3. Emerson
THREE
EMERSON
I arrive in the Big Apple on a stormy night, and the precipitation only picks up the closer I get to my new, temporary home. Sheets of rain slash against the car, giving the windshield wipers a workout.
A low rumble comes from the front seat. Probably because I’m wearing a hat, my Uber driver doesn’t notice my hearing aid. The rain and the club music make it hard to make out what he’s saying. I’ve gotten through our awkward small talk with a coordinated attack of uh-huhs, yeahs, and oh wows.
Perhaps he’s onto me because he turns down the music before he speaks again.
“Where you coming in from?”
“Indiana.”
He nods, a bit flummoxed how to follow up. “Huh. Indiana, yeah? Oh wow.”
That sums up most people’s reactions to the Hoosier state. If I wasn’t born and raised there, I’d have the same reaction. Whenever I see an Indiana tourism television ad, I think Why ?
“You can’t beat the cost of living,” I tell him, my standard defense of my home state. Living here, he gets it immediately.
“You here for business or pleasure?”
“I’m hoping both.” There is no greater pleasure than loving your job. I say a silent prayer that the next few months work out.
The driver pulls up to a tall, narrow apartment building with a classic New York stoop. He offers to help me with my suitcase, but I tell him to stay dry in the car.
The stoop may appear romantic, but trudging a suitcase up its steep incline as the rain batters my glasses is hell.
I punch the code into the keypad and open the building’s entry door.
When I realize that apartment 6A means six flights of stairs, I release a mammoth sigh.
I’ve taken two planes and a long car ride to get here.
There is a bone-deep exhaustion that comes with traveling.
The only thing pulling me up each step is the thought of a big, warm bed awaiting me upstairs.
Shockingly, my ears don’t pop when I reach my floor. I rest my head against the door and take a breath. Before I can put the key in, the door opens, sending me tumbling into a barrel-chested man clothed in a black T-shirt and very tight boxer briefs.
“Sorry about that,” I say to the man, who I’m assuming is the super. He’s unfazed by my appearance. I follow him as he strolls into the living room and plunks on the couch. The scent of an opened red wine bottle on the fireplace mantel fills the room.
He teepees his eyebrows at me. “You don’t look like the torso from your profile.” He laughs, shrugs, and takes a sip of his wine. “But you’ll do.”
“Oh.” Perhaps there was an added background check I had to pass. While I don’t like that he’s drinking on the job, nor that he’s pantless, I do appreciate his professionalism. “I’m excited to be here.”
“Don’t cream your pants just yet. We haven’t even gotten started,” the super says .
I chuckle. My friend Annemarie warned me New Yorkers have a blunt way of speaking.
I hold out my hand for a shake, and he has the horrified expression of someone offered a live snake. “I’m Emerson.”
“No. Don’t do that. We’re not doing names tonight.”
“Ooookay. So what should I call you?”
“Anything you want. Just not slut or whore. Some guys like that, but I don’t.”
“Noted,” I say with a nervous laugh, quickly realizing that our senses of humor are, shall we say, different. “Is everything in order?”
“Yeah. Get in here.” He nods and pats the seat next to him on the couch.
I stifle a yawn, the exhaustion stretching across my chest. “Actually, I just want to go to the bedroom.”
“Cutting to the chase, I see. Okay, then. Why don’t we have some fun out here first?”
“I’m a bit tired for fun.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll wake you up.” The man hops up from the couch and circles me, scanning me with a critical eye. “You know, you’re pretty cute. Beards are hot. And the whole slutty little glasses thing really makes those brown eyes pop.”
“Um, I wear glasses to see. I’m near-sighted.”
“We don’t need to get into life stories.” The super has no shyness about checking me out, as if we’re at some seedy gay bar.
“Hmm. You’ve got a nice chest. Good arms, too. I like the whole nerd on the outside, jock on the inside thing you’ve got going on.”
“I wasn’t a jock. I grew up on a farm. We grew corn and soybeans.”
“Long days in the field … hot. Did you wear overalls, too?”
This is the weirdest interview I’ve ever been through. “Can we just get this over with as fast as possible? ”
“Typical man.” He shakes his head and glances behind me. “Nice ass, too. Really nice.”
