5. Dash
DASH
Kane is the first up the stairs when we get to Abby's place. Of course. Which is why, when I hear, “Jesus Christ, Lollipop, what the fuck is going on?” I don’t know immediately what’s happening.
But my heart thuds against my rib cage, and I immediately sprint up the rest of the stairs, taking three at a time.
I hear a growl from Benjamin behind me as he also reacts instinctively to the concern in Kane’s voice.
When I get to the top of the stairs, I see why Kane is upset.
And I’m glad he went first.
Because I probably would have scared Abby with my reaction.
Kane is on his knees in front of Abby, who is sitting in the hallway outside her apartment.
She’s wrapped in a thin blanket, but it’s clear she is still wearing the same clothes she had on earlier.
Which means she has not fully dried off or had a chance to warm up from the cold rain she had to run through from the bus stop to her front door.
Her hair is drying in frizzy waves at this point, but she still looks like a beautiful yet bedraggled street urchin.
And why the fuck is she sitting in the hallway?
“Why the fuck is she sitting in the hallway?”
Benjamin, usually the subtle one, stalks past me to where Kane is crouched in front of Abby with her hands in his, talking quietly.
“Problem inside the apartment,” Kane says, looking over his shoulder and giving Benjamin a look at that clearly says ‘calm the fuck down’.
I don’t know about Benjamin, but that’s not going to be possible.
“What kind of problem?” Benjamin asks, steel in his tone.
Okay, I do know about Benjamin. He’s not going to be able to calm down either. He might just handle it slightly better than I will.
Benjamin will try to fix whatever it is.
Kane will try to make Abby laugh.
I want to simply sweep her up in my arms and take her away from whatever it is.
That seems like the simplest solution.
“Ceiling caved in.”
I freeze at the sound of a new voice. An older woman’s voice. I lean to look around Kane’s crouching form.
Sure enough, there’s an older lady sitting on Abby’s other side, also wrapped in a blanket.
I’m not trying to be a dick, but this hallway and the floor of this hallway are not places people should be sitting, especially women old enough to my grandmother.
Hell, my great-grandmother. There aren’t rats scurrying around, at least not at the moment, but it hasn’t seen a soap bubble or a vacuum cleaner in at least a decade.
“Hi, I’m Kane by the way.” Kane gives the woman a smile.
“Oh my God,” Abby says. She shakes her head almost as if she forgot the woman was there as well.
“Mrs. Litwinski, this is Kane. And Benjamin.” As she looks up at Benjamin, her cheeks get pink.
Then she looks at me, and I swear her mouth drops open for a moment, and she might even suck in a breath.
So that seems weird. And I’m not close enough to her to confirm.
“And Dash.” She swallows hard. “This is my neighbor. Mrs. Litwinski. My neighbor,” she repeats, which tells me how rattled she is.
By the situation? Or by the three of us?
“How do you know Abby?” the woman asks Kane.
Is this really the time for this? They’re sitting on the fucking floor instead of inside their apartments.
“We just met her today at the hockey rink. She was there for work. We gave her a tour.”
“Why are you here right now?” Abby asks as if it’s just occurring to her that it’s strange.
“You forgot this.” I finally speak, holding up her water bottle.
My heart squeezes at the way her eyes light up when she sees the thing. It’s so simple. But now I plan to buy this woman a thousand water bottles and give them to her one by one just to see her light up like that.
“And you all three had to come?” Mrs. Litwinski asks.
“Yes,” Benjamin says simply and firmly.
“I see.” She nods as if she does, in fact, understand.
“Time to go,” Benjamin says, stepping forward.
“Go?” Abby asks, looking up at him with a sweet, genuinely innocent look that I know is doing a number on my friend.
“Yes. Go. You’re not staying here.”
Thank God. Benjamin will make her leave this dump.
I, on the other hand, am more likely to do the caveman thing and just throw her over my shoulder. Which will work. But might freak her out.
“But…” Abby looks from him to Kane. She takes a deep breath.
Okay, so Kane makes her feel more comfortable. That makes sense.
“I don’t have anywhere to go,” she tells him.
“Oh, Lollipop, that isn’t true,” Kane tells her, reaching to brush her hair away from her face. “You’re coming with us.”
Her eyes go startlingly wide.
“I am?”
Well, that’s a better response than ‘you’re nuts’ or ‘the fuck if I am’.
“You can’t stay here,” Mrs. L tells her. “Honey, this place is terrible. Even if maintenance gets here soon, your bed and couch are both soaked. Where will you sleep? You have three amazing men here who want to get you out of here. You have to go.”
