Bleeding Heart

‘No, it’s OK. I mean, good neighbours –’

The waitress appeared with a paper bag, and April could have snatched it from her hands and thrown it across the bar. If he had been going to say yes, the arrival of his food had put an end to that. He handed the waitress a twenty, told her to keep the change and tucked the bag under his arm as he turned his attention back to April.

‘I’ll have to take a raincheck on the beer, if that’s all right.’

‘Sounds good,’ she chirped a little too eagerly, then glanced back at her friends. ‘I should probably get back before all the mozza sticks are gone.’

Seth tapped his bag. ‘You should try the fried chicken next time.’

‘Maybe I’ll bring the fried chicken with the beer.’

Oh, God, April. Shut up.

He didn’t run screaming, thank God, but he did push the door open with his ass. ‘Enjoy your nachos and beer.’

‘You…too.’

When he was gone, she gave serious thought to dying on the spot. She drained half her beer and trudged back to her table.

‘What happened?’ Abigail asked. ‘Did you ask him to stay?’

‘Oh, yeah, I offered to buy him a beer. Then I offered to buy him supper, and then he ran off, because I’m so smooth.’

‘You asked him out?’ Vanessa snorted, and April glared.

‘You told me to!’

‘Yeah, well, I wasn’t serious. Are you nuts? He’s your landlord. He can walk right into your apartment and fuck your shit up if you break up with him.’

April groaned and leaned back in her chair. ‘Can someone just get me another beer, please? Many beers, until I forget what just happened.’

‘At least you got that guy’s number,’ Abigail pointed out. ‘He’s cute, and he’s making his way back over here.’

‘Yeah, I guess,’ April mumbled. She put on a smile and hoped Todd proved awesome enough company to make her forget that, mortifying encounter or not, she was still getting a raging crush on her landlord.

Chapter Four (#ub1906fb1-8f13-5851-89a7-8aa2dd02f24e)

The first thing April did as she stepped into the lobby of Winsloe Court was pause at the mirror in the foyer opposite the mailboxes. After staring at her reflection for a moment, she huffed out a disappointed breath and ran her hands through her newly dyed hair.

She didn’t know what to expect. That going from blonde to this coffee brunette would instantly change her into something else? Maybe. It was still her, though. She turned her head this way and that. She supposed she could say that she looked more sophisticated as a brunette, and if she switched her contacts for some glasses she could rock the sexy librarian look.

That wasn’t all she had done. While her eyebrows were naturally dark, the rest of her wasn’t. She’d gotten her first Brazilian wax. She’d teared up so much that her eye makeup was smudged, and she found herself keenly aware of how bare she was and how soft her panties were. It had made her kind of horny, even standing in line at the coffee place.

This was the thought she was still contemplating as she went to the mailbox, and as her landlord came through the main door.

I wouldn’t mind showing off what’s going on downstairs to him, she thought, as she took her time putting the key in the mailbox. Those big arms were going to kill her if she looked too long, and when he slowed down she noticed he had the most gorgeous hazel eyes, with the sort of lashes women paid good money to have glued to their lids.

He glanced at her as he passed, but as he started up the stairs he stopped and raised his eyebrows.

For a ridiculous second, April thought perhaps he could tell that she had been stripped bare and was wet between her legs.

‘Wow, that’s a change,’ he said. She couldn’t tell whether that meant he liked it or he didn’t, until he leaned over the banister and showed his naughty grin. ‘New hair?’

‘Yeah, to go with everything else new. I don’t know if I like it yet.’

‘I do. It makes your blue eyes stand out more,’ he said.

April thrilled from head to toe. She couldn’t bring herself to say thank you. If she did, she’d start giggling like a moron.

‘I was thinking about a few tattoos as well,’ she went on, joining him on the stairs, and craned her neck. ‘Maybe a big skull with a snake coming out of its mouth?’

‘You seem more of a devil-riding-a-motorbike kind of girl. All across your back, of course.’

‘Really?’ She feigned concern as they slowly made their way up to the second floor. ‘Seems kind of tame. At the very least I’m thinking zombie Jim Morrison.’

‘Sure, if you want to look like some kind of moron.’

‘Or I could just be letting my true self shine through for the first time in my life.’ She laughed at his dubious look and paused with him at the top of the stairs, then crinkled her nose. ‘Who keeps frying fish?’

‘That would be Mrs Boyd,’ he said, lowering his voice. He leaned close enough that his cinnamon gum overpowered the stench of fried fish. ‘The fish thing is only on Friday. She fries potatoes for the rest of the week, and burns them to a crisp. She also likes to spy.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘Yeah, she’s over there in her nightgown right now, watching through her peephole. If you ever bring a date home, go up the fire escape, otherwise she’ll open her door and glare at you.’

April giggled. She loved his proximity and his playful tone. ‘What would she think about you and me standing here, head to head like this?’

‘Don’t you worry, I’ll hear about it. She’ll find something wrong so she can get me into her apartment and glare at me while I try to fix it, then make comments about “those girls”.’

‘Oooh, I kind of like the sound of that. “Those girls.” A bit naughty, isn’t it?’ Mostly she liked the way he said the phrase, with that perfect growl. She wondered if he had a girlfriend.

His grin turned crooked and once more his gaze swept over her new hair. ‘She probably won’t even know you’re the same girl as the blonde who moved in. She has to take her glasses off to see through the peephole. You’re one of “those girls” but I’m a – what’s her word for it? A cad.’

‘Good God, how old is she?’

‘Almost ninety.’

April shook her head. ‘If being a nosy busybody is what’s waiting, who would want to live that long?’

It took a herculean effort not to cringe all over. Aw shit. Dead wife and you say something like that.

Thankfully, Seth agreed with her. ‘I’d rather live to eighty and then just call it a day.’

The conversation came to a dead halt, but April wasn’t finished with him just yet. She loved the way his amused gaze kept on flitting over her changed look. Hell, she just liked having him look at her, and every so often she’d get that brief and unabashed expression that told her he was wondering what she looked like stripped down.

‘Were things too loud last night?’ she asked to keep him there. ‘I was trying to keep things down, but my friends kind of took over with the really bad music.’

‘It was no problem,’ he said, and finished off with a laugh that suggested to her that he had just made a full-of-shit statement.