Chapter 30
June
One week goes by.
A week of banging and plastering around the apartment building, and no one can or will tell me what it’s all about.
A week of Archer walking me to work, and of learning about how Callum’s dad paid him to spy on him, and how, slowly, they started to trust each other.
“Why did you agree to spy on him?” I ask him one morning as I sip from the vanilla latte he always has waiting for me outside my apartment building.
There have been no subtle or unsubtle hints to get me to quit my job or ride in his car, regardless of how many people shove their armpits into his face.
And a couple of days ago, there was a chocolate croissant that I stuffed into my bag to eat when I got to work. He gave it to me and asked if I was ready to go, seemingly not expecting anything in return. Not even a thank you. I’m not sure how to feel about that. Confused, mostly.
He shrugs. “Needed the money, and I was desperate.”
“When did you know you would stop?”
He’s silent as we approach the bus stop. “When he started to feel like my brother.”
“And now?”
“Now? There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him. We’re family.”
I look at him, and I remember how they treated me before. How, at the flip of a switch, I went from their scent match to someone they looked at with disgust, and that was when they could stand to look at me at all.
And Archer, who dragged me into the library, fucked me against a bookcase, and left me on the floor. Like I was nothing more than a thing to be used and tossed aside.
They are family. I am not family. Maybe now they want to apologize, but what about the next time the flip switches and they turn on me again?
Archer is peering down at me with a furrowed brow and an almost pained expression stamped across his face. As if he knows what I’m thinking and what he said to trigger those dark thoughts. I can almost believe I’m seeing genuine remorse.
Almost.
He takes a step toward me, and I immediately take one away. He stops, keeping his distance. “Juniper. About what I did to you…”
I look away from him and, relieved, stick my arm out. “My bus is here.”
I feel him watching me the entire bus ride. My face is cold and hard, like the shell I built around my heart to protect it.
When we get off the bus near my work, I dump the coffee I no longer want into a trash can and walk inside. I don’t say goodbye. I don’t say anything.
I just walk away, my heart encased in ice.
Gia talks to everyone in the building.
She almost always knows everything before anyone else, so, I pounce on my neighbor the second I spot her. “Gia, do you know what’s going on with all the building work?”
She’s leaving her apartment for work, and I’ve just left food I won’t eat near the noticeboard on the first floor with a sign for anyone to help themselves.
I’ve been so tired when I get home from work that all I want to do is crawl into bed, sometimes too tired to eat. Today has been one of the few days I’m not too exhausted, and that’s only because yesterday, I slept for practically my entire day off.
“Not sure,” she says with a frown. “Super’s gone though.”
“Gone?” I move closer for this piece of juicy gossip. I should have known he’d gone. I haven’t once had to dodge the usually overflowing trash can in the hall. Whoever has been emptying it has been doing it regularly. “He was fired?”
She shrugs. “Maybe. All I know is I had someone knock on my door the other day. He had a clipboard and was asking me to point out all the issues with my apartment.”
Alarm bells start ringing.
I haven’t seen Callum or Torin since they came to my apartment and told me about Oscar, but maybe there’s a reason they’ve been keeping their distance. Something like being busy as the new owners of my apartment building.
“Was he young? Kind of attractive?”
She gives me a long look. “No. Older. Maybe late forties. Why?”
Okay, so maybe it’s just a coincidence that someone starts improving my building at the same time my scent matches—ex scent matches—come back into my life.
“Just thought I might know him. Did he say who he was?”
“Building manager. Another guy was with him. Said they had to do urgent repairs in the halls and on the AC first, and heard they’ve been going to every apartment. They’re doing your floor now, or should be soon. I gotta go, hon.”
I thought my apartment felt warmer than usual if someone was working on repairing the building’s AC unit in the basement.
“Thanks, Gia, have fun. Oh, and I left more food out if you want to grab some stuff,” I call after her.
She smiles on her way to the front door. “I’ll have Simon take a look. Thanks, hon.”
Simon is her middle child, sixteen years old, and has a bigger sweet tooth than I do from the way he pounced on some of the candy Callum delivered to my apartment. He for sure will be digging through the grocery bags I left out.
After waving Gia goodbye, I head back up the stairs. I’ve been going up and down these four flights of stairs for weeks now. I should be getting fit. Yet lately, they resemble a mountain that takes all my strength to drag myself up.
Every time I wander these hallways, building work is going on. Hell, someone was even looking at the elevator, and Gia said that’s been broken since before she moved in, and she’s been here years.
I came back from work a couple of days ago and turned around, convinced I was in the wrong building. Someone had painted the walls a pale mint color and buffed the hardwood floors to a glossy shine. And there was even a new noticeboard—with tacks.
Gia said she hadn’t seen tacks on that noticeboard ever. Someone is fixing this building up, and if I had to put money on who, I’d say it was my scent matches.
Halfway up the stairs, my world tips sharply to the left.
I stumble and trip, grabbing the balustrade and clinging to it until I’m sure I won’t tumble back down the stairs. Breathing hard, I blink tiny white stars out of my vision as I sink onto the step and close my eyes.
Lightheaded and sick, confused and slow, I don’t know how long I sit on the staircase waiting for my dizziness to pass.
I know what this is.
