“Don’t you always?”
Lucy has a way of ending conversations without having to say good-bye. I know her well enough to recognize that this is one of those moments. I say good-bye and thank her again for the money she’ll send me, the way she always does, which I will repay in love and affection and memes until one day in the distant future, when I have miraculously gotten my life together enough to pay off my overdraft and have enough left to put a dent in my ever-growing tab at the Bank of Lucy.
Feeling at least a little better, I stand back up, dust myself off, and knock on the door.
It takes a few minutes to open.
He’s disconcerted and groggy and wearing only his boxer shorts.
The carefully coiffed blond hair I’d admired in his pictures is now matted, sticking up at all angles. The dried line of drool is still there on the side of his mouth.
I give him my biggest, bestest grin, cocking my head to one side and twirling some hair around a finger.
“Hey there, Niall. Um . . . ”
He yawns loudly and holds up a finger to shush me before covering his mouth. He shakes his head, blinking a few times, then looks at me, confused and none too impressed.
“I hate to be an imposition, but your building is kind of . . . quarantined.”
“It’s what?”
I look for the piece of paper I stepped over earlier and bend down to pick it up. It’s a printed notice that, at a quick glance, instructs residents to stay indoors for a seven-day period. I hold it out to him, staying silent and swaying side to side, hands clasped in front of me, while he reads it, rubbing his eyes. He has to squint, holding it up close to his face.
“Oh shit.”
“There’s a guy downstairs, and he won’t let me leave,” I say. “I’m really sorry, but unless you want to take it up with him . . . ”
I step back inside the apartment, leaving my shoes outside once more. He’s speechless as I put down my bag and coat.
“I’m just going to use your bathroom. You know, wash my hands.” I waggle them at him, as if to prove what a responsible grown-up I am.
When I come out he’s still standing by the door, still clutching the paper.
“So, Nico, listen—”
“It’s Nate.”
“What?”
“My name?” He raises his eyebrows at me, looking more pissed off than tired now. “Nate. Nathan, but . . . Nate.”
I bite my lip, grimacing. I’d kind of hoped if I ran through enough names, I’d hit on the right one eventually. I’d also kind of hoped if I said them quickly enough, he wouldn’t notice.
“Sorry. You’re . . . you’re saved in my phone contacts as the honeypot emoji. You know, ’cause you . . . you said that if you were a fictional character, you’d be Winnie-the-Pooh, and you said your mum kept bees and . . . and that your favorite chocolate bar is Crunchie, which has honeycomb in it . . . I thought it was cute at the time, and funny, but then I realized I’d forgotten your name, and you deleted your profile off the dating app, so I couldn’t check that . . . ”
Nate’s face has softened.
But then, as I take my coat off, he realizes what I’m wearing and lets out a loud, disbelieving laugh. “You’re really something, aren’t you? Talking your way over here when everyone’s meant to be social distancing—”
“I didn’t hear you complaining,” I mutter, none too quietly.
“Sneaking out without so much as a good-bye, and you were planning to make off with my favorite shirt. Wow.”
“Maybe it was just going to be a good excuse to see you again.”
He laughs, rolling his eyes. “Imogen, believe me when I say I have never met anybody like you before.”
I curtsy, even though it sounds like an insult, the way he says it.
“Thank you.”
That, at least, makes him laugh. Nate-Nathan-Nate runs a hand through his hair, taming it only slightly, then tells me, “There are spare towels in the bathroom cabinet if you want to take a shower.
I’m going to see if I can get a food delivery slot online. Then, I guess we’ll . . . I don’t know. Figure this out.”
I’m not exactly sure what there is to “figure out” besides maybe ordering some frozen lasagnas and a few pairs of underwear, but I nod. “Right. Totally. You got it, Nate.”
So much for my swift exit.
APARTMENT #6 – ETHAN
Chapter Two
It’s automatic, the way I roll over when I’m not even fully awake yet, my arm out to pull her closer. The empty space beside me startles me for a second before I wake up enough to remember where she is. I turn back over to face my bedside cabinet, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes with one hand and fumbling for my phone with the other. My hand closes on it and I yank out the charger.
There’s a notification waiting for me on the screen: a text from Charlotte an hour ago.
Just about to leave—I’ll see you in a couple of hours! Xxxxx
She always tells me she’s not a morning person, but the honest to God truth is she absolutely is. What she is, is the kind of person who likes a lazy morning. She’ll wake up an hour before she has to be at work just so she can spend some time curled up under the covers reading, or jotting things down in the powder-blue notebook she takes everywhere with her.
Today must be a special occasion, though, for her to have been actually up and out of bed so early. Well—either that, or after three days being home with her twin sister and parents, clearing out her childhood bedroom and the attic to get ready for her parents to sell up and downsize, she’s been going stir-crazy and can’t wait to get home.
Yeah, I think, it’s definitely that one. She’s been putting this weekend off for as long as she can; she’s been living in denial of her parents selling the house since they announced it a couple of months ago, and I can’t say I blame her. My parents divorced when I was ten and after that, they both moved around a couple of times. If I had to say good-bye to the kind of home Charlotte’s known her whole life, I’d be pretty upset about it too.
I can only imagine how tough this weekend has been for her; it makes sense she’d be on the road before eight o’clock.
What doesn’t make sense is how much I’ve missed her the last couple of days. It’s genuinely pathetic. I can just imagine my friends telling me, Ethan, grow a pair, any guy would give his right arm to have the place to himself for a weekend, get the girlfriend out of the way, have a break from her!
I did see a couple of mates on Friday night, but that was for a Fortnite livestream for my Twitch channel. And see is stretching it a little—we all joined from the comfort of our own homes. Real crazy, frat-boy kinda stuff, of course. While the cat’s away, and all that.
But I’ve missed her.
It’s not like I can’t cope without her, like I’m some mummy’s boy who never learned to do the dishes or make a bed or do the laundry or anything. It’s not like that. If anything, I’m the one who does the bulk of the cleaning around here, always tidying up after her.