I SIGH, RUB MY EYES, AND PLOP DOWN NEXT TO MRS. CRANDALL ON the curb, pressing my shins against a sleeping Finn, whose light snore reminds me that I am missing crucial sleep.
My phone beeps and I take a look, knowing there’s only one person who would text me at two a.m.
Mom: Here.
It’s a link to an Indeed job post for an entry-level civil engineering position in Chico. When my mom can’t sleep, she sends job postings in attempt after futile attempt to drive me back into the “respectable” world of engineering, while simultaneously emphasizing that my unemployment has caused her insomnia. I don’t click the link. Instead, I shove my phone deep into my bag.
Several minutes later, we are seemingly no closer to getting back into our building. Mrs. Crandall has fallen asleep leaning against Hot Neighbor Guy’s bad shoulder as we sit in a line on the curb. He’s still shivering, the gentle movement of his body seemingly keeping Mrs. Crandall in a deep slumber the way a vibrating chair might for a baby. It’s a chilly October evening, a time in LA when the weather could go either way. Though our days lately have been light-sweater warm, the evenings have taken on the imminent winter chill.
I unzip my sweatshirt and hold it out to him.
“I’m fine,” he says.
“Okay,” I say with a shrug and set it on the sidewalk behind us. He eyes it, then me.
“How are you not cold?”
“Adrenaline. Anxiety. All the body heat around us.” I point to the rest of the crowd of disgruntled neighbors, some of whom have wandered across the way to lean against the Dunkin’ Donuts building we share a parking lot with.
“You’re sure you don’t want it?” he asks.
“I’m sure.”
He gently shifts Mrs. Crandall from his shoulder to mine and presses himself into the zip-up hoodie. I watch amusedly as he shoves his arms in, pulls the hood over his head, and tugs it together in front, stretching it as he does so he can zip it. When he finally gets it on, he sighs.
My pink-and-orange tie-dyed hoodie is now a crop top.
“Don’t say it,” he says without looking at me.
“I didn’t say anything,” I respond, my mouth twitching at the corners.
“It seems like we’re gonna be out here awhile. I run cold.”
“I thought most guys run hot.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I’m special.”
“Indeed,” I say. I want to tell him it’s completely illogical for him to sleep shirtless if he runs cold, but I don’t know what his bed situation is. Perhaps he has seven down comforters to keep himself warm. Perhaps there’s usually a lady friend beside him who radiates body heat.
We both go quiet and I debate whether to bring up what happened at the bar. I didn’t know it was the guy from across the hall when I shoved his face into mine. I must have mistaken his familiarity as attraction. Had I consumed three fewer drinks and had more gumption to follow my own free will and not listen to Tess, this wouldn’t have happened.
Hot Neighbor Guy is staring straight ahead and I now wonder if perhaps he was too drunk to remember it? Or at least too drunk to realize the stranger from the bar is me? He didn’t seem drunk, but a girl can hope. Nonetheless, I accept his lack of bringing it up and raise him a sweep-it-under-the-rug-completely.
And then, as if he can read my anxious thoughts, to ensure my unease, he says, “So is it, like, some weird fetish of yours to kiss relative strangers at bars?”
My breath catches in my throat. The Dunkin’ Donuts sign flickers ominously behind him. He looks over at me and his eyes constrict then relax again, everything about him too calm in comparison to my overwhelming discomfort.
“I . . . I didn’t realize you were my neighbor,” I say, which probably makes it sound even more absurd—that I had thought he was a complete stranger when I kissed him.
The corners of his mouth tick upward and his cheek dimple deepens as he watches me struggle for words. “Relax. I thought you might not have recognized me. It’s okay.”
It’s okay. There are a million different ways to interpret those two little words. But he has definitively answered one thing that had been on my mind: he absolutely knew who I was. And he kissed me back anyway.
Mrs. Crandall stirs against my shoulder.
Hot Neighbor Guy must see the redness of my face and lack of eye contact and gracefully changes the subject. “What do you think she was doing in the kitchen at two a.m. anyway?” he asks, voice lowered conspiratorially.
“Chain-smoking while heating water for tea, maybe? And then fell asleep? She seems to do that easily.” I shrug slightly and she lets out a sort of low growl.
He raises his eyebrow and gives a slight jerk of the head and I understand his offer, gently pushing Mrs. Crandall back to his shoulder. She adjusts her head a bit like a cat curling into itself and settles again.
