2. Renee
I thought I was sweaty two hours ago, but I didn’t even know the half of it. I’m positively dripping now. The sweat rag I’m using has long since become a sopping mess.
But on the bright side, I’m almost done. Only one more box remains.
I hop up over the lip of the truck and fetch the final box from the dusty back corner. The Sharpie writing scrawled across the top makes me laugh.
RENEE’S BOX O’ GRANNY PANTIES.
Sutton was helping me pack up my stuff from Felix’s apartment last week and stumbled across a drawer full of lingerie that all still had the price tags on. “What in the…?” she’d cackled, holding up a pair of toxically lime green, crotchless panties between her thumb and forefinger like it was evidence from a murder scene. “Tell me this was a gag gift.”
My cheeks were burning to the touch. “Felix buys them for me a lot,” I’d mumbled. “He thinks it’s, like, a sweet gesture.”
“I cannot understate how much better off you are without him, NayNay,” she’d declared. “Good freaking riddance.”
I laughed and blushed and went back to packing with a flippant, “Yeah, duh, you’re totally right.”
But I wasn’t feeling all that flippant in my heart.
Mostly because Felix had ripped that heart out without mercy.
It’s one thing to break up with someone. It’s another thing to break up with someone on your anniversary. And it’s a third thing entirely to break up with someone on your anniversary, when that someone honest-to-goodness thought you might even propose, all while saying cruel things that sound like her father wrote insults down on cue cards for you to read.
You just seem aimless, Renee. You’re lost. Unfocused. I need someone who knows what they want, and that’s not you.
I felt like it was my dad’s words coming out of my boyfriend’s mouth. Nightmare material, right there. My two worlds colliding. No survivors left behind.
“Screw you, Dad,” I mutter under my breath. “And screw you, Felix. Good riddance.”
I say it with a little more conviction than I did a week ago, right after my life imploded. But it still isn’t easy to say.
It’ll get better—mostly because it has to.
It certainly can’t get worse.
Speaking of the devil, my phone starts tap-dancing in my pocket yet again. I pluck it out, see who it is, and angrily silence it before shoving it back where it came from. Then I stoop down, pick up RENEE’S BOX O’ GRANNY PANTIES, and start the final trek upstairs.
It strikes me as the freight elevator whisks me up to the top floor how weird all this is. I made a conscious choice to pick a different path than the one I was given at birth. To make my own way, not have it made for me.
And yet here I am, back in the Land of the Rich and Famous and Unbearable. This Beverly Hills condo complex is chock-full of movie stars and athletes, finance bros and tech gazillionaires.
Then there’s me: Renee DuBois, freelance photographer, proud owner of a busted, puke-green 2001 Toyota Camry and a checking account that contains three hundred and forty-seven dollars last time I looked. To say I don’t belong here is a massive understatement.
But for the next three months, while Sutton is away filming, I’m the lone tenant of The Palais’s Unit PH03.
My BFF had to practically beg me to “do her the favor” of housesitting. “Please, Nay, for the love of God, stay at my place.”
“No, no, no,” I’d protested. “I’ll find a cheap motel or something until I can get a new apartment.”
“Absolutely not,” Sutton had replied. “Under no circumstances will I let my best friend sleep with roaches and meth-heads. You’re as stubborn as it gets, but I’m putting my foot down on this one. You will be staying at my place, end of story, thank you very much, check please.”
I’d done the only thing I could do: sighed and gave in. She might’ve called me stubborn, but no one on the planet can dissuade Sutton Medina of something once she’s locked sights on it.
So this is home for three months. Until I can put my life back together.
The elevator dings and lets me out on the penthouse level. There’s a grizzled janitor vacuuming halfway down the hall, right in front of my—no, in front of Sutton’s unit. I refuse to call it mine.
My back is aching and my legs feel like Jell-O, so I start hustling down to get this final box out of my hands. I’m dreaming of a hot bubble bath, a glass of red wine, and a true crime podcast, when I hear another chime. I look to my left to see the primary elevator sweep open…
And reveal Mr. Tall, Dark, and Beautiful from earlier.
He must be coming back from wherever he went off to. He’s changed from a white t-shirt into a black one and his hair is laced with drops of water like diamonds. As I stare, he plucks the aviators off his face and tucks them on the collar of his shirt. It feels weirdly like we’re doing our exact same song and dance from earlier, but in reverse this time.
His eyes are even greener than before. I’m so busy staring at them, while simultaneously still walking forward, that I don’t notice the janitor’s vacuum cord stretched across the carpeted floor until it’s too late.
Everything after that happens in slow motion.
My toe catches.
My balance teeters, totters, and hits the point of no return.
I can feel my mouth shape into a horrified O, though no sound comes out, as I get going, going… gone.
With the box still clutched in my hands, I have nothing to brace myself with. I hit the ground hard with an unladylike “oof!”, ripping the vacuum cord out in the process.
The whine of the vacuum dies.
The silence that follows is deafening.
Please be dead, I pray silently with my eyes closed. Please just let me be dead so as to save me the embarrassment. It’s been a bad day, in a bad week, in a bad month, and this final humiliation is gonna be the one that does me in. So, for the love of all that is good and holy, please just let me be dead.
But my prayers go unanswered. All I get is a dull ache where my head cracked against the crown molding on my way down.
“Not this shit,” comes the one voice I was really, really hoping not to hear.
