Page 3 of No Place Like You

I’ll pick you up at 7?

10:06 PM

Lucy: My sisters are taking me out. Some self-serve ramen place.

And can we keep this a little on the DL? I’ll never hear the end of it if my sisters know.

10:08 PM

Dexter: Mum’s theword.

10:10 PM

Lucy: Would breakfast work? I can be at your place in the morning.

10:10 PM

Dexter: Sure.

Should I pick up a deck of cards?

10:12 PM

Lucy: I don’t know. Twister sounded more fun.

2

Dexter

three years ago

My moveto Brooklyn two years ago isn’t necessarily a memory I like to revisit often. It was stressful more than anything. Mainly due to reasons like trying to find a roommate who wasn’t into conspiracy theories or didn’t have a secret meth lab in their closet. Add on the trauma of furnishing my room with items from Goodwill that weren’t infested with bodily fluids or bedbugs, and you got the grand slam of inhospitable welcomes. At the ripe young age of twenty-four, fresh-faced and working some temp job that might as well have paid me in clams, the glitz and glamour of moving to the city was a little intimidating. But my sister, Janet, made it memorable in her usual big sister fashion. She came to my apartment infested with cockroaches and smelling like stale chow mein with a bamboo plant and a white eight hundred thread count sheet set. The bamboo plant because she claimed it was good luck and the sheets because, according to her, I needed to balance the figurative “bachelor pad” neon sign I had hanging over my entryway with something other than my navy comforterand PS5. And while I appreciated the gesture, the sheets stayed tucked into the far corner of my closet, unused for a long time.

But today, in the early hours of Sunday morning, while stretching the elastic of that exact sheet set to fit around the curved edges of my mattress, I’m making a mental note to send Janet a thank you card. My intercom buzzes just then, and I sprint toward the door after smoothing my hand over the added duvet cover that felt like an actual Olympic sport trying to put on.

“Come on up,” I call through the speaker. I peer at my apartment, making a quick sweep. I also need to extend that same thank you card to my roommate, Hayden, for being mysteriously absent from our apartment this early in the morning.

There’s a light knock at my door, and I open it to find my guest.

“Hi,” Lucy says a little breathlessly. Her teeth press into her lower lip, and a flush creeps up to her cheeks as she peers at me with her deep brown eyes. Eyes that light up with intrigue and something that leans toward a challenge with the quick and subtle flick of her right eyebrow.

“Hey.” I open the door wider, letting her in.

She walks past me, her steps hesitant yet curious. “Is…”

“It’s just us,” I answer, although she didn’t necessarily ask a question.

She turns to face me and nods. She stands there, silent, while her fingers tug at the highlighted blonde strands of her long hair. She’s wearing sneakers today, a vast difference to the strappy heels she wore a few nights ago when I met her for the first time at a party at her sister’s apartment. With those sexy ass heels that made her long legs look irresistible, we were the same height. A small, teeny tiny part of me misses them, but looking at her right now in her flat shoes and flowy sundress, I can’t decide which look I like better.

“You know,” she says after a beat with a wavering hint of conviction in her voice, “I don’t even know your last name.”

I take a cautious step toward her, finding that she’s still pretty tall even without her heels while loving that I wouldn’t have to stoop too low to kiss her. “It’s Greer.”

She nods again, slow and tentative, with a look of skepticism stamped on her face. Like I might be lying about my identity. And it makes me smirk, knowing how her nerves make her so adorable.

“Do you also want to know my date of birth? The last four of my social?”

“Oh no. I need all nine to dig up thereallydirty stuff.” Her lips twist to one side when a small smile peeks through her sarcasm, and she looks away from me. Her eyes nervously skitter across the room, and her brow furrows, almost as if she’s trying to remember some minor detail like where she left her keys or if she left the stove on before leaving her house. “Look, I know I sounded all confident and flirty and all that jazz at the party the other night.” She pauses to wriggle her fingers in the air, making nervous jazz hands. “But I’m really not.”

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