Page 26 of How Freaking Romantic
BEATRICE
ARE YOU BUSY RIGHT NOW
NATHAN ASSHOLE
No. Everything okay?
BEATRICE
YES JUST WONDERING IF YOU KNOW ANY TENANTS RIGHTS LAWYERS
NATHAN ASSHOLE
Why, what happened?
BEATRICE
NOTHING
EVERYTHING IS TOTALLY FINE
I JUST NEED A LAWYER PLEASE
NATHAN ASSHOLE
Why do you need a tenant rights lawyer at 10 on a Friday night?
BEATRICE
ITS NOTHING
MY BUILDING MIGHT BE CONDEMNED
BUT IT IS OK
I JUST NEED A FUCKING LAWYER
NATHAN ASSHOLE
Jesus
Hold on.
I throw my phone back in my bag and collapse on the bottom step of a random building’s stoop.
It’s down the street from my apartment, and after pacing the block a half dozen times, I decided it is the perfect place to sit down and feel sorry for myself.
I should have known something like this would happen; the building is barely habitable as it is.
But I was lulled into a false sense of security by the low rent and easy commute.
The next thirty minutes are spent combing the city building codes and calling every number offered on the city municipal website. They’re all closed at this hour, but I still leave messages for any office that has voicemail. Then my phone starts to ring and Nathan’s name appears on-screen.
“What?” I whine into the phone.
“Where are you?” His voice is so deep I feel like it makes the phone vibrate in my hand.
My head falls back against the laundry, and I close my eyes. “I already told you. I’m at my building. Do you have a lawyer for me or what?”
“I’m at your building and I don’t see you.”
My head shoots up and I open one eye to look down the dark street to my building.
There, standing under the streetlamp, is Nathan Asher. He’s in his coat, but it’s been thrown over a hooded sweatshirt and jeans. It’s startlingly casual, but there’s still no mistaking that it’s him.
“Motherfucker,” I murmur.
“What are you—”
I hang up before he can finish. His hair is messy and pushed back from his striking profile as he shakes his head and looks down at his phone, like he’s going to try to call me again.
I struggle to lift my laundry bag, then my backpack.
The weight of both has my body bent over at almost ninety degrees as I shuffle toward him.
Embarrassing, yes, but hopefully it also distracts him from what I’m wearing—oversized sweatpants that puddle around tattered sneakers, and a Poughkeepsie Fun Run 1996 sweatshirt with no bra.
I stop a few feet in front of him, dropping the laundry bag onto the sidewalk between us. It makes a sickening thud, like there’s a dead body hidden inside.
“Is that your landlord?” he asks, staring down at it.
“God, you’re hilarious. So funny,” I reply, my expression flat. “I’m so glad I texted you.”
He tamps down his smile. “All right, what happened?”
“I was at the laundromat for a few hours, and when I came home that sign was on the door.”
“You were at the laundromat on a Friday night?”
I roll my eyes. “Love the judgment from a guy who had nothing better to do on a Friday night than come up here to listen to me whine about mine.”
His smile broadens again, revealing the dimple and, ohmygod I can’t deal with this right now.
“Stop smiling. I’m homeless.”
He ignores the comment and nods up at the building. “Have you called your super yet?”
I nod. “Apparently a pipe burst, but that’s only one issue on a long list of things that got an inspector out here.
Now we can’t legally enter the building until the issues are addressed.
The super says they’ll be working all weekend, but he also said the landlord is telling him that he’s not responsible for putting any of us up in a hotel, which sucks because even if I fight it, I still need a place tonight and I literally have no money, so—”
“When did he say they’d have everything fixed?” Nathan asks, cutting me off.
I scoff. “?‘Everything’ is a relative term here, but he said they should have enough fixed to get us back in the building by Monday. Which is fine. I have my laptop and my books and literally all my clothes right here, so I’ll just keep trying to get ahold of my friends to see if I can go stay at their place in Cold Spring. ”
“The friends who got engaged?”
I nod. “I left a couple of messages. They’re still on vacation, so that’s probably why they’re not picking up.
But I’m sure I can stay at their house. I just need to know the code for the security system.
And get a key. So… yeah. I’m just going to go to Grand Central and wait for them to get back to me and then I can jump on a train. ”
“And if they don’t get back to you tonight?”
My eyes are everywhere but on his face as I try to think of something, anything to say, other than the truth: I have no idea.
