Chapter 9 #2
“I heard that.” He takes a seat and slides a bar stool out from the island for me.
“Sit here so we can begin,” he says, like someone’s governess.
I sit, fold my hands on the marble, and look at the row of folders.
I feel the disorientation of being in the most organized room I have ever been in, while entering the most chaotic possible arrangement with the most controlled possible person.
He grips the seat of my stool and slides it closer to him in one smooth motion. I whip my head to him. “Next time,” he says, “ask nicely, and I’ll make you eggs.” And he casually glides the first folder toward me like there’s nothing out of the ordinary in this exchange.
A lot of these documents and rules I couldn’t understand even if I had a law degree and a translation guide. My name appears in them several times, which is strange, seeing your own name in official documentation. But it’s no problem for him.
“The narrative,” he says. “We stick to it, no matter what. We’ve been seeing each other casually for six months.
Occasionally still seeing other people. We tell the truth wherever we can, but six months ago we started spending more time together, hiding it from everyone.
The friction of being neighbors became—” he pauses, choosing his word carefully “—complicated. We eventually fell in love. I proposed. We’ve kept it quiet because I had just gotten out of a relationship when this started. ”
“So had I,” I say. “Right before I moved in.” He looks up and something shifts almost imperceptibly in his expression, not surprise exactly, more like a piece of information slotting into a place he didn’t know was empty. But like with most things, he clears his throat and continues.
“Then the story writes itself. Tell your friends we’ve been involved for a while. That the fighting was complicated feelings we poorly managed.”
I look at him for a long moment. “You want me to tell my best friend that our mutual hostility was actually just pent-up sexual tension.”
“It’s the most believable part of the whole story.”
“I can’t lie to Chandler.” He might think it’s a non sequitur but it’s been all I have thought about all day.
The thought tucked underneath every other thought, just a face pressed against a window staring me down.
“You aren’t lying to your friend,” I say with some strength.
It’s clear that he considers this before he speaks again.
“My friend is also my lawyer, your lawyer. What I tell him is protected to an extent, and even so, we both know better than to outright call this what it is. He may strongly assume, but he has plausible deniability, everything he has been told is above board.”
I wonder if it’s hard for him to lie to the only people he has.
And in reading through the folders, I understand the people he has (like me) are in limited supply.
The fact that his closest friend (also his lawyer) only ‘strongly assumes’ makes me wonder who holds all of his secrets the way Chandler has held mine.
I never thought much about his backstory.
Honestly, I didn’t even think he had one.
Maybe in some ways I just assumed the Angry Neighbor? is who he is to everyone in his life.
But the way his friend, (who I’ve learned is named Lucas) jumped into action to help, to help me, someone he doesn’t even know just because of who asked him, tells me that to a select few he is worthy of the most loyal of friendships.
“Isn’t it hard for you to lie to people you love?” I ask him. Kicking my shoes off, and pulling my feet up underneath me on the stool.
“No, because I’m not.” He keeps writing notes across the papers in front of us.
Things to come back to, things we need to do, memorize.
I don’t know how he’s multi-tasking so effectively, then again he seems to do everything so effectively.
When I try to multi-task, I get one thing half-done and eventually just lose interest and move to the next.
“Is that some kind of legal loophole?”
“If that’s what you need to call it. But just because you can’t tell someone the whole truth, doesn’t mean you have to lie.”
"What does that mean?"
His dark eyes hide under dark lashes, and still I feel like he can look right through me.
“I want you to tell her the version of events that protects anyone from being asked to lie under oath.” He holds my gaze as he speaks, it’s convincing.
“There’s a difference between a cover story and a lie.
The first one keeps people safe, doesn’t that matter more than someone’s feelings? ”
“That is a suspiciously convenient distinction.”
“And,” he begins, shifting his body, stretching his arm across the counter bringing our torsos closer together, the ‘pent-up sexual tension’ on full display. (Might just be me.) “Tell me you haven’t thought about it?”
