is not off the table.
Piper frowns. “Are you—is someone—did you want to come in?”
“Uh, yeah, yes. Thanks.”
Scott remembers all at once why Christmas used to be his favorite holiday: Sometimes you get something so good, you didn’t even think to hope for it.