Page 5 of Only Santas in the Building
She knows all about my crush on Theo and has made it perfectly clear that I shouldn’t have a torrid affair with my neighbor.
But I really, really want to.
“I’m just saying, you were lucky to find this place,” she goes on. “You don’t want to jeopardize it if things with him go south and you still have three-quarters of the year left on your lease.”
When I chew instead of responding, she asks, “I take it he’s going to be at this party tonight?”
“He is.” I tell her about our literal run-in on the stairs. By the end, April is shaking her head.
“Sweetie, I just think that if he were into you, he would have made it obvious by now, and no, carrying your stuff isn’t enough.” Her tone isn’t unkind, but we’ve been over this many times before. “Why hasn’t he at least asked you out for coffee yet?”
“I don’t drink coffee.”
She huffs. “That’s not the point. Have you decided what you’re going to wear tonight?”
I gladly accept the change in topic. “I was planning to wear a Santa hat and make some cookies, but I look like such a slob every time I see him, I want to go all out.”
April’s expression softens. “Evie, if he doesn’t like you at your worst, he doesn’t deserve you at your best.”
“I know.”
I haven’t told her that I’m not aiming for Theo to like me. That feels too far out of reach, and honestly, I’d be satisfied with making out with him in a dark corner of the party.
Do I want more? Hell yeah. In addition to being gorgeous, Theo is smart, helpful, and polite. From our brief conversations in passing, I know he works as a software engineer, he’s lived in the building for seven years, and he owns his unit. Mrs. Greene adores him and said he fixes things for her when Bernard, the super, takes too long to show up.
I want to get to know my upstairs neighbor, who’s apparently as competent with computers as he is with tools. But I feel like such a loser every time I run into him, I end up babbling or getting tongue-tied. For once, I want to feel like I’m at my best during an interaction with Theo. Is that too much to ask?
“How’s the apartment?” April cuts into my thoughts with another common topic of our conversations. “Have you gotten anything out of storage yet?”
“Not yet. But it’s fine.”
I glance over at my little Christmas tree, which is looking a lot less sad these days with its snowflake, crane, winter landscape, and star. I want to thank Mrs. Greene before I mention them to April.
A bubble of warmth swells in my chest. This tree, with its small collection of handmade ornaments, has made me feel more at home here than anything else has.
April’s quiet for a moment, and I chew another bite of pad thai.
“I know you and Grandma were really close at the end,” she says gently. “We all appreciated how much you stepped up to help her out. It’s okay if this isn’t an easy transition.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Honestly, I try not to think about it much.
I moved in with my grandmother three years ago. She was eighty-five at the time and self-sufficient, but she needed someone to help take out the trash and stuff like that. The rent on my apartment in Brooklyn had been sucking me dry, and since I work from home, I was the ideal family member for the job.
Grandma and I made great roommates. She cooked, I cleaned, and in the evenings we watchedtelenovelastogether. My Spanish language skills are basic at best, so she’d fill me in on things I didn’t understand, and I found my vocabulary improving.
Then she had a stroke. A month later, she was gone.
“Selling the house was a shitty thing for Tío to do,” April continues. “We all know that.”
The noodles in my mouth suddenly turn flavorless, and I wash them down with a gulp of water.
My grandmother’s death was hard on all of us. I helped my mom and my aunts and uncles clean out the house, but I was hoping to continue living there, at least for a while. The mortgage had been paid off ages ago.
But my grandmother had put the house in my uncle’s name, and he sold it without telling anyone. Without tellingme.
“I just wish he’d at least given me the chance to buy it.” It’s an old complaint, but April is a compassionate ear, on this topic, at least, and it’s the part of the whole story that bugs methe most. “Not like I could afford it, but still. And then he only gave me three weeks to move out.”
That right there is why all my stuff is in storage.