I have thought about it. Every time I turn the page of a new script and someone releases a throbbing member or pins the feisty protagonist against a wall, I have thought about it. But that is obviously not what I'm about to say to him.
“I’m told hate-sex is a thing,” I say instead.
Because I’ve never had it and because no matter how much he has been wearing me down with this organized, amber-lit, scrambled-eggs charm, he has made it consistently clear that whatever ‘complicated feelings’ he’s had have never been in the direction of affection. (And even less directed at me.)
“Right,” he says. Just that. But his eyes stay on mine for a beat longer than the word requires, and there is something in the category of suspiciously convenient distinctions that he is not interested in addressing.
I reach for the folder labeled ‘Hudson Personal,’ which he has pinned under his arm. He keeps it there, not moving, just watching me with that small trapped smirk, like he’s waiting to see what I’ll do.
I yank it toward me.
The stool tips.
For one lurching second I feel myself going backward, and then his hand, each time larger than my memory of it, splays across my back and pulls me into stability.
We are close and the folder is pressed between us.
Like some kind of college drinking game where you can’t let it drop.
He blinks the moment away, takes the folder from between our torsos.
Sets me back on the stool and returns to his seat with composure.
“Homework,” he says, sliding it back to me, reestablishing the boundary as if it wasn’t the only thing (besides his general disdain for me) separating us a moment ago.
This folder is different from the others we’ve looked at.
It reads less like legal documentation and more like a private investigator's dossier, all his precise handwriting in the corners. His mother's maiden name. His grandmother’s name, photos of them together. (She’s still living) The schools he attended, the years, the extracurriculars.
(Debate team, of course.) His coffee order.
(Which I already knew.) His deodorant preference.
Daily vitamins. His political affiliation.
(Don't worry.) A hatred of reality television.
A preference for lamps over overhead lighting, which explains why his apartment, for all its minimalism, always sits in soft light that feels counter to everything you would expect of him.
That is (against my will) surprisingly comfortable to be in.
I get to the next line, and my head jerks up. “Nerds Gummy Clusters.”
“Yes.”
“Your favorite candy is Nerds. Clusters.” I punctuate the end of the sentence for emphasis.
“And?”
“You don’t really give off Nerds Clusters energy.” I tell him. He doesn’t hop down from the stool, because he definitely doesn’t give off ‘hop’ energy either. But he steps away from the island and walks towards a drawer in the corner of the kitchen.
“What energy do I give off?” Not a question, a dare to pass judgement. He’s rummaging through a drawer, which also takes me aback, because as much as he doesn’t seem like a sour-candy guy, he definitely doesn’t seem like a guy who rummages.
“The kind that suggests the reason you use Sensodyne toothpaste is because the most dentists recommend it.” A pause precedes the smirk pulling at his lips, as he turns around and slides a bag of Nerds Clusters across the counter.
“Why would anyone choose a toothpaste that isn’t the most recommended?” This smile that he seems to let escape is a habit I never imagined. “The Nerds are non-negotiable,” he says rejoining me in his seat as he tears open the bag and pops a few in his mouth before offering them to me.
“I didn’t know this was a negotiation,” I say, taking some.
“What is it you want, Louisa?” He says my name casual and commanding, like he’s used to it, which makes one of us, because I am not.
“I’m just saying, I would have come with a list of demands,” I say.
“Do your worst.” It’s delivered in a tone that is deep and challenging.
“No more interrupting my recording sessions,” I say, with conviction I am proud of. “I record at any hour. You get earplugs.”
He narrows his eyes. It looks less like annoyance and more like he's re-evaluating something. “Fine. No screaming past midnight.”
“Same goes for you,” I say with full eye contact. “I’d prefer not to hear your guests while I'm trying to sleep.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” he says, and the face of annoyance returns, almost looking insulted.
He takes a steading breath, preparing himself to deliver something I think we both already knew but hadn’t said out loud yet.
“No dating, no other partners. We can’t risk it.
It would nullify everything. So if you have anything going on with anyone,” he says, but he must know that if I’m saying yes to this, then clearly I don’t have anyone else.