Chapter 36
June
The next day, I’m taking my trash out when the door four away from mine swings open and Torin steps out holding a trash bag of his own.
He freezes, eyeing me for a beat as if waiting for me to decide what to do. Archer must have told him that I know they’re in that apartment, but this is the first time I’ve seen any of them since Archer stayed with me last night.
Instead of waiting to walk me to work from the front of the building, we left together, stopping at the coffee shop down the street for our usual coffee. I tried to pay. He refused to let me, so I accepted the vanilla latte and chocolate croissant the server handed me.
Maybe I shouldn’t have let him stay overnight, but we just talked, ate, and laughed. It was so nice and easy that I couldn’t bring myself to ask him to leave.
“It’s okay, I know you’re there to watch me,” I say.
A woman sucks in an outraged breath. “What kind of fucked up creepy shit is that? I’m getting my baseball bat. Don’t go near him, June. I’ve got this,” Lucia declares, having opened her door and stepped out while I wasn’t paying attention.
She’s dressed for a night out in a pretty, short teal dress with black strappy sandals.
“It’s okay,” I call after her. I don’t know what I did to deserve such a loyal friend in Lucia, but I’m eternally grateful for her. “I know him. It’s not as weird as it sounds.”
Her gaze slides from me to Torin. She gives him a narrowed-eye stare, sniffs and turns to me. “Tell me when you need that bat, June.”
We watch her walk down the hallway and clump, literally clump because she’s wearing block-heeled sandals, down the stairs.
“I’m glad you have someone else watching out for you,” Torin says quietly.
I shift from foot to foot. “Even though she intended to smack you over the head with a bat?” Knowing Lucia, she wouldn’t have hesitated.
“Even though.” He points his chin at my trash bag. “Want me to take that down for you?”
“You don’t need to take my trash out.”
He nods, and I start to step around him when he motions for me to go down the stairs first. Then I stop and turn to face him. “Why are you avoiding me?”
His expression is impenetrable. “Why do you think I’m avoiding you?”
“Archer said you volunteered to watch over me at night. I never go out at night, a fact you all must know by now. I can only assume you keep doing it to avoid me.” Something cold and wet drips on my ankle.
Yelping, I scrunch my nose as I give my trash bag a look of disgust, holding it away from me. “Ew. Something dripped on me.”
My trash bag is leaking. Gross.
“Why is adulthood just one endless mess I spend every day cleaning?” I mutter.
Torin reaches for the bag. “I’ll take it.”
I yank it back. “I’ve got it.”
“I’m going down anyway.” He leans around me for it.
I tuck the leaky bag behind my back, so he can’t get to it. “No. I said I’d do it.”
“It’s no big deal.” His tone is insistent.
We look at each other.
His lips twitch first. “Are we arguing over trash?”
I bite the inside of my cheek, suppressing my smile. “We are.”
“You look tired,” he says, his tone wistful and his eyes filled with more yearning than I thought he was capable of. So much so that I have to wonder if he knows I slept with Archer and Callum, but not with him. Not since the Haven Academy ball.
“I am tired.” After I got home from work, I made myself pasta for dinner, napped for a bit, lazed around for a bit more, then went to the bathroom and promptly broke it. “My toilet isn’t working.”
“I can take a look.”
I blush, darting in front of him when he takes a step toward my apartment. “You can’t see where I pee.”
He stares at me, forehead furrowed. “It’s a toilet. I have seen a toilet before.”
Blushing harder, I avoid his gaze. “But I peed in it.”
“If you have a plunger, I could—”
“No.” I glare at him. “Why do you want to do all my gross jobs? Callum and Archer came to apologize, and you just avoid me.”
“I avoid you because I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” he hisses, angry now as he steps up to me.
I back up, bumping into the wall. Strangely, I’m not as intimidated as I was when he cornered me like this before. Maybe because I see beyond his anger to the pain he’s trying to hide from me.
“I took an experience that you will remember for the rest of your life, and I ruined it. I called you a whore. There is so much I did that will haunt me for the rest of my life. I don’t want your forgiveness because I don’t deserve it.
Callum and Archer can be what you need. I can’t.
You deserve better than me.” He walks away before I can stop him, and I realize that while I was distracted, he took my trash.
“I’ll let the super know about your broken toilet,” he says with his back to me, and disappears down the stairs.