“Thank you?” My midwestern politeness makes me stay in place and show gratitude for compliments, no matter how out of place they might be.
I can’t help but look him over, too. I have a thing for sandy brown hair. Like me, he’s a bigger guy, but whereas I’m tall and stocky, he’s shorter and thicker. Yet there’s a definition in his arms and chest that tells me he’s strong underneath it all. Some kind of athlete.
I find myself puffing out my chest and sucking in my stomach as he rakes his eyes over my frame.
“Is that a hearing aid?”
“Yeah. I’m hard of hearing.”
He blatantly rakes his eyes up and down my frame. “Well, your hearing isn’t the only thing hard right now.”
“What? Look, I’ve had a long day of traveling. Can we finish whatever this is in the morning? I’d really like to go to bed now.”
“Who says you’re sleeping over?”
I take a step back. The quick thrill of being checked out is replaced with utter confusion. “What is going on here? This is all extremely unprofessional, and I’m two seconds away from calling the management office. What’s your name?”
“I told you. No names. We’re not walking down the aisle. Excuse me for wanting to check out the goods before making a purchase.” He struts back to his wine glass and takes another sip. “Look, before we get to it, I want to lay down some ground rules.”
I think he’s going to go over how to use the trash chute, but instead he whips off his T-shirt and tosses it on the floor.
“Number one: don’t call me baby. This isn’t Dirty Dancing .
Number two: no bite marks on my ass. For some reason, guys love biting my ass.
Does it remind them of a Big Mac? I have no idea.
” He turns around and wiggles his … rear.
“Yeah, I guess it’s juicy. Anyway, it might turn you on, but it hurts like hell. ”
He closes the gap between us, which I open by stepping the hell back.
“Number three: don’t come on my face. It may look hot on your computer screen, but it’s a gross mess for me, and most guys don’t have good aim, so it’ll get on my area rug, and getting an area rug cleaned in the city is a pain in the ass.”
The super, or whoever the hell he is, snaps the waistband of his boxers. I head for the door but keep a polite smile on my face. Midwestern-ness is hard to shake.
“And number four, and most important: I’m not here for any emotional attachment, okay?
Don’t gaze into my eyes. Don’t ask me if they’re green.
They’re not. They’re hazel.” He opens his eyes wide and points to them.
“ Hazel . Don’t tell me I’m beautiful or say, ‘Bryce, I’ve never known anyone like you,’ or what have you.
And if we cuddle post-sex, and that’s a big if , don’t you dare tell me that you want to see me again.
If you do, I will search every Equinox Gym on this island, find you, and castrate you.
Because I know it’s a lie. It’s always a lie.
” He takes a calming breath. “This is just about having a good time. Now take your clothes off. I want to get this over with so I can go back to bingeing The Traitors .”
“What the hell is going on?” I yell. “You’re definitely not the super.”
“What? No. I don’t feel like role-playing tonight.” Bryce reaches for my jacket, but I smack his hand away.
“This isn’t role-playing. You’re in my apartment, and you need to leave now before I call the police.”
He looks at me, confused. “Are we fucking or not?”
I take a confident step forward, taking back what’s mine. “We are doing no such thing.”
“Handies then?”
I open the front door. “Get out. Now! ”
He drops his look of casual disinterest, now joining me in confusion.
“I don’t know who you are or why you are here, but this is my apartment. I’m moving in.” I barge past him, throw open the door to the bedroom, and collapse on the bed. In a moment, I’ll call the cops to remove this madman. But I need to lie down.
My beat of relaxation is interrupted by a giant tongue licking my face as if I’m a human-sized ice cream cone. I spring off the bed and turn on the lamp on the nightstand.
An enormous dog, one that rivals a small pony back on the farm and has no business being in a one-bedroom walk-up, cocks his head at me.
“Who the heck are you?”
“That’s Bobo. Touch him and die.” The man who called himself Bryce stands at the bedroom entrance, his shirt back on. “He’s sleeping.”
“On my bed!”
“ My bed!”
I storm past him. “This is not your apartment.”
Bobo lets out a single, booming bark and follows me into the living room. I wipe the residual moistness off my cheek. “Buy a guy dinner before you do that, huh?”
I hunch over my backpack and rummage around while Bryce and Bobo hover behind me.
