2. Darcy
CHAPTER TWO
darcy
The South End looks exactly like the version of Boston I’ve been building in my head for weeks.
Tree-lined streets stripped bare by winter. Wrought iron railings. Rows of old brownstones standing shoulder to shoulder like they’ve seen everything and survived it anyway. This block feels tucked away, the kind of street people fight to pretend they discovered first.
Something about that feels more reassuring than it has any right to.
Tires hiss on damp pavement somewhere nearby. A siren cuts faint and distant through the air before disappearing. Around the corner, someone’s dog barks before being shushed.
I walk until I’m standing in front of the address from the listing—and stop in my tracks.
The photos did not do it justice.
The building rises three stories in warm red brick, all old-Boston bones and clean renovation lines, the brass numbers above the door still gleaming damp from last night’s rain. Tall windows catch the light in soft, uneven squares.
And there are actual flower boxes with little patches of evergreen still hanging on in February.
I stare at them longer than I mean to.
Whoever lives here believes in effort. That feels, absurdly, like information I needed.
My boots tap softly against the damp stoop as I take in the call box mounted beside the heavy front door, modest and black against the brick—modern enough to work without fuss, understated enough not to ruin the aesthetic.
Three buzzers sit beneath it. The bottom reads MacAllister.
The second is covered with a strip of faded painter’s tape. The top is blank.
I pull up the email on my phone:
MacAllister Properties. Tour scheduled
10:00 a.m.
Please ring top buzzer upon arrival.
I glance between the email and the call box before pressing the top button, because I am a grown woman who drove three hundred miles and can survive ringing a doorbell.
For a second, nothing.
Then the speaker crackles.
“Hey.”
The voice is warm and easy, and something about the casualness of it catches me off guard.
“Hi. Um—Darcy. I’m here for the apartment tour?”
A beat passes before an unmistakably amused voice comes back through the speaker.
“Right on time. That’s already a point in your favor.”
The lock buzzes before I can decide what that means. The front door clicks open, and a second later I’m stepping into warmth.
The foyer smells like cedar and fresh coffee and someone’s clean laundry and, underneath all of that, something faintly smoky.
My brain immediately files this under good house smells before following up with this is not relevant information, Darcy, and yet somehow continuing to mentally note it anyway.
The dark wood floors gleam beneath my feet, rich and freshly refinished but still bearing the tiny nicks and scuffs that remind me this building existed before anyone decided to make it pretty.
Exposed brick climbs beside the staircase, meeting black iron railing and Edison sconces that cast warm light across the old plaster walls.
My fingers tighten around the strap of my bag. For one dizzy second I can see it—my keys in a bowl by the door, shoes by the mat, music drifting from the apartment while I cook.
I shut it down immediately.
I’m here for a tour. I’m not projecting an entire future onto someone else’s hardwood floors.
Footsteps interrupt my spiral. Fast, light, someone taking the stairs two at a time before appearing at the turn of the landing.
And—
Oh.
He’s tall, at least six feet, with the kind of build that makes you think he played football or lacrosse, or maybe just somebody who’s been athletic his entire life and never saw a reason to stop.
Naturally, irritatingly well-put-together in the way of a man who probably doesn’t think about it much.
Dark jeans, worn boots, a heather gray henley pushed to the forearms, which is where my attention dives immediately and, for the record that no one asked for, stays without my permission.
His forearms are corded and veined in that specific way that makes my brain briefly drop whatever it was trying to calculate and—
Down girl.
He has the kind of forearms that belong on someone who knows what they’re doing with their hands. I’ve known him for zero seconds and my body has already filed that observation under urgent and flagged it for immediate follow-up.
I tell my body to file it somewhere other than my lower belly. It declines.
His light brown hair looks like he ran a hand through it on the way downstairs and didn’t bother with the rest. Green eyes.
Sharp cheekbones. And a grin that arrives too quickly and feels too genuine—the smile of someone who is either the most sincere person in any given room or fully aware of exactly what that smile does to people and uses it to his advantage.
Either way it has me clutching my purse strap like a Victorian widow. Lucky me.
He slows on the last step and takes me in. Subtle enough that I notice, not so much that I can object to it. He smiles.
“Well,” he says, voice easy and teasing now that he’s closer, “you’re either my ten o’clock or you’re here to rob us.”
“I’m here for the apartment tour,” I manage.
His mouth kicks up at one corner.
“That’s less exciting than armed robbery, but probably easier to explain to the neighbors.”
He steps off the stairs and holds out a hand.
“Tyler.”
Long fingers. Callused palm. His grip is warm and easy and the moment our hands connect, a sharp little burst of warmth zips up my arm so unexpectedly it nearly makes me lose track of whatever I was about to say.
Somewhere in the middle of our hands connecting, I catch the scent of clean soap and something fresh and masculine I can’t quite put my finger on. Which feels genuinely unfair for a man I’ve known for all of thirty seconds.
Our hands separate and I immediately become aware of how long it’s been since a touch felt uncomplicated. That’s unfortunate information to learn about yourself before ten in the morning.
“Darcy.”
He repeats it slowly, like he’s testing how it feels on his tongue.
“Darcy.”
My pulse decides to make itself known then. Absolutely not.
I glance around the foyer, trying to reset.
“This place is…”
Tyler watches me.
“Better than the pictures?”
“Very much so.”
That gets me that grin again.
“Good answer.”
“You say that to all your prospective tenants?”
“Only the ones who notice the flower boxes.”
“How did you—”
“You looked at them for a full ten seconds before buzzing.”
