“I’m sorry—YOU WHAT!?” CiCi shrieks at a decibel that could shatter glass.
“Shh,” I hiss. “I think I hear dogs in the next borough howling.”
I spent my morning juggling two different interviews with two different publishing houses. I’d planned to get a few hours in at the units this afternoon, what with being so very close to being done, but CiCi insisted I meet her for lunch, and honestly, I could stand to eat in a place where people don’t try to shove cameras up my skirt as I exit a car.
Plus, after the crowbar and pickled eyeball incidents, I’m starting to think the units are saving the worst surprises for the end. And, if I’m being honest, I was delighted to blow off my trash-sorting to deliver the news about my night with Caspian in person, so I could savor the look on her face.
Which, aside from her earsplitting volume, hasn’t disappointed.
Coming with exactly zero shock to me, she doesn’t seem to care much about my job interviews compared to the details of my Cas kiss. After my third straight rundown of every single tiny detail of our interlude, I finally put an embargo on any smooch talk until I get a chance to dive into my professional prospects. I came to the diner where we’re having lunch straight from my second meeting, and I’m dying to get her opinion on my chances.
At the first—Carmichael Press—the VP launched into her love of all things Caspian immediately after we were introduced, and asked if I could snag her an autograph. And despite the seismic shift in my relationship with Cas, it’s getting harder and harder to sit through these encounters without screaming, “I AM FULLY QUALIFIED FOR THIS JOB PLEASE CARE.”
He’s a mighty fine kisser and all, but I still want to get a job based on my merits, not his cheekbones.
His sexy, sexy cheekbones.
Ahem.
The second—Fogler Publishing, a midsize house with a solid reputation—had impressed me by making it through the entire interview without mentioning my faux beloved once. I had to give the guy who interviewed me credit; if he was holding in his Tiddle-squee, he did a good job. But he was just a preinterview for the president, who may yet drop the Cas bomb.
Which would be a damn shame. I’d actually really liked Trey, my interviewer, and I’ve heard great things about Joan McInerney, the semilegendary boss of all. Bigger pubs have been trying to lure her away for years, but she has yet to be wooed.
“That’s great news, right? The guy not even mentioning Caspian?” CiCi asks as our food arrives, and I can see how hard she is physically restraining herself to stay on topic.
“I hope so,” I say, picking up half my BLT. “I’m almost done at E-Z Storage, and I think I’m getting to the point where I can’t turn down the other offers just because they don’t give the foggiest fuck about my actual skill as an editor.”
Through an enormous mouthful of baby greens, CiCi mumbles, “That’s the spirit.”
“Is there a reason you’re attacking that salad like it owes you money?” I ask. “Do you have to get back to the office?”
CiCi snorts, and I worry she may choke on a crouton. “No. Good one. But I do have a surprise for you after this. We have an appointment.”
I pause with my sandwich an inch from my mouth. “What kind of appointment?”
She swallows quickly and grins. “The good kind. Now snarf faster, lady.”
I manage half my sandwich and five whole fries before she’s up, paying the check, and dragging me out behind her.
A moderate cab ride later, the time of which is passed with a fourth and fifth retelling of the kiss, we arrive at our destination.
“We’re...at your apartment,” I observe.
“Nothing gets by you,” CiCi says as she tucks her debit card back in her wallet. She grabs my hand and pulls me in through the doors after her.
In the elevator, I watch as she hits the fifth floor instead of her usual third floor.
“What are you up to?” I frown, suspicious and dying of curiosity.
She’s practically bouncing in place, making the elevator shake a little. It’s not one of my more rational fears, but I don’t care much for elevators, and making them shake on purpose amplifies that paranoia. I reach out and try to hold her in place.
When the doors open, she heads out down the hall, and I don’t have much choice but to follow her.
There’s a woman standing by a doorway, and CiCi beams. “Hi, Mrs. Esposito,” she calls out.
“Hello, Cindy,” the woman says.
I pause midstep. “Who’s Cindy?” I ask.
CiCi turns and sighs. “I am. Shh.”
She grabs my hand and continues pulling me along with her, but I am in shock.
Cindy? What?
Mrs. Esposito opens up an apartment door and says, “Just send me a text when you’re done, and lock the door when you leave.”
“Yes, ma’am!” my friend trills. Without giving me a chance to do anything but wave a hello to the woman with the keys, I’m being yanked inside.
“How have we known each other for years and years, and I’m just now finding out your name is Cindy?” I ask.
“Because no one but my grandma and people who read my credit report even know that it is,” she says. “Now, let that go and look around.”
“Let it go?” I laugh. “No way! What other secrets are you hiding, Miss Cindy Raleigh Winchester? If that’s even your real name.”
“Oh, it’s all too real,” she mutters, and starts hopping in place with frustration. “But seriously, what do you think?”
“About what?”
“The apartment,” she sighs. “You’re kind of killing this for me.”
I suddenly feel like an idiot. “Oh my gosh, are you getting a new place? That’s so cool! Good for you!”
“No, we are getting a new place,” she says, positively beaming.
“Beg your pardon?”
CiCi goes into the kitchen that opens up into the living area and starts poking around at the appliances. “I knew this was opening up, and I asked the managers to let me have first crack at it,” she says, turning back to me and grinning. “It’s almost the same as my place, but it’s a two-bedroom, and the bathroom is, like, twice as big.”
“I’m sorry—you’re going to have to fill in some information here. We’re getting an apartment?”
