Chapter 5
LILY
I falter outside my kitchen, hidden behind the wall that delimits the semi-open space, takeout bags dangling from my fingers.
What am I doing? I’m about to have dinner with a man who isn’t my husband in my apartment while Penny is away.
Not that this is a date. Definitely not a date.
We are two neighbors sharing food while waiting for a sink part.
The most platonic plumbing arrangement in history.
It’s presumptuous of me to imagine he might be attracted to me while I look like a sewer vomited me out and smell even worse.
I just have to act normal. Make polite, but not-too-intimate, conversation and I’ll be fine.
I square my shoulders and stride back into the kitchen. Josh is still leaning against my counter, beer in hand, looking far too comfortable in my space. His eyes track me as I set the food down.
“Thought you’d escaped out the window,” he says, the corner of his mouth quirking up.
“It’s my apartment,” I remind him, setting two placemats on the kitchen table. “If anyone’s jumping out windows, it should be you.”
“Fair point.”
He grabs a chair and pulls it out, all easy self-assurance. I line up the takeout boxes to keep my hands busy.
I don’t bother with finesse or Pinterest-worthy presentation because… Not. A. Date. Just two humans consuming calories in each other’s proximity until the replacement hydraulics arrive.
It’s survival, not romance. I pull open a drawer and hold up a fork.
“You need one, or are you good with chopsticks?” I ask, trying for casual but landing somewhere between tense and manic.
“Fork, please,” he says. “I’m not training for ultimate revenge.”
I stare at him, hand frozen mid-air. Revenge against who? My sink? “What?”
His eyes widen. “You know, Kill Bill? Volume two? Pai Mei makes The Bride eat rice with chopsticks as part of her training?”
I continue staring. The reference flies so far over my head it might as well be in orbit.
“Tarantino?” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s this movie where Uma Thurman plays an assassin seeking revenge—you know what, never mind. I’ll take the fork.”
“Sorry.” I hand him the utensil. “My daughter monopolizes TV choices and eight-year-olds aren’t big on Tarantino.”
“It’s an old movie, but fair enough.” He takes the fork and sits down at the table, looking at me with those impossibly blue eyes. “Though I bet she has excellent taste in Disney princesses.”
“Moana,” I say automatically, joining him at the table. “On repeat. For months. I can recite the entire script.”
He grins. “That’s a good one. The chicken cracks me up.”
“You have kids too?” The question lodges somewhere between my teeth and my better judgment. I’m not sure what answer I’d prefer: yes, my wife and kids are moving here as soon as they sort everything back home. Or no, I’m single and ready to mingle.
Okay. I know which I’d choose. And it’s a blaring alarm in and on itself to keep my distance.
“No, but I saved this girl from a trailer park fire once and she kept referencing Moana, so I watched it before visiting her.”
Ah. My heart splinters. Of course, he is the type to visit his rescue victims.
“Was she injured?”
“Luckily not. But her family situation was complicated. She ended up in the system and I wanted to make sure she found a good foster home.”
He’s carving out a soft spot in my chest, right where I swore I was solid and impenetrable.
We each open a few containers. The food smells amazing, but my appetite has taken a nosedive, replaced by a strange cocktail of nerves. I feel simultaneously at ease and awkward out of my mind around Plumby MacHottie.
He scoops up noodles from his carton, inhaling deeply. “This smells incredible.”
I nod, focusing on my takeout box, hyperaware of his presence in my kitchen. It’s been four years since I had a meal with a man who wasn’t a relative or a coworker. Four years since Daniel sat across from me, stealing pieces of chicken from my plate.
Josh takes a bite and makes a noise that stirs up a weird fizz low in my belly—deeply unwelcome.
“Oh man, this is delicious. What’s the name of this place?”
“Thai Garden, it’s right next door.” I twirl my noodles.
Josh nods. “They have a new client.”
Before we fall into another awkward silence, I grasp for a neutral topic. “You settling in okay? Any weird neighbor stories yet?”
He chews thoughtfully. “Not first hand. Just what Agatha told me. She’s better than cable.”
“Let me guess,” I say, relaxing. “She’s already spilled all the gossip, including details no one should know about their neighbors.”
“Within forty-eight hours of me moving in,” he confirms with a laugh. “She claims Mr. Clark in 3C has a full collection of adult novelty items. Agatha used the phrase marital aids.”
“Oooh, nooo,” I groan in protest. “Thanks for gifting me that visual.” I squeeze my eyes shut. “I’ll never be able to say hi to Mr. Clark with a straight face again.”
“Welcome to the club. We should start a support group. Survivors of Agatha’s TMI Hour.”
“Did she give you any non-scarring neighbor trivia?”
His forehead scrunches in a cute frown. “No, and I don’t want to know how she gets her intel.”
“I bet she keeps a dossier on everyone over eighteen. Penny calls her Gossip Granny.”
“Smart kid.” He looks down the hall as if he half expects her to come out of her room and yell boo. “Where is she tonight?”
The way he asks—careful, non-invasive—further cracks the casing I’ve built around my heart and welded shut. Just a hair. He’s respecting my boundaries while still making conversation.
“She’s spending the weekend at her aunt’s mansion.” I take a sip of beer.
Josh’s head rears back in surprise. “Mansion?”
I laugh at his expression. “You don’t read People magazine, do you?”