I crack one eye open. Black T-Shirt is standing over me with a delicious scowl on his face. He looks bored, somehow, like this is the kind of thing that happens to him all the time.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“It’s pathetic. Seriously. The worst I’ve seen yet, if I’m being honest.”
I crack the other eye open and prop myself up on one elbow. My vision is still swimming from the tumble. “I don’t understand,” I squeak.
The man spreads his hands wide to encompass… well, something. I’m not quite sure since I still can’t see straight. “Of all the crazy fans that have ever tried to hit on me, you are by far the clumsiest and the least successful.”
“Of all the—excuse me?”
“And you’re a broken record to boot. How charming.”
That scowl on his face is quickly morphing into disgust. It isn’t until I look where he’s pointing that the whole picture starts to click into place.
Renee’s Box O’ Granny Pantiesis split wide open. Half the contents are littering the hallway. It’s a rainbow of garish greens and purples that Felix bought for me on our one-, three-, six-, nine-, and eleven-month anniversaries—let no one say he’s not consistent—along with some faded pinks I bought myself with my first-ever paycheck as an adult and a handful of functional, sexless nudes.
All of it is equally mortifying.
My cheeks get red easily; I’ve known that my whole life. But right now, I could swear they’re the reddest they’ve ever been. I’m practically a fire hazard.
“You think I was trying to—this isn’t—oh God.” I let my head drop back down to the floor. Then something occurs to me. “Wait—fans?” I ask in confusion. “Should I know who you are? Are you, like, a model or something?”
The man laughs, but it’s not a particularly friendly laugh. Kind of cruel, actually, like the bully in a bad high school rom-com. “I take it back. You’re not crazy; you’re just pitiful.”
“What does that make you? The local asshole?” I fire back.
I’m not normally this sassy—well, not quite this sassy—but the blunt force trauma to the head has scrambled my social filter.
He arches an eyebrow. “It makes me Weston Scott. You’re not the first puck bunny to try to con your way into my bed and you won’t be the last.”
I shove myself up higher and glare at him. “I’m not ‘trying’ anything. I was moving my stuff in and I tripped.”
He waves a dismissive hand. “Believe me, I’ve heard it all. Pretend you don’t know me, admit you do—I don’t give a shit either way. But I’ve had a hell of a long day and I’m beat to shit from practice, so if you could be so kind as to move your mess of cheap polyester out of my hallway so I can get to my apartment, that’d be swell, thanks.”
His voice is dripping with sarcasm and condescension. I’ve met a lot of smug assholes in my time—many of them related to me—but this guy might just take the cake.
Welcome to the neighborhood, Renee. We arranged a one-man welcoming committee of the complex’s hottest douchebag to make you feel right at home.
I thrust myself upright in fury, but it’s a little too fast and a little too sudden. I wobble and reach out blindly for something to stop me from toppling over again.
Unfortunately, that something turns out to be Weston’s broad, muscled chest.
He’s warm to the touch. Almost scalding, actually. But firm. Very, very firm. Between the body and his mention of practice, I’m assuming he’s some kind of athlete, though I wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a two-person lineup. I’m not exactly what you’d call “sporty.”
As soon as I realize what I’m doing, I wrench my hand away. “Sorry,” I mumble.
I regret it immediately. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who offers apologies, so I shouldn’t give him the courtesy of one of my own.
“Yeah. I’m sure you are. Now, for the last time, can you clean up your shit so I can get by?”
I roll my eyes and start scooping up my things to throw into the wreckage of the cardboard box. He waits in place, tapping his foot impatiently.
“You know,” I say as I gather armfuls of—what did he call it?—oh, yeah, my mess of cheap polyester, “‘manners’ are a concept you should really do some research into. I can send you some links if you’d like.”
“I’ll pass, but thanks for the suggestion.”
I dump the last of my things into the box and throw the whole mess through the open door of Sutton’s unit. Then I stand, park my fists on my hips, and glare at him. “Would it kill you to say just one thing that isn’t maximally assholeish?” I demand.
He rakes a careless hand through his curly hair. “I don’t have time to cater to your tender sensibilities, Princess Polyester.”
“Well, you better get used to my ‘tender sensibilities,’” I retort, “because I’m gonna be your neighbor for the next three months.”
“Great. Grand. Wonderful. Ask me if I give a shit.”
I want to scream and tear my hair out. “It’s actually impressive how quickly you’re making me dislike you.”
Weston spreads his hands wide to show he’s not holding anything. I’m confused by what he’s doing until he explains, “Again, Princess P: I have no shits to offer. Now, if we’re done with this delightful little repartee, I’m gonna go home. Have a nice life.”
With that, he stomps past me. I turn and stare in furious disbelief as he unlocks his door and sweeps inside his apartment without another glance. The door slams shut.
I turn and look at the janitor, who’s been standing in place, watching the whole thing go down.
“I’m not crazy, right?” I ask him. “He’s the one being a dick, not me?”
The man shrugs and plays with the toothpick in his mouth. “Dunno. Don’t care. Now, can you get off my vacuum cord, lady?”
I look down to see that, sure enough, I’m standing on the cord I just ripped out of the wall. Grimacing, I step off it and slink into Sutton’s unit, kicking the ruined box of lingerie in front of me. The door closes behind me with a meek whisper.
This might be a very long three months.