Five minutes later, I’m still standing with my back to the wall, biting my lip as I debate what to do about Torin’s outburst when footsteps sound on the stairs. Jack pops into view, wearing navy overalls and carrying, to my surprise, a large black plunger.
I blink at him. “Jack? What are you doing here?”
He flashes me a grin as he approaches. “Stepping into the role of super for a bit.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m helping the new building manager hire a new full-time super, but until we find someone who won’t let the residents down as badly as the last one, I’m it. Mostly, I deal with the deliveries and the contractors. I heard you have a problem with your toilet?”
“Yeah.” I fish my key from my pocket, unlock my door and show him into my bathroom. “But what about your shop? Every time I walk past it, it’s closed.”
“And it’s going to stay closed for good.”
“I’m sorry, Jack. I know how much you wanted to keep it going for your dad.”
“That shop has been dead in the water for years. Even my mom was gently suggesting I close it. She reminded me that Dad poured his love into it and couldn’t keep it going. My heart was never in it, so what chance did I have?” He points his chin at my toilet. “What’s the problem?”
“When I flush, nothing happens.”
He tests the flush on my toilet, and as expected, nothing happens. “You have a loose connection at the back. Let me see what I can do.”
He lifts the tank lid, reaching in to fiddle with something inside it, and the next time he flushes, the sound of running water is music to my ears.
“Thanks, Jack.”
He grins at me. “The benefits of having a plumber in the family and a dad who could fix almost everything.” He returns the lid to the top of the tank and washes his hands in the sink.
“Did Gia get you the job here?” I could see her talking up Jack since he knows this building so well. “And you said it was only temporary?”
“Not Gia, and it’s definitely temporary. I like working on small projects on the weekends. Being a full-time super is a bit much. I’m working on the book I started in college, and I actually have time for it now that I’m no longer tearing my hair out with the shop.”
I frown. “So, how did you know about the job here?”
We walk out of my bathroom together, since it’s tight quarters for one person. Two people is downright claustrophobic.
“One of your scent matches threatened me.”
I stare at him, struggling to believe what I’m hearing. “He did what?”
“Archer paid me a visit over a week ago,” he explains.
I bristle with anger, ready to charge next door and—
“Then he apologized and offered me a job.”
My anger fizzles like a deflating hot-air balloon. “What?”
“I think he was jealous.”
I scrunch my nose, more confused than ever. “Then why did he give you a job?”
He shrugs. “Not sure. I was ready to hate him for the way he treated you. And I said as much.”
After what Torin did to Wilkes, I start looking for bruises. “And he didn’t hit you or anything?” Maybe that’s why he’s been keeping his distance these last few days. He was waiting for the bruises to fade.
“Archer didn’t hit me. Are you going to forgive them?”
“Come sit for a bit if you don’t have to rush off.” I settle on my couch and pat the seat beside me. “I’m not sure if I should forgive them. What do you think?”
He sets his plunger down and sinks into the couch. “Only you can know if you should or can, June.”
“But if he hit you and you were waiting for the bruises to fade before seeing me… that would definitely sway my decision.”
He grins at me. “No punches to the face or anywhere. Like I said, I’ve been writing my book and busy closing down the shop.”
“So, what are you going to do now if the super job is only temporary?”
He shrugs. “Just write, I guess. I have the money to take my time to figure something else out if the writing doesn’t pan out.” He furrows his brow. “I think Archer was also responsible for that.”
“Responsible for what?”
“Giving me breathing room. A couple of days after he offered me a job, I had an envelope with a check pushed through the door. Not with the mail. It was hand-delivered.”
“How much was the check for?”
“$50,000. More than enough to pay off the shop's debts and start a new business if I wanted to. I asked him about it since it could only have been him, but he shrugged and said maybe it was just someone looking to give me a step up because they could.”
“That is…” I stare at him. “Insane. Fifty?”
His expression matches my bewilderment. “When I saw the check was addressed to me, I might have briefly blacked out.”
“And there was no name on the check?”
He shakes his head. “Just my name and more zeros than I’ve seen in my life. I went to my bank, thinking they’d tell me it was fake. And they accepted it. So now I have $50,000 sitting in my checking account.”
“That’s insane,” I repeat.
“Yeah. I’m still not even sure what I’m going to do with the rest of the money.”
It was absolutely Archer. Maybe it was Torin and Callum as well, but I know where that money came from: the only place it could have. My scent matches.