CHAPTER SEVEN - EDEN

 

Am I hallucinating? Did I slip into an alternate reality after hearing those guys on that ridiculous morning show talk about the Sexpert? Because my life has suddenly turned into… not my life.

But I’m on autopilot right now as I follow Cheryl into the elevator. Andrew slips in next to me just as Cheryl presses the button for the penthouse, and I’m just about to make a run for it and get out of this hallucination when the elevators door close and force me to see it through.

Why? Why the hell did I agree to go see his apartment?

Well, I am a teeny-tiny bit curious at what a guy like him rents in this building, so I just fake-smile the whole ride up as Cheryl talks about the summer concert series down in the Towne Centre and how the TDH is sponsoring a rodeo this weekend.

“Rodeo?” I ask. “I’ve never heard of that and I’ve worked here for two years.” Personally, I think Cheryl has the hots for Andrew and she’s hinting around that he might like to take her to these events.

“It’s new this year,” Cheryl explains. “Le Man opened up the new event center last fall and there was a lot of controversy about land use and protests about stewardship from the local ranchers before it was built. So Le Man said they’d sponsor one of the local rodeos and bill it as a main event.” Then she turns to Andrew. “It’s going to be great fun. You should go.”

I roll my eyes and realize Andrew is watching me, not looking at Cheryl or paying any attention to her obvious flirting.

“Are you going to the rodeo, Eden?” he asks.

Which makes me snort, it’s that funny. To me, anyway. No one else laughs. “No,” I say, serious again. “I’m deathly afraid of bulls.”

“Really?” he asks, his eyebrows high up on his forehead like this is the most surprising thing he’s heard today. “Why? Did you have a bad encounter with one as a child?”

I can’t tell if he’s joking because my fear of bulls is weird, or if he’s really asking, but I don’t have to worry about it, because the elevator doors open and Cheryl sings, “Here we are!”

Cheryl exits and Andrew waves a hand at me that says, After you, so I follow her out and stand in front of the massive, polished, hardwood double doors that have a little bronze plaque off to the side that says, Penthouse.

As if we didn’t already figure that out.

“We can have your name engraved on that, Andrew,” Cheryl says, pointing to the plaque. “Just tell me what you’d like it to say.” She beams a smile at him and when I look over my shoulder at Andrew again, he’s looking at me, not her.

“What?” I snap. “Why are you staring at me?”

It’s like he knows. Like he’s got some sixth sense that I am the target Pierce aimed him at. Like he’s putting two and two together and any minute now he’s gonna realize—

“Sorry,” he says, eyes averting to Cheryl. “They’re just eyeballs. Everybody calm down.”

“Let’s get inside,” Cheryl says. “There’s a lot to go over.”

Cheryl passes a key card over the security panel and it flashes green as the locking mechanism disengages. Then she opens the double doors with one of those ta-da gestures with arms outstretched. Like she’s a game-show girl presenting a brand-new car.

“Here we are! Notice the floor-to-ceiling windows highlighting the views. Come with me and I’ll point out all the landmarks for you.”

She hooks her hand into the crook of Andrew’s arm and practically drags him over to the windows. He’s looking over his shoulder at me. I’m still standing outside the apartment. He says, “Come on. She’s gonna show us the views.”

I consider turning around and leaving before I get caught in some trap I can’t get out of, but… the views. They’re like the ones from the fiftieth floor of the TDH building and I’m drawn to them.

So I push my glasses up my nose, sniffle from the overabundance of air conditioning, and walk forward with them.

His place, like mine, comes furnished. But this building is ultra-modern, so it has a sparse feeling to it. The couches and chairs are all a little bit retro-feeling. Those crisp geometric edges and skinny tapering peg legs. And they are brightly colored, but tasteful at the same time. Light blue and muted yellow.

“See, that’s Pikes Peak,” Cheryl says, drawing my attention away from the design. “The tallest mountain in Colorado.”

“No, it’s not,” I say.

“Yes,” Cheryl insists. “That is Pikes Peak.”

I look at Andrew, sick of Cheryl’s blatant flirting. “No. I mean Mount Elbert is the tallest mountain. Pikes Peak is the most famous, that’s all. It’s only fourteen thousand one hundred and fifteen feet. Mount Elbert is fourteen thousand four hundred forty feet.” And then I snort again, and say, “Pikes Peak isn’t even the second highest mountain in Colorado.”