The silence is broken by the high-pitched whirl of a motor approaching. We both turn to see Mrs. Seigel on her motorized scooter coming down the sidewalk toward us. She’s in a bright yellow dressing robe with an unlit cigarette hanging from her mouth and barely looks up as I shuffle toward her.
“Mrs. Seigel! Did you see the notice on the door? Do you need any help?” I ask, my voice an octave higher than usual.
She throws a glance up at the building. “Nah. I’m good.”
I blink. “But… what are you going to do?”
The old woman scoffs. “I’m going to stay at my boyfriend’s.”
Then she hits the gas, rambling down the sidewalk toward the corner. I watch her go, my shoulders slumping as the silhouette of the motorized scooter turns down Broadway. A moment later, Nathan steps up to my side.
“Want to grab a drink?” he asks.
I let out a long breath, defeated.
I let Nathan put my laundry bag in the back of his waiting Uber, but the backpack remains in my arms. It’s precious cargo; my books and tablet and laptop feel like a buoy right now, the only things keeping me moored to reality tonight.
I tell myself Nathan understands. After all, he’s my colleague. This is all just a professional courtesy.
But that mantra dissolves as soon as I sit down in the back seat.
The car smells like cedar and leather and something clean, and it takes my brain a minute to recognize why that’s so comforting.
It’s because Nathan smells like cedar and leather and soap.
I want to ignore it, but the moment the realization forms, it seems to grow, enveloping me and prodding memories awake, even as I try to pretend they’re not there at all.
I can feel Nathan’s eyes on me as the car slides into traffic, so I take out my phone, hell-bent on looking busy.
And to be fair, I am; I lose myself in searches for New York City building code and tenants rights groups, so I don’t even realize we’ve come to a stop twenty minutes later until the passenger door next to me swings open again.
There’s a uniformed doorman standing there, smiling down at me as I stare back dumbly. Then I turn to Nathan.
“Where are we?”
“My building.”
My eyes widen. “Excuse me?”
“My—”
“No,” I say, grabbing my backpack and ignoring the hand offered to me by the doorman as I stumble out. “No way.”
Nathan murmurs something under his breath as he gets out on his side. Then he comes around the car to where I now stand on the sidewalk, clutching my backpack to my chest.
“I’m not going up to your apartment,” I say, lifting my chin up defiantly.
“I didn’t ask you to come up to my apartment.”
“Then why the hell are we here?”
“We’re going to drop off your bag and your laundry with Tony,” he says, nodding to the doorman. “He can hold on to them while we grab a drink and wait for your friend to get back to you. Unless you want to drag all of this to a bar.”
He’s looking down at me expectantly, his hands on his hips, and I’m tempted to do just that: bring my laundry and my study materials and set it all right on top of the bar just to spite him.
But even as the thought strikes me, it feels perfunctory.
These small challenges and thinly veiled aggressions that were once habit now feel like hollow gestures.
“Whatever,” I say.
Tony takes the cue and picks up the laundry bag to put on a nearby brass trolley. He has to use both hands and lift with his knees; even then, he struggles under the weight of it. Then he turns to me and smiles, his hand outstretched and waiting for my backpack.
Oh God . I hesitate, biting my bottom lip as I slowly offer him the tattered canvas bag as if it were my firstborn.
“Please be careful with that,” I plead, watching him lift it onto a hook in the center of the trolley. “Everything I need for school is in there. It’s my whole life, and if it goes missing… you know what, I’ll just take it, it’s fine—”
I move to grab it back, but Nathan reaches me first, placing his hands on my shoulders and turning me in the opposite direction.
“Leave it,” he says.
I force out a laugh. “Right. It’s only my entire future, no big deal.”
“I get it. But it’ll be fine, trust me.”
“That’s the thing, Nathan. I don’t trust you.”
I don’t mean it. Even as the words rolled off my tongue, I knew I didn’t mean it at all. But it’s an old habit, words wielded as weapons, and I use them before I can think better of it. Now they’re out and all I can do is watch as they hit their mark.
Nathan lets out a long breath, shaking his head as silence settles between us. When he looks back at me from under his brow, his blue eyes almost glowing, something in my chest constricts.
“Do you want to get a drink or not, Bea?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
“Okay. Where do you want to go?”
I let my eyes dart to the buildings around us, finally resting on a bar across the street.
“There.”
And then I’m crossing the street before he has time to reply.