Chapter 4
Gemma
My landlord looks like someone carved a lumberjack out of granite and then made him angry about it.
I discovered this approximately twenty minutes ago when I stepped onto the back porch with my coffee and he appeared through the back door in his work clothes, jaw set like he was bracing for a structural fire.
Then his six-year-old tornado of a daughter showed up, asked if I liked dinosaurs, and informed me that the orange cat on the railing is "very SERIOUS about being orange.
" After that, Beck scooped Ivy up for bedtime and disappeared inside.
Which is how I ended up standing on the back porch alone, wondering if I should go back to my suite or if that would be weird.
The cold is sharper here than Denver. Not the wet kind that soaks through your jacket in increments, but clean and immediate---the kind that makes the inside of your nose prickle and turns your breath into small visible clouds.
The mountains at the edge of town are dark shapes against a sky so full of stars it looks deliberate, like someone arranged them specifically to make people from cities feel inadequate about their view choices.
In Denver, ambient light ate the sky whole.
In Copper Ridge, the sky has things to say about itself.
Clarence sits on the railing and stares at me.
"I've been here less than twenty-four hours," I tell him. "I don't have answers yet."
He blinks. Slow. Unimpressed.
The back door opens and Beck fills the frame. He's changed out of his work clothes into a grey henley that does nothing to downplay the granite situation, and he looks at me the way he probably looks at structural damage---assessing, methodical, already calculating what needs to happen next.
"Should go over house rules," he says. "Since you're here."
His kitchen is exactly what I expected and somehow still surprising.
They moved in today --- same as me --- but you wouldn't know it from his side of the wall.
The coffee maker is set up and running, the knives are in their block arranged by size, the dish towel hangs square on the oven handle.
Two boxes sit stacked in the corner, still taped shut, and somehow that's the most revealing thing in the room: he unpacked in order of priority.
Coffee first. Knives. Everything functional, everything in its place. The spice rack is alphabetized.
I notice the spice rack because I am the kind of person who notices spice racks at eight PM in a stranger's kitchen, which is information about me that I'm choosing not to examine right now.
It's the kitchen of a man who controls what he can because some things he couldn't. I recognize it because I've met that person in the mirror --- I just cope differently. Cheerful chaos as a defense mechanism instead of order.
Beck picks up my mug from the counter where I'd set it, refills it from the pot, and slides it back without asking.
"You don't have to---"
"It's made."
The coffee is excellent. Dark and clean with no bitterness, which means he's grinding the beans himself, and the alphabetized spice rack is not even the most organized thing in this kitchen. I take a longer sip than strictly necessary.
"Thank you."
He grunts. I'm already learning his grunts. This one means you're welcome with a side of please stop making this into a thing.
We stand in the particular awkward silence that happens when two people are alone in a kitchen at night with nothing but coffee and unspoken logistics between them.
"So---"
"House rules," he says at the same time.
We both stop. He gestures for me to continue. I shake my head. "No, please. House rules sound important."
His jaw works like he's sorting through words before they're allowed out. "Should probably show you around properly. Since you're here."
"Right. The nickel tour."
Here is the thing Beck doesn't know: I've already been in this suite.
I slept in it last night. I jiggled the side door to the left this morning when I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't open.
I discovered the shower handle situation firsthand at an hour when my brain was not equipped to handle surprises, and I used language that I sincerely hope didn't carry through the walls.
He doesn't know any of that. So I follow him through the connecting door and receive all of this information as though it is new.
Beck flips on the light with the efficiency of a man conducting a briefing.
The suite smells like the same fresh paint as last night --- clean and slightly chemical, the smell of a room recently made ready for someone --- and the walls are the particular shade of beige chosen by landlords everywhere who want to offend no one and inspire nothing.
It's fine. It's dry. The floor doesn't currently have water on it and the bar is that low.
"Your entrance is the side door." He walks over, demonstrates the lock. Opens it, closes it. Opens it again. "Sticks sometimes. Jiggle it to the left."
"Hm," I say, in a tone that implies I am receiving this for the first time.
He opens the coat closet. "Four hangers."
Four hangers, evenly spaced. My jacket is on one of them. We both look at my jacket. Neither of us mentions it. We move on, silently agreeing to let the moment pass with dignity.
