Chapter 2 #2
He walked past it all, down a hallway on his left where he found two bedrooms. One of them was huge, with an en suite bathroom, while the smaller one at the end of the hall barely had enough room for its queen-size bed.
But it did have the best views. Like the living room, it sat in the corner of the building, but on the northwest side, with one of the windows facing uptown and the other the East River.
After a few minutes, Freddie wandered back to the living room. Birdie was standing by the bookcase, eyeing a sculpture on the shelf, while Sophie was near the kitchen, seated on a stool, leaning an elbow on the marble countertop.
“Well, what do you think?” Birdie asked, her expression lighting up when she saw him emerge from the hallway.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she barreled on.
“I know the interior design may not be your cup of tea, but the owners are taking everything when they move out at the end of the month, so just try to look past it. Visualize.” She held up her arms, framing the room like it would somehow help with the exercise, when something in her bag began to vibrate.
“Your Birkin is buzzing,” Sophie said, her tone bored.
Birdie reached inside and pulled out her phone.
“Oh! That’s the listing agent. He lives in the building and wanted to stop by,” she said, her attention on the screen as she headed toward the door. “Keep looking around. I’ll be back in just a few.”
A flurry of movement, a parting wink, and she was gone.
“Well?” Sophie said, draping her arm over the marble countertop as she mimicked Birdie’s affected tone. “Are you visualizing?”
Freddie sighed, running a hand through his cropped hair. “Are you here to mock Birdie or help me decide on an apartment?”
“Oh, come on, this has to be the fiftieth place we’ve seen,” she whined, sitting up straight as she made a face at the bright orange canvas on the wall beside her. “How many apartments do you need to look at?”
He hated to admit that she was right. Over the past three months, they had seen more than enough apartments.
Birdie had described each one the same way, too—some variation of gorgeous, luxurious, or chic.
After the first dozen, Freddie realized she wasn’t being disingenuous.
They were all gorgeous, luxurious, and chic, but they were also exactly the same.
New and modern, atop some high-rise in Midtown.
None of them ticked that one box that even he hadn’t quite defined yet.
The one that would ease that annoying bit of lingering self-doubt and stop him from feeling like he still needed to prove himself.
Where the hell had that come from, anyway?
He had left this city eight years ago, and in that time he had founded his own company, Wentworth Hydroponics.
His modular farms were being used around the world, his company had just been acquired by one of the largest agriculture corporations to ever exist. He should be returning to New York like a conquering hero.
Maybe it was imposter syndrome. Or maybe it was just that same feeling everyone grappled with when returning home years after moving away: Regardless of how old you are, you still somehow regressed back to who you were when you left.
“We’re not kids anymore, Soph,” he replied. “I don’t need my big sister’s help to find a place to live.”
“Maybe not, but I need a distraction from watching all my dreams crash and burn,” she said, plastering on a painfully fake smile as she motioned to the window. “I’m serious, I can practically see the flower shop from here. It’s two blocks away.”
He glanced over at the view. Shit, she was right. The storefront that would have been her and her husband’s floral shop was just a few blocks away.
Sophie’s divorce wasn’t new. She and her soon-to-be ex, Jimmy Bruno, had been hammering out the details for months.
But it was still taking some time to get used to.
They had been high school sweethearts, falling in love freshman year and never leaving each other’s side for over a decade.
Jimmy had been the first person to help Freddie with Bertha, the make-shift hydroponics system he built in his parents’ basement in college, and had talked Freddie’s father off a ledge when he eventually found out about it.
Freddie and Jimmy had gone to Yankees games together, even had a few double dates with Sophie and Anne.
But the cracks between Sophie and Jimmy started to form a few years ago, when they decided to open a floral shop together.
Jimmy had argued that they lived in Queens, so that’s where the shop should be, but Sophie wanted to think bigger.
Soon, they had signed a lease for a storefront in the East Village.
Freddie was sure there had been problems before that, but the business only accentuated them.
So much so that Sophie filed for divorce before Bruno’s Blooms even opened its doors.
Now Sophie had a storefront, all the equipment, and no idea what to do with it.
“You’ll be fine, Soph,” Freddie said, softening his tone slightly. “The shop can still happen. You just need to hire someone to handle the business side of things.”
“Right. Between contractors and vendors and helping my brother find a place to live, I’ll make sure to pencil that in,” she murmured.
“We’ve been over this. I don’t need your help to find an apartment.”
“And leave you to your own devices?” His sister rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. If you end up in another apartment with a twenty-four-hour concierge, Mom is going to keel over.”