“Damn right, we are,” she sings. She’s so giddy, I don’t know what questions to ask first. “It’s move-in ready, so we can take it over immediately. They’ll roll my lease over onto this place so I don’t have to worry about breaking my contract, and add you.”
“Okay, slow down here, Secretariat,” I say, looking around, stunned. “I can’t sign anything right now. I live on a couch. No one is going to rent anything to me. I’m an unemployed financial undesirable.”
“I could get this place on my own, madam,” she says with a wink. “I’m a hell of a tenant, and my income more than qualifies me for the lease on my own. I was planning to snag this apartment no matter what, but if you’re planning on suffering through another roommate—which, let’s be honest, you know you will—why not me? I was hoping it was going to open up last month so you could have stayed here instead of on Gertrude at Tom’s, but the people living here needed a few extra weeks while they bought their new place.”
“I...I can’t...” I stutter. “I can’t sign a lease with you, lady. What if I can’t pay rent? I can’t let you pay for me. I love you, but I would sooner die than let you pay my way.”
She walks over and puts her hands on my shoulders. “I know that, you dork. And I would never offer, because I know you’d sooner die, like the stubborn ass that I know and love. But you have three pending job offers, and I doubt they’ll be the last. And I know you have savings, so you can live on that while you wait to get settled at the amazing new job you’re going to be accepting any day now. In the meantime—and I’m genuinely anticipating that meantime to be, like, a week—you’ll stay with me instead of Tom. Except here, you can have your bed back, and your own room.”
“This is nuts!” I say, trying really hard not to fall in love with the super-tall windows flooding the living room with light. “What if all of those jobs pull their offers when Caspian leaves?”
“Then you stay with me instead of Tom while you keep looking,” she says with a shrug. “Come on—we’ll have so much fun! It’ll be like a big-ass slumber party all the time, except no sleeping bags and I won’t put your bra in the freezer every night. Probably.”
“Okay, this feels like counting all the possible eggs before they’ve hatched.”
“Fine,” she says, grinning. “Time to break out the big guns.”
“Big guns?”
She reaches out and takes my hand. “You could get your mattress out of that storage unit. Like, immediately.”
I gasp. My mattress.
“That’s a very manipulative move.”
She keeps grinning. “I have zero regrets. And look, even if you don’t want to live here, I still plan on dragging your ass out of your brother’s apartment to stay with me until you find a place of your own. I’ll just turn the second room into an office or a sewing room or a sex dungeon or something. The bottom line is, I’m taking this place one way or another, but I would much rather take it with you as my roommate. Come on, cupcake. This is the first time you and I have ever had a chance to live together since we moved to the city.”
I look around the apartment, sort of stuck where I stand. She makes a hell of a solid case, I have to give her that. And she’s right. If she’d had the second bedroom as an office when I moved out of my last place, I would have gladly thrown my mattress on her floor and lived here. And, as the list of awful roommates I’ve had over the years scrolls through my mind, I honestly can’t think of anyone who could hold a candle to the amazing Cindy...
“Oh my god,” I say, puzzle pieces latching in my mind.
“What?”
“Cindy Raleigh Winchester. Cindy Raleigh. Like Cinderelly from the movie?”
“I hate you.”
I purse my lips to keep from laughing. “Your parents named you after the thing a cartoon mouse called Cinderella. On purpose.” Another piece clicks into place, and I completely lose my chill. “Fuck me, you even have the blond hair and blue eyes!”
“I will set fire to everything you love if you so much as breathe a word of this to anyone.”
I manage to stop openly guffawing, but I can’t quite hold in my cackle. “I love you so much, CiCi.”
“So? What do you think? Wanna be roomies?”
I bite my lip. “What if I end up not finding a job for months, lady? That could happen. And I don’t want to go from being your best friend to being that horrible burden you used to like back in the day.”
“Look,” she says in a rare moment of pure seriousness, “I don’t think that’s going to happen at all. But if it does, how about you let me be your friend and help you? I’m pretty sure that’s the crux of the whole best-friend thing. We have each other’s backs, always. I talk you into loosening up from time to time, you serve as my much-appreciated moral compass when needed.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Okay, fine. It’s always needed. All the more reason to lock this shit down.”
I slowly walk through the open space and drink it in. The bedrooms are fairly good-sized, especially by New York City standards, and the bathroom is even bigger than the one at Tom’s. Plus the giant windows reveal a semi-awesome view of the nearby park instead of the bricks of a building five feet away, like at my last apartment.
“Okay,” I say at last. “But I’m not going to let you just carry me. I have my savings, and I refuse to be your freeloading pal. You know that would wear down my sanity.”
“Understood. But you also have to accept that if you need help, I am going to give it, whether you like it or not.”
I twist my hands nervously. “So... I could really move my mattress in right away?”
She squeals and comes running over to hug me, jumping up and down. “The second we get the keys, baby!”
“And you’re sure you want to do this?”
She’s still dancing in place, holding on to my wrists now. “So, so very much! This is going to be great!”
Now it’s my turn to be serious. “There really isn’t anyone else I would want to be my roommate. I kind of love you a little.”
“Love you back, nerd,” she says. “But hey.” Her mouth sets in a stony line. “At the first ‘Mop the floors, Cinderelly’ joke, you’re out on your ass.” She can’t fight the smirk that follows.
“We should write that into the lease, just to be safe.”