Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
They sound close enough that if I carry on going upstairs to Nate’s apartment, I’m going to run into them. Which I guess is a slight issue because, like, there’s an extremely contagious virus on the loose in this building, and whatever, but mainly, it’s a problem because Lucy cannot know I’m here.
And Lucy is on her way downstairs right now.
And Lucy is going to give me such a lecture, and this might actually be the thing that makes her finally lose her shit with me because even I can admit it’s pretty goddamn reckless, and I’ve already got to deal with Nate sighing at me all week.
Oh fuck.
“ . . . like it’s my fault she’ll never find anyone she likes enough to invite. What was I supposed to do? Give my best friend a wedding invitation and not give her the option of a plus one? I just wanted her to have the choice, that’s all.”
“I’m sure she knows that,” Lucy says, ever the mediator.
Her future sister-in-law, Kim, possibly the most uptight and boring person I’ve ever met, barely acknowledges her. “The wedding’s not for six months yet, anyway! She’s got plenty of time to find someone! And it’s not like she even has to bring anyone, or like anybody will care either way, but she acts like I’ve done something really . . . really, malicious, you know? Like I’m trying to show her up, or put her on the spot, and that’s absolutely not what . . . ”
I tune her out and make the snap decision to bolt back downstairs.
I almost barrel right into the doors, where Lucy’s big brother, Jeremy, is now waiting. A couple of bags of shopping rest by his feet. He’s on his phone, though, too busy to notice me, thank God.
The caretaker notices me, though.
“Ramones, what are you—”
“You didn’t see me here,” I tell him, and I dive under the stairs, out of sight, just as I hear Lucy and Kim starting down from the first floor.
Just in time. I could give James Bond a run for his money, I reckon.
I hunch as far under the staircase as I can get, cramped and trying not to eavesdrop as the girls greet the caretaker, explain who Jeremy is, and wait while knock-off Walter White disinfects their stuff. He does leave the door open for them, though, letting them talk to Jeremy for a little while.
Jeremy says something to Kim about how, maybe, they’ll have to think about postponing the wedding. Save some money, just . . . take precautions. Maybe they can even negotiate not losing their deposits, under the circumstances.
“What?” she whimpers, sounding on the verge of tears.
“I just want to toss it in the ring,” he says, with that same everlasting patience as Lucy has. “Put it on the table. Something to consider. This is just looking really serious right now, Kim, that’s all. I don’t want us to have to cancel the wedding, either, believe me, but if we did have to postpone it, it’d save us some money, that’s all I’m thinking. And if that is what we need to do, I’d rather give all the guests as much notice as we can. Some of them are going to need hotels and taxis and . . . ”
My phone buzzes, and I get it out of Nate’s hoodie pocket as quietly as I can. I turn off the vibrate so it doesn’t give me away, then check the notification.
It’s a text from Lucy.
Wedding drama on the horizon. We’re just picking up some food Jere brought us and he said something about postponing the wedding, which was maybe a bit my idea, a little, to save them money and hassle in six months if all this carries on, and now I think Kim might cry. This is like some horrible reality show. Send Ant and Dec in now, please. I’m a bridesmaid, get me out of here.
Uh-oh
Tell me everything
As if I don’t already know exactly what’s going on.
But, ever the dutiful best friend, I let Lucy vent over text while she stands by and waits for their shopping to be disinfected, reassure her that it’s not her fault if they decide to postpone the wedding, all while Kim and Jeremy have a tense conversation about doing just that. I feel only a little bit shitty that I’m lying to her.
Well. I guess it doesn’t count as lying, so much as embellishing the truth.
And is it even embellishing the truth if I just . . . neglect to tell her something?
They’re there for what feels like forever. Once Jeremy is gone and the girls have collected their safely sanitized shopping, and I can’t hear their footsteps anymore, I crawl out from under the stairs. My neck is stiff and my legs have pins and needles, both so numb I stagger and fall over when I try to stand up.
The caretaker sighs at me. “I don’t even want to ask.”
I dust myself off and hug my ASOS package to my chest.
“Thanks for not giving me away, Walt.”
“That’s not my . . . ” He sighs again, and I have to wonder what is it with everybody sighing at me this week? “Yeah, yeah, just wash your damn hands when you get back inside. And stop lurking in my hallways.”
apartment #17 – serena
Chapter Eighteen
“I need some of your clothes.”
“What?”
Zach looks at me, first with confusion, pulling off his gaming headset, and then an expression of terror crosses his face.
After four years, I know him well enough that I know what he’s thinking. I try not to look too annoyed with him. (Being annoyed with him seems to be my default state, since our fight this morning. Or—oh, or maybe it’s my default with him normally, now I think about it.)
“I’m not about to set fire to them and throw them off the balcony in some sort of symbolic cleanse, Zach.” I roll my eyes, even managing a thin smile back at him when he laughs. “Isla next door, she’s stuck with her boyfriend and he doesn’t have any clothes.”
“Oh no. How terrible for them.”
I smirk, opening up the wardrobe to rifle through. “I said I’d lend him some of your clothes.”
“Oh. Uh, sure. That was nice of you. But—isn’t he, like, you know.
A beefcake?”
I do laugh at that, because Zach’s not wrong. From what I’ve seen on Isla’s Instagram account, her boyfriend (Danny, I think?) is built like a brick shithouse. He’s got broad shoulders, big arms. Typical rugby player build, and he’s also really tall.
Although, Isla is a tiny slip of a thing, so maybe he just looks huge by comparison. But Zach’s tall too. And he’s fairly broad shouldered, even if he’s skinny. Looking at him now, I’m suddenly reminded of the first time I ever saw him.
*
Three months out of a serious relationship, I was ready to get back out there. I’d dated the guy through university and been so loved up.
We made it work for two years after getting jobs and going “out into the real world”—by which I mean, we both tried way, way too hard to make it work, even though we lived in different cities and were so obviously going different ways in our lives. Anyway, three months after we finally called it quits, I was so ready to get back out there.
I’d show him, I thought. I’d move on and meet some amazing, really cool guy, who was everything I was looking for, and I’d forget all about him and the relationship we had in the glow of a new romance.