My mouth opens. Then I process what that means
he was watching me before I even came inside. He noticed me noticing his flowers and thought that was worth mentioning to my face.
Tyler seems to realize what he’s just admitted, and either doesn’t care or has decided that transparency is a personality. His smile turns slightly smug.
“That’s only mildly unnerving,” I say.
“Get used to it.” He’s easy about it. “Old house. Nothing stays private long.”
Warmth creeps into my cheeks, and I clear my throat to stop the flush from rising.
“So…do your parents know you’re letting strangers into their building?”
Tyler laughs, full and easy, bouncing off the old walls and landing low in my ribs.
“Our parents would be deeply offended by that.”
He gestures between himself and the building.
“My brother and I own it.”
My brows lift.
“No offense, but you look approximately fifteen.”
He presses a hand to his chest.
“Ouch. That is both devastating and a compliment, considering I’m thirty.”
He’s ridiculous, and I already like him, and that feels like the kind of irresponsible development on my part.
“You know what I mean.”
Tyler steps back and gestures toward the stairs.
“Come on. Let me show you your future apartment.” He starts up without waiting. “She’s got good bones. Doesn’t let people down easy.”
My apartment.
Surely I hallucinated that part.
I follow him up the stairs before I can think about that too hard.
The staircase is even prettier up close—freshly stained dark wood treads, black iron railing cool beneath my palm.
The house carries sound in the way old buildings do.
Tyler’s boots on the stairs, my footsteps answering, some low hum from below that might be plumbing or the front door or just the house doing its thing.
I’ve lived in apartments that felt like filing cabinets. This one feels alive.
The landing on the third floor is small and warm. Tyler pulls a key from his pocket and opens the apartment, and sunlight spills across the floor stopping me in my tracks.
The listing photos didn’t lie. If anything, they undersold it.
Dark wood floors stretch through one open, airy space flooded with winter light. Soft white walls. Original exposed brick running the length of the living room like the building’s heartbeat. Tall windows line one wall and turn the whole apartment gold where the sun hits.
The kitchen sits off to one side with white cabinets and brass hardware and floating oak shelves and subway tile. I would buy lemons just to put them in a glass bowl here.
Tyler notices and his teasing quiets.
“This is the part where people usually try to play it cool. You’re doing better than most.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It is,” he says seriously, like he means it too.
“My brother and I did the renovation ourselves. Well—mostly. We hired out the stuff that would’ve killed us.” He leans against the kitchen island. “We bought it from our grandparents three years ago. Took forever to get it where we wanted.”
My fingertips drift along the edge of the counter, the quartz cool beneath my hand.
The way he says my brother and I catches my attention. Like family is something he actively participates in, not just shared genetics or a fact printed on a holiday card.
I can already see myself in this apartment, which is either a great sign or evidence that I’ve lost all sense of self-preservation entirely.
Making coffee at that counter. Crying on that floor, probably, at some point, because that’s just statistically where I’m headed.
Figuring something out at that dining nook at midnight with wine I opened too early.
A space that would be mine because I chose it, not because it made sense on paper or fit neatly into someone else’s plan for what my life should look like.
I hadn’t realized how badly I wanted that until this exact second.
Tyler’s voice is gentle.
“Hey.” He’s close enough that I catch his scent again. “You okay?”
The concern in his face is so uncomplicated it nearly undoes me.
“It’s stupid,” I say.
“That’s usually how people start right before saying something that matters.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. “It’s just…this would be my first place on my own.”
His answer is immediate, like he gets it without needing the rest of the story.
“Then it should feel like yours.”
He says it like it’s obvious. Like wanting something doesn’t automatically make you selfish.
Nobody has ever framed it that way before. For a second, I just stare at him before retreating to safer, more practical territory.
“Well, I’m sure there’s a process.”
“What?”
“For the apartment.” I gesture vaguely. “Application. Credit check. Background check. Character references from emotionally stable people.”
Tyler laughs, full and easy. “You seem stable enough.”
“You met me ten minutes ago.”
“Nine,” he winks.
He pushes off the island and reaches into his pocket, pulling out a ring of keys. His gaze flicks to me for half a beat before he thumbs one free—silver, simple, still warm from his palm—and holds it out.
“What’s that?”
“Your key.”
I look from the key to his face to the key.
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“What about the references?”
“You showed up exactly when you said you would. You’ve been coordinating this tour for weeks without once being flaky, and the Pennsylvania address on the license you sent over tells me you’re doing something big. That’s enough for me.”
I stare at him.
He just looked at a Pennsylvania address and a punctual email chain and decided I was worth a key, and he’s not even being charming about it. He’s just being certain, which is somehow so much worse.
“You can’t just hand out keys because I seem organized.”
“I can. I own the building,” he smirks.
I huff out something that is embarrassingly close to a laugh.
“That is deeply irresponsible.”
“Probably.” His grin turns softer. “But I’ve got a good feeling about you.”
I choose to deliberately ignore the way my lower belly flips in response, and I look at the key instead.
Silver, simple, warm from his hand.
My fingers brush Tyler’s when I take it.
I look up and find him already watching me, the teasing gone from his expression. Like he’s just as aware that something shifted as I am and wants to see what I’m going to do about it.
I’ve known this man for less than twenty minutes. I ended an engagement three weeks ago. I drove three hundred miles on four hours of sleep, and now I’m standing in an empty apartment holding a key that apparently belongs to me.
My landlord has forearms that should probably be regulated by some kind of governing body. The sunlight is doing something genuinely unreasonable to the brick wall. There’s a kitchen in there where I would put lemons in a bowl and—
Fuck.