Freddie shook his head, even as he laughed. Sophie knew as well as he did that he never took advantage of the always-available concierge at his apartment in Los Angeles. In fact, he hadn’t even known about the service until he was moving out.
But that hadn’t stopped his sister or the rest of the family from giving him shit about it, as if he had somehow forgotten where he came from. Impossible for numerous reasons, not least of which was that his parents still lived in the small house in Queens where he grew up.
“Besides,” Sophie continued, getting down from the counter stool and wandering into the center of the room.
“I think this is the best one we’ve seen.
I mean, the view is awful, obviously.” She gestured back to the window framing where her shop should be.
“But the apartment itself is kind of gorgeous.”
Freddie nodded absently, giving the living room another glance.
“Anne used to live around here, didn’t she?”
“Who?” he asked, pretending to find the purple acrylic dining table interesting.
With anyone else, his feigned ignorance would have worked, but not his sister. Sophie turned, giving him a look similar to the one he had thrown her way just a moment before. The same one they had inherited from their mother.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Is there another Anne who lived in the East Village and broke your heart that I should know about?”
He scoffed. “You missed your calling. You should have been a stand-up comedian.”
“Doubly funny since I wasn’t kidding,” she replied, glancing out the window again. “So? Did she?”
He pretended to think about it as he walked forward toward the kitchen. “Yeah, I think so.”
“You think so?”
“Well, I was never invited over, was I?”
Sophie’s mouth made a small O, as if she was just recalling that small detail.
As if he hadn’t spent almost his entire collegiate life talking about Anne Elliot.
Sophie knew every detail, including how he’d never seen her family home even once during their almost three-year relationship, how he still wasn’t sure if it was because she was embarrassed of her family or of him.
A long moment passed before Sophie continued, “What’s she doing these days?”
He shot her another look.
“What?” His sister’s eyes went wide, like she had no idea what she was doing.
“You know I haven’t talked to her in years, Soph.”
“Yeah, not right after the breakup, but you two must have connected on social media or something. It’s been seven years.”
“Eight,” he said before he could stop himself.
To her credit, she didn’t call him out on it. “I’m just saying, Freddie. You two were a big part of each other’s lives. Now you don’t even know where she is?”
“No. I don’t.” His voice sounded cold. Final. It was out of character enough that Sophie blinked, the only tell that she was surprised.
Shit. It was rude, but he didn’t have the patience to apologize and invite the conversation to continue.
He had spent years separating himself from Anne Elliot, both mentally and physically.
It was easier when he wasn’t in New York, but now that he was back, he didn’t want to fall into old patterns.
He had moved on. And maybe reclaiming this one last bit of his city would be the final step he needed.
That last thought was punctuated by the front door swinging open again. Birdie waltzed back in with a smile, followed by a man about Freddie’s age. He was slightly shorter, though, with black hair and wearing a pair of trendy wire-rim glasses.
“Frederick! This is Ellis Rowley. He’s the listing agent for this utopia,” she said, motioning between them.
Ellis let out a chuckle and shook Freddie’s hand. “Nice to meet you. My husband James and I live on a lower level of utopia. Apartment 5A. I’m also the co-op board president, so don’t let the application deter you. I can move it along quickly.”
“But you still have to move fast,” Birdie added, her singsong voice almost hitting shrill levels. “Something like this won’t stay on the market long.”
Freddie turned to look around the apartment again.
The windows were open, allowing in the crisp autumn air.
Temperatures had only just started to cool and the leaves outside were beginning to change color, leaving an earthy tinge to the breeze that billowed the curtains.
The living room sat at the northeast corner of the building, so he could hear the sounds of traffic below, along with children’s laughter from what Freddie could only assume was Tompkins Square across the street.
It was all just far enough away that it added life to the apartment while maintaining a level of serenity that even the red leather sofas couldn’t ruin.
He smiled. Birdie was right. Without the ridiculous furniture, the bad art, those awful curtains, it was good.
Better than good. It was perfect. Natural light streaming in from all directions, tall ceilings lined with original crown molding.
It had character and charm. The perfect place to start fresh.
He could already picture the housewarming party he would throw, a huge gathering of all his favorite people to welcome him back to the city he had missed so much.
Was it too impulsive to decide on a place after just one viewing? Maybe. But being impulsive hadn’t steered him wrong yet. Why start now?
He turned back to Birdie and threw her an easy smile. “Then let’s start the paperwork.”