“Am I?” I can’t help asking.
His eyebrows lift.
“With you?” I add.
“That’s up to you, sunshine.”
My eyes practically bug out. “Wait…”
His eyebrows go higher.
“You’re actually lettingmedecide something?” I ask, my voice teasing. “Someone get a calendar! Mark the date! On this day in history, Chase Croft actually conceded something to Gemma Summers!”
He grins, slips one arm around my shoulders, and pulls me away from the door. “Don’t get used to it,” he grumbles, but I can tell beneath the gruffness of his tone, he’s laughing.
When we get to the top of the stairs, I cross the landing to my apartment door.
“This is me,” I tell him, feeling a rush of belated worry as I realize I’m about to show Chase my apartment — my messy, minuscule, mismatched apartment, which, in its entirety, is smaller than the master bedroom in his loft. I don’t care much about that — but I feel sheer panic at the idea of him seeing my artwork.
It’s everywhere — canvas after canvas, tacked up on the walls, leaning against furniture.
All the paintings I’ve been too afraid to put on public display are suddenly going to be a prominent part of the Gemma Summers’ Apartment Tour. I might as well pull my still-beating heart from my chest and hand it to him — that would probably feel less personal.
Hesitating with my hand on the knob, I turn to face him.
“What are the odds you’re willing to wait out here?”
He grins, like he thinks I’m adorable, and I know the odds are absolute zero.
“Open the door, Gemma.”
I sigh, because he’s got to be the bossiest, most annoying person in the history of mankind.
And then I open the door.
***
“I know it’s not the Taj Mahal, but—” The breath disappears from my lungs as the door swings wide and I catch sight of my apartment. “Holy shit.”
I feel Chase take a step closer to me, so his front is pressed against my back, and I know he’s lending me his strength as well as shielding me from any unseen threats. I barely notice — my eyes are fixed on the disaster before me.
It’s a mess — completely trashed, like a freaking tornado moved through the city while I was gone, the damage somehow isolated to my apartment. My well-loved red couch is flipped on its side, the stuffing bursting from cushions that look like they’ve been split open with a jagged blade. My funky, flea market coffee table has gone from intentionally asymmetrical to totally nonfunctional — two of its legs are snapped off, and there are deep gouges in the glossy wood which no amount of varnish can ever fix. My bookshelves are overturned, hundreds of paperbacks lying in ruined piles on the floor, their covers ripped off and their pages dented.
My heart is beating so loud, it drowns out the sound of Chase, speaking rapidly into his cellphone behind me.
Even from here, I can see my turquoise refrigerator has been given similar treatment, and what little food I had inside has spilled across the floor in a soupy mess. My artsy-yet-functional wardrobe ladder no longer hangs from my bedroom ceiling — it’s been ripped down in a cloud of plaster and hurled through the thin glass of my French doors. Ceiling dust and glass shards join thousands of floating feathers on the floor — either Wolverine was playing with my peacock throw pillows, or someone slit them open with the same determination as my couch cushions.
None of the furniture is salvageable.
My clothes are in shreds.
I’m definitely not getting my security deposit back.
I accept these things with a kind of detached horror. It’s awful but, for the most part, I’m okay.
Possessions can be replaced.
Doors can be rebuilt.