“Well—” Cheryl starts to say, but I continue.

“It’s the twentieth.”

Andrew laughs. Cheryl looks annoyed.

“You into mountains?” he asks.

“Not particularly. But I grew up here. We had to memorize all the Fourteeners in sixth grade because that’s useful information every kid should know.” And then I almost snort again but catch myself just in time. “Didn’t you have to do that? Cheryl?” I look at her expectantly.

“I… I grew up in Nebraska.”

I nod at her, smiling. My smile says, I thought so. Not that I thought she grew up in Nebraska. Just not here. I’m suddenly weirdly competitive with the Nebraska-born leasing agent. Which is... unexpected.

“OK, well, there’s a lot more to see,” Cheryl says. “I’m sure no one here wants an impromptu lesson in the Colorado mountains.”

“I do. I love mountains,” Andrew says. Which catches Cheryl off guard because she makes a face that totally says, What? “Really. What else can you teach me? Eden?”

“I... Uh...” Was that innuendo?

I look over at Cheryl, who, I think, is asking herself the very same question, because she says, “OK. So, that’s the tour. How about we go back down and sign your lease, Andrew? You didn’t sign yet.”

“What about the pool?” he asks.

“The pool?” she says.

“Yeah, you said something about the pool downstairs. Crowded? What’s up with the pool?”

“Oh,” she responds, still kind of flustered and annoyed. I don’t know how I’ve wound up in some kind of odd jealousy triangle. I just wanted to sign my lease on my little studio and I now find myself standing awkwardly in a penthouse with a rich, cute guy who’s apparently been asked to destroy my life even though he doesn’t know it and a clearly ovulating leasing agent.

In fairness, I always feel awkward. I just rarely find myself in a situation like this.

“Oh, right,” Cheryl mutters. “The pool. You have your own.”

“What’s that now?” Andrew asks, twisting his neck. I may twist mine too. “My own, you say?”

“Yes. On the roof. That stair there”—she points—“leads to your own private pool just above us. Shall we go down and sign now?” Holy shit, her bedside manner disappeared fast.

“Tell you what. How about,” Andrew says, turning to face Cheryl for the first time since we started this tour, “you go on ahead and I’ll be down in a little bit.” He heads for the stair to the roof. “Eden and I wanna check out this pool.”

“We do?” I ask.

And at the same time Cheryl deflates and says, “You do?”

Andrew nods, taking her by the arm and pulling her towards the open double doors the same way she pulled him away from them a few minutes ago. “Yeah, just go on down and I’ll stop by the leasing office before I head back to work. Then we can talk all about the rodeo.”

“We can?” Cheryl says, hope in her eyes.

“Most def,” Andrew replies, almost pushing her out the doors. “See you in a few.” And then he closes the penthouse doors right as Cheryl opens her mouth to protest, and the matter is settled.

“Jesus Christ,” Andrew says, walking back over to me. “I thought she’d never leave.”

“I didn’t get my key yet,” I say.

“No worries. We can go back down to the leasing office after we check out the pool. Maybe you can show me your place later, huh?” He waggles his eyebrows at me.

I squint at him. “No.”

“Look,” Andrew says, taking my arm and pulling me closer to the windows. “We got off on the wrong foot this morning. I’m sorry, OK? Totally my fault. I wanna make it up to you. K? Let’s go check out the pool. You can use it any time you want. You shouldn’t have to hang out at some crowded, sweaty meat market with creepy guys. Which I’m sure is what’s going on downstairs. So, c’mon. Check out your semi-private pool. There’ll only be one creepy guy hanging out there.” He smiles like he thinks he’s so charming. Which he unfortunately is.

“No,” I say. “No, I just... I wanna go see my apartment, OK? Please?”

This morning has been like getting whiplash. I find out that my stupid little video channel is going unexpectedly viral, then I meet this cute guy in the unlikeliest way, then he steals my charger from me, then I find out that my boss’s boss’s boss is making it his mission to destroy my little video channel because I stole the idea from him, which I didn’t, then I run into the cute guy who hands me back the thing he didn’t actually steal, and then I find out he’s the very person tasked by my boss’s boss’s boss with bringing down the little channel and thereby getting me fired, sued, and tossed out of my adorable studio apartment—which I haven’t even seen yet!—and out onto the street.

Yeah. Whiplash.

