Page 70 of Levi

I don’t scroll. I promised him I wouldn’t. I type the one word back.

Levi: good

I hit send and pray it’s true. I’m standing on a terrace telling the man who owns him that Levi is good, and the truth is I don’t know what Levi is.

The phone goes back in my pocket against my own, and through the glass the client is trailing her fingers along the stone island. She’s starting to think of it as hers.

I go back inside.

“Sorry. The office.” I say it light, to Jonathan, who nods.

The showing builds. She goes upstairs. I stay down and let Jonathan walk her, old money to old money, his drawl doing the slow work mine would crowd. I hear them moving overhead. Her heels on the stairs.

When they come back down, she’s different. Settled into it. She asks the questions buyers ask when they’ve stopped touring and started owning. Jonathan handles them at his unhurried pace. I supply two facts that matter and not one more. The deal tilts in my favor.

This could be the one. But I don’t spend a win before it’s closed, so I put it away and work.

The second buzz comes when there’s no gap to step into.

She’s at the glass again, Jonathan beside her, asking him something low. It’s the moment when a buyer says the private thing to her own broker, the one that means yes is coming, and the room should hold its breath. The phone buzzes against my leg again.

His phone. Again. Off the schedule.

Freddie: Status

And this time two things come up in me at once. The first is plain anger, fast — who does this? Who reaches into a Saturday morning twice in an hour? Who keeps a man on a string so short it twitches the second the one holding it gets uneasy?

The second is worse. What if he’s right? What if something is wrong with Levi? Why is he texting a second time?

There’s no natural exit for me, so I create one. “Let me grab the association docs for you,” I say, already moving toward the foyer and my bag. It buys me the eight feet of turned back I need. I punch in the six digits to open the phone. Go to the thread.

Levi: still good

Send. Close. Pocket the phone.

I’m back with the documents in my hand inside fifteen seconds, and Jonathan’s still talking, and she never looked over.

Cleaner than the first time. I hand the woman her association documents, and I keep my eyes off the clock, because the clock only confirms how long Levi’s been alone.

She’s not buying today and I don’t expect her to. Jonathan wouldn’t let her if she tried; that’s not how his people do it. But when she puts her hand out at the door it’s warm, and she holds my eye a moment longer, and she says the house is “very close.” From a woman who tours nothing that needs explaining, that’s almost a yes.

Jonathan lingers half a step behind her on the threshold.

“She’s between this and the blue house in Seaside,” he says. “She’ll want a second look. I’d guess inside the week. She’ll want to sleep on it, and then she’ll do it fast.” The drawl doesn’t hurry. “Get me that packet and keep this air exactly like it is, son, and I believe we’re walking toward a number.” He puts his hand out. Good grip, dry palm, two pumps, done. “Well done. Truly. You’d never know a soul had set foot in it.”

And then they’re gone, the car down the drive and through the gate. The house is mine, perfectly silent.

I’ve won.

I stand in the middle of the best room on this coast and let myself have it — and I can’t. Not all of it. Not the way I would have a month ago, when a morning like this would have been spectacular. A huge success.

I made the air smell like nothing. I made the room feel like nothing bad has ever happened here.

Best professional morning of my year, and I’m standing in it checking my phone out of habit for a call it can’t receive from a man who has no way to place one.

I take his phone out of my pocket. All of him locked behind six digits I know. The answer to who does this to you and why is in my hand, one thumb-swipe down. The pull to find out comes up one more time.

I don’t open it because I gave him my word. I put it back down under the cushions, and I lock the house behind me. Then I stop pretending I’m not in a hurry.