Page 6 of Faking the Heat

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I say grabbing the carrier from her before she can protest.

We climb in silence, except for the periodic thunk of the cat carrier against my thigh. At every landing, Mandy takes a second to lean on the railing, but she never asks for help. There is something almost feral about the way she grits through pain: a dare to anyone who might suggest she’s not up for it. I respect that, even as I’m half convinced she’ll collapse before we make it home.

I key the code into the loft and push the door open with the hip, bump maneuver all single men master after the third Amazon package. Inside, the air is exceptionally cooler, spiced with the faint chemical aftertaste of last week’s deep clean and, currently, a staleness that could be solved with five minutes and an open window. Mandy steps inside, stops, and does a 180, degree scan.

The space is mostly open. exposed brick walls, big industrial windows with metal casements, concrete floors polished to a shine only because the last tenant (a “sculptural performance artist” per the lease history) dumped buckets of floor wax everywhere before moving out. I have a couch, leather, well-loved and the color of a burnt marshmallow, opposite a TV that’s much too large for the room. Bookshelves line the wall between the windows, filled with paperbacks, a few photo albums, and, for reasons I don’t remember, a glass jar full of old keys.

“Kitchen’s over there,” I point, as if the layout leaves room for ambiguity. “If you want water, the faucet sticks. Quarter, turn past where you think it should stop, or it drips all night.”

She nods, sets her laptop on the counter, and walks straight to the windows, I trail behind with Bowie in the carrier like a duffel bag with a soul. She’s peering out at the city, arms folded, jaw working as she takes in the new angle on her life.

“There’s a guest room,” I say. “Fresh sheets, I think, unless Jake crashed here last week and didn’t tell me.” I say it like a joke, but there’s a decent chance it’s true.

She doesn’t answer, just drifts toward the hallway, and I follow. The guest room is basically a bed, a dresser, and a window. Nothing on the walls. I open the closet, empty hangers, a box of ancient Christmas lights I meant to throw away last year. She gives it the critical once, over.

“Very minimalist,” she says.

“Yeah, well. I like to keep my existential dread uncluttered.”

She laughs, once, short and sharp.

I set Bowie’s carrier on the floor, unlatch it, and the cat does not hesitate. He steps out, arches his back, and immediately begins prowling the perimeter of the room. Mandy watches him, then sits on the edge of the bed, hands braced on her knees, eyes closed. She is so still that for a second I wonder if she’s shut down completely.

I stand in the doorway. “If you want to shower or nap or whatever, go for it. I’ll be in the other room.”

She opens her eyes, meets mine. “Thanks, Sterling.”

I shrug, just say, “Make yourself at home,” and walk out.

In the kitchen, I pace for a minute, then decide to give her more space. I grab my keys, yell a “going for groceries!” that’s probably unnecessary, and close the door behind me, maybe a little too hard.

The air in the hallway is warmer, thicker, and I take the stairs down at a jog, burning off the energy I don’t want to bring back upstairs.

Half a block from the building, I remember her coffee order, oat milk, one sugar, no foam, not because she’s picky but because too much froth makes her gag. She explained this once at the Inked Teacup, and I mocked her for it, and she retaliated by swapping my entire phone interface to Spanish and refusing to fix it for a week.

I order her drink without thinking about it, hit the pet store, then double back to the bakery for something with enough calories to offset a nuclear winter. On the way, I’m replaying the last hour on a loop, the fire, the ambulance, the moment in the firehouse when she managed to make Jake shut up for ten consecutive seconds.

I know this is a favor. I know it’s supposed to be temporary. But as I walk back, arms full of bags and the city’s heat setting my very bones on fire, I can’t shake the feeling that nothing is ever really temporary.

By the time I get back to the building, my fingers are numb, and the drinks are threatening to slosh over the edge of the tray.

Upstairs, I hesitate outside my own door, just long enough for the moment to feel weird, then I unlock and push through.

Mandy is on the couch, laptop open, Bowie curled in the crook of her arm like he’s never known any home but this one.

Chapter three

Minimalist Sanctuaries

Mandy

Sterling leaves for groceries, the door clicking loudly behind him with and suddenly the loft is quiet in the way only a warehouse, sized room can be. Echoey, blank, the kind of quiet that makes you want to fill it with noise just to remind yourself you exist. I stand in the center of his living room in my pajama pants, my new fuzzy llama socks, and a borrowed sense of dignity, because that’s all I have left. The air is cold on my ankles, and somewhere under the chemical undertone of cleaning spray and city dust, I still smell smoke. It’s in my hair, in my skin, a souvenir from the morning’s fireworks.

Bowie, my traitorous odd eyed bastard, is already two rooms deep into his independent audit of the property. He is a male calico, which happens in roughly one cat out of every three thousand, a statistic I have deployed at parties, on two separate dates, and once, memorably, at a dentist appointment. He is genetically extraordinary and morally bankrupt. He reappears briefly, looping along the baseboard with the air of a creative director silently judging someone else's layout choices, then disappears down the hall, tail upright, judgment engaged. I envy him, a little. He has no existential baggage. A floor is a floor, a window is a window, and if a home burns down, you simply move to the next viable shelter and never look back.

I try not to look back , but my brain is a hoarder of loss. So instead, I look around.

Sterling’s place is… honest. There are no design choices here, only practical decisions that, by accident or inertia, have a certain warmth. The exposed brick is flaked with patches of white paint, like someone started a project and gave up halfway. The windows are so tall they could double as suicide hazards, and in this warm morning light, the floor is all rectangles of sun and shadow, the boundaries so crisp I feel compelled to stay within them. There’s a half-drunk coffee mug on the counter, left behind in the morning rush, black, chipped at the rim, with a faded fire department logo. I wonder how many cups of coffee in this city are brewed and abandoned because someone had to be a hero on short notice.