“This is insane,” Bryce says. “You stumble in here and expect me to up and leave my home just like that? Just because you say this is your place? How do I know you’re not the squatter, huh? If this were really your apartment, you’d have some kind of proof.”
I spin around and hold up the key the super—the real super—left for me in the lockbox downstairs. It’s on a keychain with an ANTHONY license plate. Bryce’s face flinches with shock. For the first time tonight, he’s speechless.
“That’ s Anthony’s key.”
“He sublet the apartment to me.”
“I bought him that keychain.” It almost looks like he’s going to cry, but he sweeps past me to the door. “You need to leave.”
“No, you need to leave.”
Bryce gestures for me to exit. I go to the opposite side and gesture for him to leave.
“Excuse me,” he says. “Don’t gesture to me. I’m gesturing to you. You need to go.”
He pulls open the door. A guy in a hoodie who looks like he drinks three protein shakes a day stands in the entrance. He looks up from his phone.
“I was just about to message,” he says. He turns to Bryce, then me. “Which one of you am I hooking up with tonight?”
“Me,” Bryce says. “Once I get this squatter out of my apartment.”
“ You are the squatter,” I fire back. “You have zero claim to the premises.”
“No claim? This is my place. I pay rent. I have renter’s rights.”
“Is your name on the lease?” Protein-shake-guy asks.
“Well … no. My boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—rents it, but I contribute to the monthly rent. Sure, last month it was only sixty-seven dollars and a killer blow job, but still.”
“I’m a real estate attorney,” he says. “I deal with these cases all the time.”
“You’re just here to look pretty.” Bryce narrows his eyes at the hottie. “Nobody said you could speak.”
“Well, unless your name is on the lease, it doesn’t matter how much you paid toward rent. Sorry.” The guy shrugs as if it’s another day at the office, or another hookup, for him.
“See?” I smile victoriously, but a twinge of guilt digs into my side.
Bryce opens his mouth to speak. Nothing comes out. His face remains bright red .
“You should probably go,” Bryce says to the guy, who’s tapping away on his phone.
“All good,” he replies. “There’s a dude down the street who just sent me a pic of his hole, so I’m gonna, like, hang with him. Later. Sorry about being evicted.” The guy shrugs, gives us a friendly wave, and retreats down the stairs.
I slam the door shut and rub my temples. “This is my apartment now. I’m tired, and I want to go to sleep. I have an important day tomorrow. You need to go.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Bryce barricades himself in front of the door. “I’ve lived in this apartment for two years. I have rights. And I have a dog to think about.”
There’s a desperation in his eyes as he speaks, one that seems to go beyond eviction.
I pull out my phone and show him the confirmation email from Anthony and the signed sublet agreement. “It’s official. If you have a problem, you can reach out to him.”
Bryce’s face sinks, all of his sassy energy seeping out like air from a popped balloon. He stumbles into the living room and gazes out the window into the rainy abyss. Bobo trots up to him, and Bryce joins him on the floor.
“Didn’t he tell you he was subletting?” I ask.
Bobo licks his hand, but Bryce doesn’t react.
“Do you have anywhere to go tonight?” I ask softly. “A friend to stay with?”
“I need a place for both of us.” He leans his head on the dog’s, and damn if it isn’t sweet. “Whatever. Not your problem. We’ll survive.”
“Look,” I say, after a long pause, “You can stay on the couch tonight. Tomorrow, you can figure out where to go.”
Bryce gives me the slightest nod of gratitude.
“We dated for two years, and he didn’t even tell me he was leaving.
He wrote me a letter.” There’s an enormous sigh from the dog, like he’s fully aware of his owner’s situation.
“I always thought I’d have a home here with him, but now … now I’ve lost everything.”
“You’ll get through this. It will be okay.” The dog’s big brown eyes stare at me, an added gut punch. “Why don’t you and Bobo sleep in your bedroom? I’ll take the couch. I don’t want him barking all night long.”
“Thanks.” Bryce gets up and walks past me.
“And Emerson. Just so you know, tomorrow I’m finding a lawyer.
One I haven’t almost slept with, and we’re going to figure out how to get this apartment back.
So don’t get too comfortable.” He and Bobo enter the bedroom.
He shuts the door but opens it back up a second later. “Oh, and your ass isn’t that nice.”