Page 32 of 56 Days
She’s hidden the book she’s actually reading—a historical romance—in one of the desk drawers.
She’s also cut the anthers out of the pink lilies arranged in a vase on the dining table just in case he doesn’t know not to touch them, just in case he arrives in one of his knit sweaters with the littlepolo-playeremblem embroidered on the left breast and leans down to breathe in their scent.
She scans again but can’t find anything out of place. This should give her confidence but it has the opposite effect: the perfection feels exceptionally delicate, impossible to maintain, even just for these last few minutes.
Her eyes flick to the digital clock on the TV.
Almost eight. He’ll be here any second.
Five steps back into the kitchen. She opens a cupboard and checks again that her two wine glasses are clear, no smudges or residue. That there’s ice in the freezer. That when you open the oven door you aren’t met with a chemical whiff of oven cleaner you might suspect will somehow taint the taste of cooked food, or the sight of along-forgottenchip burned to black ash.
“Do you think he put this much effort into preppinghisplace foryou?” she asks the empty kitchen.
Of course he didn’t. But his place is brand new. And enormous.
She has to work to impress.
The buzzer goes.
She rushes to the intercom and says, “Hello?” into the microphone as if anyone at all might respond, as if thebuzzer-presseris a mystery man, as if it would be anybody but him.
Then she takes a deep breath and tells herself tocalm the helldown.
“Hey,” he says, his voice sounding tinny through the speaker. “It’s me.”
She presses the button that releases the door lock downstairs and hears the corresponding mechanicalclickthrough the speaker.
“Sixth floor,” she reminds him, even though she’s already told him this twice by text. The only response is the sound of a heavy door left to slam closed.
She releases the button and goes back into the main room. One last check of it. One last check of herself in the mirror.
But by the time she’s done she still hasn’t heard thedingof the elevator or theclunkof the fire door swinging shut at the end of the hall, so she has time to check again. She finds a smudge of mascara beneath her left eye now. How did that happen?Whendid it happen?
She licks a finger and carefully rubs it off.
Ding.
Clunk.
Showtime.
She opens her front door and sticks her head out into the hall. He’s in jeans, aT-shirt, and a black leather jacket. Carrying a brown paper bag by its handles and a bottle of wine by its neck. When he sees her, he smiles.
Every time she sees him like this—up close, coming toward her, comingtoher—she can’t quite believe that it’s really happening.
That itstillis, three weeks in.
She smiles back. “You found me.”
“This time.” He looks sheepish. “Imayhave gone to the wrong block first...”
She laughs because this is exactly what she warned him would happen if he didn’t follow her instructions to the letter. There are severalidentical-lookingblocks in the complex, no decent signs, and multiple entrances and exits.
When he reaches her, she steps back inside so he can come in.
He stops to bend down and meet her lips with his, lifting the wine as he does, absently pressing its cold glass against her side. The chill of it through the thin material of her shirt startles her momentarily, as does the reality of this tall, strong, male body being in the smallest, tightest space of her apartment.
In the same moment, the lock turns in the door directly across the hall.