The heat in my ears dulls, and I’m further thankful we are no longer talking about the kiss.
“Why do you think she has so many ashtrays in a non-smoking building?” he asks over her head.
“Maybe she collects them. People collect all kinds of weird shit.”
He nods. “My uncle Bravo collects resin skeletons of small animals.”
I have so many questions, but “Your uncle’s name is Bravo?” is where I choose to start.
“Yeah. My mom’s other brother, the oldest, is Alpha. My grandfather was a weird dude.”
“Interesting,” I muse. I try to picture what bizarre collection might sit just across the hall behind his apartment door.
“How long have you lived in the building?” he asks, though I’m still assessing the unique family details he’s just shared. “I’m pretty sure you moved in before me?”
I stretch my arms above my head, attempting to release the post-adrenaline strain from my shoulders, and sense him watching as I do. “Yes, I believe so.” I remember now the first time I saw him in the lobby, six months ago. He’d been dressed in gym shorts, tennis shoes, and a navy UC BERKELEY T-shirt. It was early April, one of the first too-warm days of the year, and I was returning to the building sweaty after an ill-advised mid-afternoon walk with Finn. Zane and I had just broken up and I watched from the lobby corner as Hot Neighbor Guy carried a large box to the elevator. I sent a silent wish into the universe that this might be the person moving into 6A. Some eye candy across the hall could help, I thought. It didn’t. I barely saw him after that move-in day, and I couldn’t fathom feeling anything for anyone other than Zane anyway.
But recalling that scene, I can’t believe I didn’t put two and two together last night. I want to smack my forehead with my palm. “I’ve been here almost two years,” I tell him.
“Clearly I’ve made quite an impression on you,” he says with a sarcastic huff. “And how many fire alarms during your time here?”
“Two others. No, wait, three, actually. No actual fires though. This is a first.” We both look at Mrs. Crandall. “She’s been here ten years, I think,” I tell him.
“She made it a decade without committing arson. Impressive.”
“That we know of. Perhaps she’s been setting fires all across Los Angeles this whole time,” I whisper over her head.
He leans forward to get a good look at her sleeping face. Her skin pulls, wrinkled and divoted, reminiscent of fork marks pressed into rolled dough, gravity tugging the loose skin of her face toward his shoulder, and I can’t help the bit of fondness I feel as the sight makes me think of my grandmother. A gentle hum accompanies each of Mrs. Crandall’s exhales. “There is something sinister about her. Should we search her for matches?” he whispers back. He smiles and I notice the slight dimple in his right cheek again, unusually high for a dimple, landing more atop his cheekbone than under.
As I evaluate him, a question I’ve been attempting to formulate becomes clear. “Why didn’t you try to save anything from your apartment, while you were waiting for me?”
We watch as a firefighter exits the building carrying a thin fire extinguisher that looks a lot like the one Mrs. Crandall had sitting on her kitchen counter.
“There’s nothing I couldn’t live without,” he says with lax conviction, then turns to face me. “Besides my fishing pole. In hindsight, I should’ve grabbed it.” He smiles and it pushes the dimple deep into his cheekbone.
I now remember seeing him getting onto the elevator at an early morning hour a few months back, rod and tackle box in hand. Finn was on day four of an antibiotic after a rather unfortunate incident with a possum and his bladder had a five a.m. wake-up call all week. I wondered how many mornings he did this, up and out before I was typically awake.
His forearms rest on his thighs and his hands are together in front of him as he absent-mindedly rubs them in small circles, just as he had under the table last night. I watch his hands, recognizing his undoubtedly solid grip strength. I make a mental note of this particular skill of his—fishing—as a valuable end-of-days competency. It’s another habit of mine—placing people into skill categories for post-apocalyptic survival.
I struggle to find a solid trade for Tess.
The kiss from last night shoves its way back into my mind and I wince. I cannot get derailed by a guy, not now. Certainly not today. And certainly not by one who lives across the hall, whom I have the potential to run into every day. One whom I kissed then bolted from. Absolutely not.
I want to wrap caution tape all around him.
“I’m Charlie, by the way.” He holds his hand out, the one not trapped under Mrs. Crandall’s weight. I give him a nod and knowing smile. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie.
I shake his solid hand as he looks into my eyes.
“Sloane. Nice to meet you, officially.”
And that’s how I meet Free Hugs Guy, also Hot Neighbor Guy from 6A. Officially.