The fatigue that’s been slowing me down these last few days was easy to shrug off as just being overworked and not getting enough sleep. But I’m crawling into bed, sometimes the moment I get home from work, and no matter how many hours of sleep I get, it’s never enough.
The doctor warned me it could happen. I told myself I was fine, but I’m not fine.
Bond sickness. That’s what’s wrong with me, and it’s only going to get worse as my heat approaches.
Knock, knock.
Shivering, I lever myself up from the couch with a blanket wrapped around me and cross my apartment to open the door.
As I squint through the peephole, I get a good view of an unfamiliar man in a navy suit and white shirt, holding a clipboard. Next to him is a dark-haired man with a reddish-brown beard in khaki overalls. I think I’ve seen him patching a hole in the wall on the first floor.
I open my door but keep the chain on it, just in case. “Can I help you?”
The man in the navy suit says, “We’re doing work on the building, and we’re here to log any maintenance issues that need to be repaired in your unit.”
“You’re the new owner?” I ask, scrutinizing him closely. Both are betas, which is a relief. I’m not sure how comfortable I’d have been letting an unknown alpha into my apartment.
“General manager,” he says, his tone businesslike but not cold. Efficient. “We’ll be working on all the windows in a few days. I’m assuming you also get a draught?”
I nod, relaxed that he’s who he says he is and is here to do what he said he would. “Yes. Give me a second to remove the chain.”
I close my door, remove the chain, then open it and step aside. “Please come in.”
They walk into my apartment and immediately get to work.
“We’ll be replacing all front doors,” the suited man says, surprising me.
“Really?” Frowning, I turn to look at my black front door. “It looks fine to me.”
“They’re not adequate,” he says, making a note on his clipboard.
It looks perfectly adequate to me. If they feel like I need a brand-new front door, who am I to complain?
The man in khaki overalls checks the water pressure at the kitchen sink, while the navy-suited man makes notes on his clipboard.
They spot the leaky faucet before I can tell them about it.
Then they move to the next repair they need to make: sealing up the holes near the trim, a common entry point for pests, the man in the overalls tells me.
“We have pest control coming next week,” the man in the suit says. “They’ll seal all exterior holes first and then move into each apartment. Do you have any pests other than roaches?”
It’s clear he knows I get them. They’ve seen the roaches firsthand, or someone in another apartment already told them about it.
“A few. Not as many since I started putting down traps.” I didn’t bother going to the super about my roach issue.
He wouldn’t have helped me. I got traps from Jack’s store, and while expensive, they do the job.
No roach has run at me for a while now. “Um, and when I first moved in, something bit me in my bed.” Glancing at my bed, I scratch my arm automatically.
“I sprayed the mattress with bug spray and washed my sheets.
Nothing's bitten me since, so I guess whatever it was went away.”
“If it were bedbugs, you’d definitely have felt them again.” The man in the overalls glances at the man in the suit. “Might be worth getting the pest guy to have a look.”
“He can.” The navy-suited man shrugs. “The problem—if it’s still there—will go away once we’ve replaced the furniture.”
I must be hearing things. “Excuse me?”
Gia didn’t mention anything about new furniture. Just repairs. But she had been rushing to get to work, so maybe she just forgot.
The suited man flips through his clipboard.
“We’ve sourced better quality, hard-wearing furniture for all units: bed frame, mattress, couch, bedside table, coffee table, and a small dining set.
And…” He flips a page. “New kitchen appliances. Deliveries will start arriving early next week.” He looks up at me, pen poised over the clipboard.
“Is there a good time for you to be home to accept delivery? The team will build everything, so we just need you to let them in and move any personal things.”
“Um, the afternoon is usually best. After four is good.”
“Excellent. We can replace the front door at the same time.” He makes a note on his clipboard, and the two men move on to the next problem while I’m still dealing with the shock of having all the furniture replaced in my apartment.
For free.
Wherever I stand, I feel in the way.
I have two strange men in my apartment, but they’re so focused on doing their job that I forget to feel embarrassed about the mess from being too tired to clean or the fact that I’m still in my bathrobe.
This guy says he’s a manager, and I believe him. But I know who is truly responsible for all these repairs, and it is not the general manager. Callum, Archer, and Torin did this. If they hadn’t started fixing all my neighbors' apartments first, I would have refused their help.
They gave me a floral arrangement I didn’t want, so now they’re determined to give me everything I need.
Food.
A better apartment.
Safety in the form of Archer walking me to work and then home again after.
The men leave, and I’m headed back to the couch to sleep, still tired, when another, quieter knock sounds on my door.
I wander over to answer it.
Archer stands outside, hands stuffed in his pockets. “You didn’t go to work today.”
I start to get angry at him for judging me for still being in my bathrobe at eleven. Maybe he’s not, but all my embarrassment must have skipped over the building manager and landed on him instead. “So? I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
He shakes his head. “I wasn’t here for an explanation. I was just worried.”
I blink at him. “Oh.”
He studies me for a beat. “You look tired.”
I am. Way too tired to be standing around. I don’t know what I’m going to do about my bond sickness, but I’m too tired to think of a solution now. “I’m going back to bed.”
He watches me closely. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sure.” I shut the door, but it takes a couple of seconds before I hear him walk away.