“OK, I get it.” Andrew interrupts my thoughts. “But just before you go... which mountain is your favorite?”

“What?”

“Which mountain is your favorite? I climb. I wanna know everything about your favorite mountain.”

“I… I don’t have a favorite mountain. I just like looking at them, that’s all.” I push my glasses up my nose again. “And I like facts. Cheryl was wrong about Pikes Peak, so I just needed to set the record straight. That’s all. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go. I have to grab my key and get back to work to manage a big crisis, anyway.”

“Oh... Sexpert?”

“What?”

“The crisis. Is it the Sexpert thing? Or is Pierce having some other crisis too?”

“Oh, no. Yeah. That’s... Yeah,” I say. Jesus. For a second there I thought he was saying he already knows I’m the Sexpert. Which is stupid. No one knows. Not even the inventor of Voice Lift could figure out my secret that fast.

Right? Right?

“Yeah,” he says. Then, “Hey! You wanna see the terrace, though?” He walks forward, completely ignoring everything I just said about my apartment and needing to get back to work, and grabs a handle on the window and pulls it open. The glass slides smoothly aside, folding in on itself. He does this again for the other window, and suddenly we are outside.

“Wow,” I say, kinda gobsmacked.

Andrew looks at me and smiles. “Not terrible, yeah?”

I walk outside with him, in kind of a trance, looking at all of Colorado as we make our way across the massive terrace filled with outdoor furniture, and stop right at the nearly invisible frameless glass railing to take in the unobstructed views.

The wind is hot and dry just like it is down on the ground, but stronger, so that my hair, even though it’s tied back into a ponytail, blows across my face. We can hear the sound of the lapping water from his private pool just above our heads.

“Hey.” He turns to face me. “So you’re not really afraid of bulls, right? Bulls are awesome.”

“No, I really am. When I was in school up at Colorado State we had Ag Day every fall. I don’t know where you’re from or where you went to school—”

“Originally from Kentucky,” he says. “Bennington for undergrad, then Berkeley for grad school. Art history.”

I snort. I can’t help it. That’s all funny. “Well, anyway. Ag Day is a big deal up there and the school actually has like… a farm? So they bring out the bulls for Ag Day and I swear to God, I was just minding my own business eating my waffle cone as I watched the cowboys do their cowboy thing. And this bull just comes charging up to me. Apparently, it had gotten loose while they were walking it around the stadium. And even though everyone insisted I overreacted and it was tame, I sorta… overreacted and… I don’t really think it was tame.”

“Did it trample you?” Andrew says, aghast.

“No, it licked my ice cream.”

His laugh is so loud I startle.

“It wasn’t funny,” I say. “Do you have any idea how big a bull actually is? That thing was a monster. Scarred me for life.”

“OK,” he says. “Forget the rodeo. But seriously, let’s have dinner tonight. Please?”

“I dunno. I think...”

“What? You think what?”

“I just... Pierce is my boss and...” And you two are probably going to talk about figuring out who this Sexpert chick from the internet is.

“He made a reservation for eight-thirty. Which is a ridiculously European thing to do. I’ll find out where and change it to six-thirty. Which is a very American time to eat. We can meet up then, have dinner first, and then you can scram before he gets there, if it makes you feel weird to hang with your boss socially. I get it. It’s like seeing your elementary school teacher at the grocery store or something.” He looks at me with these puppy-dog eyes that are totally unfair. “Please? I feel like taking you out is the least I can do to make up for stealing your charger.”

I smile at him and say, “Borrowing.”

Which makes him light up with delight. “So, is that a yes?”

I look at him. Consider how I should back away from this. It would be the smart thing to do. I mean, Pierce did ask him to figure out who the Sexpert is, and the more time I spend with him, the more likely it becomes that he will actually do that.

But he’s… he’s cute freeway guy. And well… “OK,” I say. “But I really gotta go now so—”

“Sure,” he says. “Let’s go get keys, I’ll sign my lease and I can walk back to the TDH with you. I’m still new. Don’t wanna get lost.” He winks again.

OK. It’s not un-charming.

So I let him do all that. We go back to the leasing office where Cheryl pouts because she can tell Andrew is interested in me, not her, and we do our thing and pick up our respective keys.

And then he walks me back to work. And it sorta feels like he’s holding my hand, even though he isn’t.

And I’m starting to get the sinking feeling that very soon I’m really, really going to regret ever having let this guy borrow my charger.