Two
Oliver
There’s a woman sitting outside my door.
Actually, there’s a woman sleeping outside my door.
I swear New York wasn’t this crazy when I left.
I take a step closer, careful to be quiet in case I wake her before I figure out how to deal with this.
The woman has her back up against the wall adjacent to my door, a notebook in her lap, and a pen falling from her limp hand.
I notice a tattoo on the inside of her wrist—the outline of a crescent moon and three stars.
I stare at her face, side-stepping the fact that she is stunning, and gauge how likely it is that she is insane.
I mean, her sleeping outside of a stranger’s door gives me some indication, but I’d like to know how likely she is to jump up and shank me when I try to wake her.
Her hair is tossed in a messy bun at the top of her head, but some untamed blonde curls seem to have escaped confinement. They frame her face, where plump lips sit just barely parted, a shallow breath passing through them every few moments.
I wonder what color her eyes are.
Get it together, Cole. Her eye color has nothing to do with whether she poses a threat at this moment.
Fuck, I’m tired.
I just finished my third night shift in a row, and the ER was especially insane tonight.
I’m pretty sure I have pee on my shoe from a catheter that leaked in one patient’s room, and I cannot wait to shower.
Three night shifts combined with sleeping on my sister Sophia’s tiny mattress and taking care of her exceptionally needy dog that she adopted before jetting off to a gap year in Italy, has me a bit on edge. And now… this.
My gaze drifts to the floor next to the woman, where I spy an open jar of peanut butter and a spoon wedged under my door.
Final answer: Definitely crazy. Probably not a threat.
I clear my throat and she jumps. Not in ready-to-attack mode, but definitely with a why-the-fuck-are-you-disturbing-my-sleep attitude.
Brown. Her eyes are brown. And big, and staring at me like I’m dead meat.
“Can I help you?” I ask, my eyebrows raised.
She studies me, really studies me, from top to bottom, before responding.
“That depends. Do you live here?” she asks, her voice gravelly from sleep.
Her tone implies that I’m the one inconveniencing her, as if she’s not blocking the way into my apartment.
She stretches out her neck, turning it side to side.
“Is there a problem?” I reply, crossing my arms.
She stands up abruptly and opens her mouth as if she’s about to cuss me out, but a whine from the other side of the door catches both our attention.
“That!” she groans. “Is the fucking problem.”
Oh, man. What could he have done? Guilt settles in my stomach for leaving Thor alone for so long, but I didn’t have much of a choice. He didn’t destroy anything the other night. I could tell that he was scratching on the carpet, but I figured that was the extent of it.
“I’m sorry. Was he barking?”
“Barking?” she says in disbelief. “The poor thing was crying. Scratching at the door, whining. You’ve been gone all night! How could you do that to him?”
I’m not really sure how to respond to that.
Of course, I’m not happy about leaving him, but the multiple night shifts are making this whole situation difficult to process.
Surely this woman could have simply left a note if she was concerned—sleeping outside my door all night feels wildly out of proportion.
Maybe this is just a very bizarre dream about having a hot neighbor.
Although, I think if she was a dream-induced hot neighbor, she would be a little nicer.
“Let me get this straight, just so there’s no confusion. You’re angry with me on behalf of the dog, not because of the dog?” I say slowly.
“I’m upset, buddy, because a dog does not deserve to be left alone in an apartment by himself all night! I can’t sleep knowing he’s distressed upstairs, and I need my sleep.” Her gestures get more animated as she gets louder. “Have you never left him alone before?”
“It’s my sister’s dog, and my sister’s apartment. She got him a few weeks ago and then went away, so I moved in and—” I run my hand across the stubble on my jaw. “It’s a long story. He must be having a hard time settling in.”
“You think?” she huffs, crossing her arms across her chest. I take the brief moment that the berating has ceased to observe her.
She’s small, about a head shorter than me, with a petite frame and a curvy stature.
Her face is round, centered by doe-eyes that pull me in like a magnet.
In any other situation, I’d be enraptured by her. Right now, I’m just irritated.
I shake my head. I already feel bad about having to leave the dog, and maybe that’s why I didn’t want the responsibility of watching a damn dog in the first place.
No offense, Thor. But I don’t need this girl adding to my guilt—she literally doesn’t know anything about me.
She’s already disrupting my schedule by making me stand out here in this hallway, and I’m sure one of the other neighbors is going to come angrily bursting out at any moment.
“Ma’am—” She looks at me funny when I say that. “I’m very sorry if my dog disturbed you, but can we table this discussion for another time? It’s pretty late… or early,” I amend, seeing the sun start to peek through the shades of a nearby window.
“Ma’am? Did you just ma’am me?” Her eyes narrow.
Okay, she definitely looks like she is going to murder me now. Maybe I was wrong about her being a threat. She’s small, but I bet she’s scrappy.
I take a deep breath and exhale loudly. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. Let’s try this again. I’m Oliver.” I hold out my hand, which she looks at like it’s holding a vial of a fatal disease. After a few moments, I let it awkwardly fall back to my side.
“I’m Elle, and I don’t think we can start over after this, sir.”
“I’m sorry. After this?” I question, not sure what she means.
“You upset a dog. That is a capital offense in my book,” she says matter-of-factly. She purses her lips and raises an eyebrow at me.
“It’s my dog!” I say, throwing my hands up.
“And that makes it better?”
I blow out a harsh breath. “Okay, I’m going inside now. Please move away from my door.”
“Move away from your door?” She scoffs, like I’m the crazy one here. “What do you think I’m going to do, follow you in?”
“Honestly, I’m not really sure what you’re capable of. You’re sitting outside of a stranger’s apartment at the ass-crack of dawn with a jar of peanut butter,” I say, pushing the key into the lock.
She gives me a hard stare before moving to walk away, but turns back at the top of the stairwell.
“At least tell me the dog’s name,” she says, her bun flopping as she tilts her head to the side. My annoyance is giving way to pure exhaustion, and I hate to admit it, but I can’t help find her hallway-bedhead endearing.
I stop short with one foot in the door. “Why?”
“Because I’ve been calling him Buddy, and I don’t want to assume gender. And I have a feeling that he or she and I will become good friends, given that you are clearly as nice to live with as the Beast.”
I shake my head, so perplexed by every sentence that comes out of this woman’s mouth.
I would usually be better with comebacks, but I’ve been trying to keep people alive for ten hours, and my senses are a little dulled.
“Thor,” I say quickly, cringing. Leave it to my sister to give her dog the most ridiculous name possible.
“And please stay away from my apartment—and my dog,” I add, tonelessly.
Elle doesn’t seem to notice the absurdity of the name. She barely takes a beat before she responds, “Only if you promise not to do a full-blown cardio workout at some ungodly hour today.”
“Wha—” I start to say, thinking back to last night, when I couldn’t sleep and ran on the treadmill until I couldn’t breathe. “What I do in my apartment is none of your business.”
“Maybe a run outside would be better for you. Thor might enjoy it,” she says, eyeing me knowingly. Why is this woman talking to me like she knows me? It’s very unsettling. “And it would be less disruptive to your neighbors,” she adds, raising her brows.
“It’s freezing outside,” I say. Plus, the last time I tried running outside, I wore a black hoodie and hat, and at least three people thought I was going to mug them as I rounded a corner. But I don’t tell her that part.
“I hear that’s good for your stamina,” she says.
“Is that so?” I say, condescendingly. “Do you run?”
“Only when someone is chasing me,” she quips back, casually.
I take one more look at her, trying not to get distracted by the hitch of her hip that she has her hand placed on. I look her dead in the eyes, step into my apartment, and slam the door shut.