“Can’t say that I do,” he admits, looking genuinely confused.
“My sister Josie is in a serious relationship with Rian Phoenix.” I drop the name like I’m not talking about one of the biggest celebrities on the planet.
Josh’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wow.”
“Yeah, it’s cool. We call him Dorian, though. Rian is his stage name.”
Josh low-whistles. “Is that weird? Having someone so famous in the family?”
I shrug, picking at my shrimps. “We had paparazzi camped outside the complex for a while after Dorian serenaded Josie in the courtyard last Christmas. Mrs. Patel kept bringing them cookies, which only encouraged them to stay.”
“I bet that was fun.” Josh bites on a spring roll and a smidge of sauce rolls down his chin. He licks the bit at the corner of his mouth and cleans the rest with a paper napkin. It should be disgusting. I find it sexy.
“The excitement has died down.” I tear my gaze from his lips and lock it on my food. “But Penny enjoys the perks. Private movie nights in a home theater with the best candy. He introduced her to Taylor Swift. And she loves swimming in the pool at the mansion.”
Josh’s eyebrows knit together as he asks, “Is something wrong with the pool here?”
The genuine concern in his voice makes me smile. “No, unless you’re scared of a little chlorine. But Dorian’s pool has color-changing lights and underwater music. Hard to compete with when you’re eight.”
“Makes sense.” He nods. “The perfect weather and year-round swimming opportunities were another reason I moved to California.” He waves his arm with the bandage. “Even if my nurse still hasn’t cleared me for pool activities.”
“You’ll be taking up surfing next,” I tease. “Become a perfect Californian cliché.”
“Oh, cruel.” His eyes widen in mock shock, but he’s smiling. “Wetsuit shopping was next on my list. What about you? Born and raised in LA?”
“Yeah,” I answer. “I’m the American cliché of not owning a passport.”
“Never got the travel bug?”
“More always been too busy. I started my nursing degree straight out of high school, then my first job, and we had Penny young, so…” His jaw hitches when I say “we.” Before he can ask me any difficult questions, I change the subject. “Do you miss anything about Delaware?”
“The quiet.” Josh turns thoughtful. “There’s a stillness back home you don’t get in a city this size.”
The answer surprises me. I expected him to mention a favorite restaurant or landmark, not something so… introspective.
“What about you?” he asks. “What do you love about LA? What would you change?”
“Love the weather, when it doesn’t bake like this week.” I tap my fingers against my beer bottle. “The ocean. The nature up the hills, there are a lot of great hikes. Being able to go from the beach to the mountains on the same day is awesome. I’d change the traffic. And the cost of living.”
He nods. “Fair enough. Traffic here is its own special circle of hell.”
We move on to talking about his work, steering clear of any mention of Daniel. I listen as he tells me how he’s adjusting to his new station.
“Everyone’s been good so far,” he says, reaching for more curry. “But I’m still learning who takes their coffee black and who will murder me for touching the wrong mug.”
“Hospital politics are the same,” I reply with a tiny smirk. “Except you have to add blood, and things get medieval.”
He laughs, and the sound lands square in my chest like a melting bomb. My sternum forgets how to be a bone and applies for a position as emotional jelly.
“Thought I saw a few battering rams the other day.” He grabs a hot sauce packet, fighting with the stubborn plastic, pulling until it breaks open, and squirts a reddish-brown streak across his pristine white T-shirt.
“Perfect.” He eyes the blotch with faux despair. “Now I can live my dream of joining a boy band called The Stains.”
His expression is crestfallen, cute, ridiculous. Laughter bubbles out of me, rising too fast to catch. I snort mid-breath, eyes prickling with tears as I double over. “The worst part,” I manage between chuckles, “is that I’m not even sure there isn’t a band with that name already.”
His eyes crackle and sparkle, at once surprised, relieved, and a little smug—the look of a guy who solved a Rubik’s Cube in record time but doesn’t want to brag. “I’d ruin a closet worth of clothes if it meant you’d laugh like that again.”
The words are too earnest, and they pierce straight through me. My laughter dries up instantly, extinguished by an ugly twist in my stomach. I look away, unable to hold his gaze.
The only person who ever made me laugh like this was Daniel.
Daniel, who would invent fake medical trivia and slip them into my lunchbox for me to find on my break. Daniel, who knew how to pull me out of my head when I got too serious. My husband who never let me go to bed sad or angry.
And now this man—this stranger who wears Daniel’s title and sits at my kitchen table—has found that same button, that same frequency that makes me laugh unrestrained. It feels like a betrayal and a gift at once, and I don’t know how to handle either emotion.
“The part should be here soon,” I say abruptly, pushing my chair back.
I grab the carton of unfinished food that I was enjoying a second ago, but that now only makes my stomach churn.
I drop it on the counter, turning my back to him.
I need space, air, distance from whatever is happening in my head.
I can’t see Josh’s face, but the apologetic tentativeness in his tone is loud. “Right. I should wash this out before the stain settles. Mind if I use the half bath?”
I keep my back to him. “Not at all.”
I busy myself with clearing containers, desperate to regain my balance. But as I scrape leftover food into a Tupperware, I can still hear the echo of my laughter. Feel the glow Josh’s smile sparked in my chest, a warmth I thought had died forever along with my husband four years ago.