Page 64 of The Jerk in Apartment 1B

“But you did.” She walks over to me. “And I wasn’t asking for your opinion.”

I nod. “Got it. I won’t say any more about it.”

She smiles. “Then we’re good.” She goes past me to the door. “Do I need a hazard suit for this?”

“It’s not that bad,” I say with a laugh.

That went better than I was expecting. The way she ran out on me this morning, I thought she’d still be upset. I didn’t thinkshe’d get over it this fast. Maybe she’s only doing it because of the job. The one I wasn’t planning on giving her.

Stupid Cole. I can’t believe he told her I was looking to hire someone. If this is his attempt at matchmaking, he’s wasting his time. He knows I don’t want a girlfriend, and if I did, it wouldn’t be some girl whose heart belongs to someone else.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Scott

“I’ll have you start with this one,” I say, unlocking the door to the storage room. It’s on the second floor, directly above the one on the first floor. “The other one is on the third floor, right above where we are now.”

“So every floor has one of these?”

“Yeah. I could’ve rented them out, but I needed the storage for myself.” I open the door and go inside. “I had a house when I lived in California and I didn’t want to just toss everything so I moved it here and threw it into storage.”

“I can’t imagine you with a house,” Trina says, glancing around at the mess.

“Why not?”

“Because you seem to like being independent. A house is a commitment. You have all the upkeep and you’re kind of stuck there until you sell it.”

“You do know I own this building,” I say, joking with her. “It’s a way bigger commitment than a house.”

She smiles. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking of that. But I see the building as an investment. It’s not as personal as a house.” She turns to me. “What did it look like? Do you have pictures?”

“No,” I say, wanting to get off this topic. “I didn’t live there long.”

I don’t like talking about the house. I don’t know why I even mentioned it. I guess because being in this storage room reminds me of it. That’s why I never come in here. These boxes have been here for two years and I haven’t even looked in them. It’s too hard. I’m not ready.

“What’s in here?” Trina asks, opening a plastic bin. She pulls out a label maker. “This could be useful when I get to organizing. Are some of these boxes your office stuff?”

“It’s a lot of different things.” I open a box and pull out a lamp I had in college. “Some of it needs to be tossed, like this lamp.”

“How do I know what to keep and what to toss?”

“Good question.” I sigh as I look at all the boxes. “We might have to do this together. Otherwise, you won’t know what to do with this stuff.”

“Do you have time to work on it?”

“No, but I could make time.”

“When do you want to start?”

“I have a couple of hours free tomorrow. If you want, you could start sorting through it today. Put anything office related on one side and anything home related on the other.”

“Okay. Do you want to show me the one upstairs before I start?”

“No, just focus on this one for now.”

“I can probably only do an hour before I have to leave.”

“That’s fine.”

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