"Laundry's in the basement." He gestures toward the door. "Schedule's posted. You get Tuesdays and Thursdays."
"What happens if I need to do laundry on a Wednesday?"
He stops. Turns. "Do you need to do laundry on Wednesdays?"
"No. Just checking the flexibility of the system."
"The system works because people follow the system."
I hide my smile behind my mug. "Tuesdays and Thursdays. No rogue Wednesday loads."
His eyes narrow like he's trying to determine if I'm mocking him. I keep my expression carefully neutral.
"Washer's temperamental," he continues. "Hot water setting doesn't always work. Use warm."
"How temperamental are we talking?"
"Somewhere between annoying and exorcism."
"Did you just make a joke?"
"I made a factual statement about appliance noise," he says.
"You said exorcism."
"The washer is forty years old and sounds like it's possessed. That's a maintenance issue, not humor."
"Right," I say. "Purely informational."
"Purely," he agrees, and moves to the kitchenette.
Mini-fridge, microwave, two-burner hot plate. He opens the cabinets to show me dishes, pulls out drawers to reveal silverware. I already know where everything is. I found the silverware on my third attempt this morning after incorrectly guessing two other drawers. It would be petty to mention this.
"You can use the main kitchen if you need to, but clean up after yourself."
"Absolutely."
"Put things back where you found them."
"Of course."
"Don't leave food out. Attracts mice."
I pause. "Have you had mice?"
"Not yet."
The bathroom is down the short hallway, and Beck is a large person in a small space.
When he pauses for me to follow him through the doorway, there's a moment where we're closer together than the tour strictly requires --- close enough that I clock the detail that he smells like something clean and vaguely pine-adjacent, and that his shoulders are blocking most of the light from behind him.
His forearm brushes mine as he reaches past me to point at the handle, warm through my sleeve, and I find a fascinating amount of interest in the tile grout.
Professional. Completely professional.
He demonstrates the shower handle.
"Too far left, scalding. Too far right, arctic. Sweet spot is here." He adjusts it twice, watching to make sure I'm paying attention.
Sweet spot. Right. I found the scalding end this morning with my left shoulder and a string of words I use exclusively for bad trauma calls. The sweet spot and I made our acquaintance approximately ten minutes later, after a very educational process of elimination.
"You could mark it," I say.
"With what?"
"Tape. A marker. A tiny flag. Something to indicate the zone of survivable temperature."
He turns this over with the gravity of someone considering load-bearing renovations. "That's... actually not a bad idea."
"I have my moments."
The bedroom is last. Small, square, one window facing the backyard --- and my mattress on the basic bed frame where I threw it last night, still unmade, my open duffel on the floor, yesterday's uniform draped over the dresser.
Evidence of a person in the middle of living here rather than receiving a tour of it.
Beck looks at none of this. A man of professional discretion. But he's standing next to my unmade bed in a room that smells like my shampoo, and I am very aware of both of those facts even as I pretend not to be. The room feels smaller than it did last night. Funny how that works.
"Closet door squeaks." He slides it open, closed. The squeak is genuinely impressive --- the kind that would wake a deep sleeper. "I can oil it."
"It only makes noise if I open it," I point out. "I control when that happens."
Something moves in his expression --- not quite curiosity, but adjacent. "Most people find it annoying."
"My last apartment had a radiator that clanged every morning before my alarm. On its own. Every single morning. Like clockwork, but furious."
"Did you report it?"
"Landlord called it character," I say.
"That's not character. That's a maintenance violation." He says it like this is a personal affront, flat and certain, and somehow that's funnier than if he'd made it a joke.
"Yeah, well. Cheap rent, dry floors." I shrug. "You learn to sleep through things."
He watches me for a moment with that careful, assessing look. Then he nods and moves back toward the living area.
The rest of the rules come fast, delivered like a shift briefing: breaker box in the basement, each switch labeled. Thermostat in the main hallway --- don't touch his side. Quiet hours. The kitchen after five.
"Five AM?" I say.
"Ivy wakes up at six. I get coffee before she starts talking about dinosaurs."
"Smart strategy."