I like Mrs. L already.
The three of us are staring at her by the time she finishes.
I can tell by the way he’s holding himself that Benjamin is about to lose his shit.
“Your bed and coach are both soaked?” he asks tightly.
“Ceiling caved in,” Mrs. L repeats. “There’s water everywhere.”
Benjamin pulls in a breath through his nose. I can see the muscle along his jaw clenching from where I’m standing. “Where is your apartment manager?” he asks.
“We’ve been waiting for him for over an hour,” Mrs. L says. “I doubt he’ll show, to be honest.”
I notice the way she’s watching Benjamin. She’s figured out that he’s a guy who will get shit done. She’s riling him up, so he’ll get this situation fixed for her too.
Smart.
“Let’s see the apartment,” I say. We have to get in there to pack Abby’s shit up after all.
Benjamin’s entire body is tense as I put a hand on his shoulder and turn him toward Abby’s apartment door. I push it open and nudge him through it, leaving Kane to keep Abby calm in the hallway.
“Jesus Christ,” Benjamin swears as we step inside.
Yeah, this is bad.
The apartment is tiny. And I don’t mean small compared to where we live. I mean tiny compared to all apartments in the world.
We’re standing in the living room, and even with just me and Benjamin in the space, I feel claustrophobic.
The only things in the room are a sofa, a coffee table, and a rug, and they’re all soaked. Because the ceiling above them is lying on top of them now.
I peek through the doorway to my right. Her bedroom. I would be more interested in that room, but the first thing I notice is that her bed is also wet, as Mrs. L said, because of the steady drip from the ceiling above it.
“Shit, that’s about to go,” I say, looking at the bubbled ceiling above it.
“She is not staying here,” Benjamin declares. “I didn’t want her staying here before the fucking ceiling caved in.”
“You know how Kane and I feel,” I tell him with a shrug.
“I’m going to make some calls. Do you want to pack up her stuff?”
I am definitely the one to pack her stuff.
Benjamin would pack a pair of jeans and a shirt and then say we could buy the rest. He wouldn’t think of things like comfort and her wanting to have things that are special to her, even if they are a little worn and okay, inexpensive.
He’s not an asshole. He just wants everyone he cares about to have the best of everything and one of his love languages is buying us stuff. Providing for us.
I have no doubt he’s itching to burn this building down.
Kane, on the other hand, would make sure we packed her favorite snacks, her sexiest underwear, and…that might be it.
I’m going to make sure she has her favorite pajamas, her comfiest sweatshirt, and whatever else I can see that seems special and nostalgic.
“You’re not actually going to try to get this building fixed up, are you?” I ask as Benjamin starts thumbing through his phone contacts.
“No, I’m going to sue the fuck out of the guy who owns this goddamn building. We’re going to get it condemned, and we’re going to make sure that every other property he owns is fully inspected and get any licenses he’s got reviewed and hopefully revoked.”
I take a deep breath and step forward. “Is that going to result in leaving a bunch of people without a place to live?” I ask him, trying to insert some reason into his frustration and anger.
Benjamin is always the reasonable one, but Abby has clearly already messed with all of our emotions.
“Not if we make sure someone else owns the buildings. But they need to be up to code. People shouldn’t be living like this.”
I nod. “But your standards aren’t everyone else’s standards. Take a deep breath.”
He does.
Even though he’s older, smarter, and definitely more sophisticated than Kane and me, Benjamin always listens to us and cares about our feelings and opinions. It’s how the three of us have worked for so long.
“Make sure she has everything she needs,” he tells me after he’s calmed down a little bit.
I nod. “Of course.”
And I realize he understands that not everything Abby needs is going to be something he can slap down his platinum card for.
I step into the doorway to Abby’s bedroom, feeling like this is a huge intrusion suddenly.
The room is tiny and incredibly feminine. The scent of strawberries nearly knocks me over, and I grip the door jamb for a moment as I inhale deeply.
This scent will soon be in Benjamin’s house.
On the real girl. And all of her stuff.
That means I am not going to be leaving Benjamin’s house.
I wonder if he realizes that.
I step into the room, the hardwood floor creaking underneath my feet.
Her bed is a regular-sized double, and, stupidly, my first thought, looking at the sweet pink duvet and the measly two pillows, is that she needs nicer stuff.
Fluffier stuff. There’s something about Abby that makes me think of soft, plush, and comfortable.
The second thought is, of course, she’s going to need a bigger bed.
I won’t even fit in that bed, and if there’s going to be two or three of us with her— and there is, eventually—we’re absolutely going to have to do something about bed size.