.
as Chloe glanced down at her just-microwaved burrito. She had her hands-free set tucked in her ear as she sat in her warm kitchen, though it was cooling off now that the sun had set outside and a soothing breeze seeped into her open window. She glanced at her shattered screen. The phone still worked as a phone, but there was no way she’d be able to check text messages or Twitter. It would be one more expense she’d need to make when she got her next check. She’d just have to wait until then. It didn’t help that most of her social media clients of late were nonprofits who took a long time paying their bills. She’d worked most of the afternoon with a nonprofit group called Our Home, which tried to help low-income families stay in neighborhoods that were slowly being gentrified.
She’d uploaded some photos of their work. Much of what they did resembled Habitat for Humanity projects, except they repaired damaged buildings and pressured local aldermen not to green-light commercial real estate that could threaten low-income housing. Of course, if Chloe didn’t get paid soon, she’d have to move herself to the category of low income. Her laptop remained open on the dining room table, proof she had been working some today. She was still wearing the outfit she’d flashed her new neighbor in (her pajama tank and shorts, having not bothered to change since she’d been chained to her laptop most of the day). Owning her own consulting business meant she got to work from home, but it also meant that work never stopped, either. Not if she wanted her business to survive. She’d just gotten a notice in her mailbox, too, something about a new owner of the building. She hoped that didn’t mean a rent hike when her lease was up in a few months, but she knew it might.
“Ryan, I don’t know...” I’d have to shower. Change. It seems like such a production. Or she could sit and eat her burrito, binge-watch Game of Thrones, and call it a night. The latter seemed so much simpler.
“Brendan says if you don’t get out of the house once this week, we’re officially holding an intervention.” Chloe grinned. She loved Ryan and Brendan—she’d stood up in their wedding the summer before. She’d been friends with Ryan since college and had been thrilled when he’d met Brendan—the two were great together: both dark-haired and lean, both rabid outdoorsmen, with a bent toward mountain climbing. Whenever Chloe thought love might not be in the cards for her, she looked at them and thought that if they could find their soul mates, then probably so could she. She would’ve been nauseated by their sickly sweet Facebook posts, except that she loved them both to death.
“Seriously, Chlo, how many days in a row have you worn the outfit you’re wearing right now?”
“One,” she said. Then she wondered if that was true. Had she changed yesterday? Now she couldn’t quite remember, though she had to admit, the thought had crossed her mind to just head to bed in the same pajamas. Would that be a new low? Not showering and not changing two days in a row. Hell, but wasn’t this one of the major perks of working at home?
“I think you’re lying.”
Chloe had to laugh. “I’ll catch you guys next time, okay?”
Ryan sighed. “Okay, but you’re starting to turn into some weird hermit, you know that? You need to get out. Socialize with people. You do social media all day, but you never talk to anyone anymore. Like when was your last human interaction?”
“That’s not necessary for my job,” she pointed out.
“No, but it is for your mental health. Since the breakup...”
“Don’t even mention his name.” Kevin. The investment banker who’d made fun of her consulting business, who often told her she should “get a real job” and endlessly made jokes about how work done in her pajamas was no work at all. But Chloe was proud of her accomplishments, proud of being her own boss. But because she didn’t have a traditional job, Kevin thought she was somehow less important. He saw a girlfriend mostly as an accessory and not a person, which was why he called her by the wrong name in bed...a name she discovered from a series of lurid text messages on his phone belonged to his coworker, a woman he’d been sleeping with on the side.
“You’ve been hiding, Chlo. Time to break free and get out there,” Ryan said.
She knew he was right, but she didn’t feel like getting out there. As awful as Kevin had been to her, she’d gotten to the point where she had really started to think they might get married. He’d told her as much. The fact that he’d been cheating was a blow she still felt six months later. It was because Chloe knew she wanted more. She was closing in on thirty, and her biological clock had kicked into overdrive. She wanted a baby, a family, a husband, and she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to find any of those things going out to a bar with Ryan.
“I will—eventually,” she said, and glanced at her cooling burrito on her plate, thinking about how unappetizing it looked. “I just need some time. Besides, I’ve got a new neighbor who just moved in. Totally ripped. And loaded, too.”
“Oh! A Christian Grey!”
“Uh...well, if Christian Grey wore shorts and had tattoos.” She took a bite of the burrito and nearly scalded her tongue. She dropped the too-hot microwaved dinner.
“Ooooh. A bad boy. A rich bad boy. I like it.”
Chloe laughed. “Don’t tell Brendan. He’ll get jealous.”
“He might. You should go for that. Ride that bike if you know what I mean.”
“I think he might be gay. I mean, he’s got a six-pack.” Chloe bit her lip as she wandered to her window and glanced at her new neighbor’s darkened third floor. She’d watched all afternoon but hadn’t seen Jackson again. Instead, an army of assistants had come and unpacked him entirely. She’d never seen such efficiency before, but in a matter of hours, they’d unpacked his kitchen, set up his bed, even hung art on the walls. It must be nice to be rich, she’d thought, as she’d watched his minions do all the grunt work.
Ryan considered this. “You’re right. Six-pack abs—they are rampant in the gay community,” he deadpanned.
Just then, the neighbor’s light flickered on. Chloe backed away from her window. “Uh...gotta go, okay? I’ll call you later.”
“Just remember what I said. Don’t be a hermit!”
“Love you!” she called, and then clicked off. She told herself she shouldn’t spy on her neighbor, and besides, it was probably one of his assistants anyway. But as she hovered near the curtains, she watched Jackson enter the third floor from the open stairway at the back of the living room. He immediately tugged off his shirt.
Oh, my. That was a view she could get used to: well-toned pecs, rippled abs, broad, muscled shoulders. She wondered again what he did for a living. Model? Action hero? Jackson could be either. He disappeared into the far right room, his bedroom, as she’d watched his home-decor minions set up his bed, and carry in armful after armful of expensive suits. She didn’t see a kitchen, so it had to be on one of the two floors below. She couldn’t imagine what, exactly, he was doing with all that space. For all she knew, the first floor could be an indoor basketball court. Or filled with trampolines. She had no idea how the über-rich lived.
Maybe he was just going to bed, she thought, and then went back to her burrito. She took a bite that was still part frozen. How was one end on fire and the other an ice cube? Ugh. She put it down, suddenly not feeling like eating it. She clicked off the overhead kitchen light, the oven light the only thing illuminating her small kitchen. She glanced up and saw Jackson emerging from his bedroom wearing only mesh shorts, slung low on his hips, and still no shirt. He sank down on his plush leather couch and put his feet up. His phone must’ve sounded because he picked it up and pressed it to his ear. Then, a second later, he tapped the screen. He laid back on the couch, his eyes on the staircase. Suddenly, a woman clad only in the shortest silk jumper Chloe had ever seen appeared on the stairwell in strappy stiletto heels and too much makeup, her auburn bob cut at chin length. She was gorgeous. She sauntered over to the couch, a pouty expression on her face, and he sat there, watching her.
Was that his girlfriend?