Worth the Fall (6 page)

We all looked at the envelope as if it was going to start talking.

“Well.” Jenna bounced on her toes. “Open it.”
 

“Sunshine.” Ben obviously spent a lot of time gently reining her in.

“No. Let’s open it.” I tore the corner and stuck my finger in, running it across the top until I could pull the check out of the card. The check was there for exactly the amount he told me it would be worth. “All there.”

“Read the card.”

“Jenna Jameson Drake.” Ben took her by the shoulders and turned her away from me so she’d—hopefully—lose her focus. “Maybe she wants to ritualistically burn the card without having ever read it.”

“Oh, that’s good.” I started considering the places a fire could be built without getting the fire department called. “You’re good at this. You must have been a woman in a past life.”

“I’m secure enough in my manhood to accept that as a compliment.”

Ok, here goes. I pulled the card out and examined it.

“There’s a cat on the cover. He’s wearing a top hat.” I held it up so they could see the outside. “And inside…”
 

I flipped the card open and saw…Nothing. Not one thing. He’d given me a blank card and hadn’t even signed it.

“Wow. That’s—I don’t even have words.” Jenna just stared at the card. “It’s not very often I don’t have any words. But this may be one of those times.”

We all just stared at the card.

Just stared as if the longer we looked the more the chance of it making sense might happen.

“Do you think he just had this sitting around the house?”

Yesterday I would have said no. But, today I was realizing anything Jason-related was possible.

“Maybe? Who knows?” But, at that point, I didn’t even care. I was only going to be homeless for a few weeks and I had a great business plan forming. Maybe getting dumped was the universe forcing me to shake loose all the bad stuff in my life. “I’d love to sublet this place.”

“Great!” Ben wrapped an arm around Jenna again. “Looks like you’re going to be stuck with me every night for the next three weeks.”
 

“Oh. Wow. I don’t want to force you out of your house.”
 

“Don’t worry about it. I mean, why move twice? And where would you go for three weeks anyway? As long as you don’t mind that we can make some time each weekend for me to do some long term packing. We’ll make it work.”

“Isn’t he the best?” Jenna beamed up at him. No wonder she seemed like she was always so happy.

“Guys. This is too much. This is great.” I fought the tears I hadn’t cried since this all started two days before. “I just can’t believe this.”

“No worries.” Ben shifted one foot behind the other, leaning away, obviously uncomfortable with the near tears. “Why don’t you go home and get yourself ready to move tomorrow? We’ll trade physical labor. I’ll help you get stuff in and you’ll help me get stuff out.”

And with that, I headed back to my empty, cold, dark apartment to get ready to move into a cozy little paradise.

EIGHT

Eight calls. I’d called Micah eight times. He hadn’t returned them when I’d reported my heat-hot-water-electric issue. Not when I’d called to see when they were going to be back on. Not when I’d called to say I’d be moving out on the agreed upon date and needed a parking pass for a moving van. And not when I’d called while walking back.

By the time I’d run all my errands and headed home it was dark out and I was getting chilly and annoyed. Plus, I really had no interest in sleeping in a cold, dark room again.

I climbed the three flights to my apartment and slid the key home into the lock.
 

Nothing.
 

I checked the number on the door. Yup, I lived there. I pulled the key out and tried it again. Nope. Still didn’t turn.

I rooted around for my cell phone and checked my messages. Nothing. Not one thing. Who doesn’t call back a tenant in an emergency?

I considered calling him one more time, but figured he’d just ignore me again. Micah had never been the best super in the world, but I’d never thought he’d lock me out of my own apartment.

On the upside, I always left my bedroom window cracked. Jason had told me over and over again that it was a bad idea. That I should at least get a bar to block the window from opening more since the fire escape landing was right outside.
 

I kept meaning to. I kept forgetting.

Now, that meant I had another way into my apartment.
 

I tromped back downstairs and out the front door. On the sidewalk, I glanced up to Micah’s apartment, but the light was out. Without any other options, I headed around to the side of the building to begin my MacGyver entry.
 

The first step was just getting onto the fire stairs. It took several tries to jump high enough to loop my bag’s strap over the first rung of the stairs and pull them down. Then, it flew up, clanging against the landing above it when I tried to unhook my bag. I was making a such a racket even the stray cats were taking off.

After two more tries, the bag was looped over my shoulder and the ladder was firmly in hand. I climbed up the cold, rusty metal, inching by dark windows and hoping I didn’t scare poor Mrs. Windsor on the second floor. All I needed was to try to explain her heart attack to her children.

When I got to the landing outside my bedroom, I tried to wedge the tips of my fingers into the small space between the window and the outside sill. Since I barely opened the window, they barely fit. It took all my strength to open it from the odd angle, working one side and then the other. And I still couldn’t really fit my fingers through.

What I needed was a crowbar or something I could slide into that tiny spot.

And Jason was convinced it would be easy to break in and rob me.

With a relieved sigh, the window gave and opened just enough for me to slip inside. I dropped the bag in and then crouched to follow it, leaning in and placing my hands on the floor as I scooted through like an oversized worm.

When I reached my butt, I was sure for a moment I wasn’t going to fit. Who knows how I’d have backed out of that? Just as I slipped through, I felt a spiky scrape on my leg and a yank on my pants as they got caught on something sharp outside on the fire escape.
 

After a few tugs—and a few shakes—it became obvious I wasn’t getting out of this without ripping my favorite yoga pants.
 

On the upside, no one was around to see me get out of this without my dignity instead.

I turned on my side, resting on my head and shoulder on the floor. Clearly I was going to have one heck of a crink in my neck the next morning. With my free hand, I worked at my yoga pants until I could shove them down with my feet. When they were almost off, they caught on my shoes, so I toed those off onto the fire escape. As soon as I was free, I slid all the way in, pushed the window open, and reached out to grab my shoes, searching for them in the darkness.

It wasn’t until I spotted them that I realized a beam of light was coming from behind me.

“Just ease back in the window and turn around slowly,” the deep voice commanded.
 

I glanced over my shoulder and could see two men silhouetted by the light from the building’s hallway, but everything else was blinded by the flashlight aimed at my face.

My hesitation must have annoyed him, because the voice came with an edge this time. “Ma’am you’re going to have to come back in. We’ll talk about this. Calmly.”

“Who are you?”

“Officer Darby. I’m going to have to ask you to raise your hands and turn around slowly.”

Oh my goodness. I was hanging out the window with my butt covered only by my haven’t-been-packed-yet panties. Not to mention the police had managed to get into my apartment when I hadn’t been able to. How the heck had that happened?

I slid back in, wishing I could melt through the floor, and turned to face them, my yoga pants held up as a shield in front of me.

“You’re going to have to drop the pants and come this way.”

“Why are you in my apartment?” I wasn’t dropping the pants even for the cops.
 

“It’s not your apartment,” a second voice whined. “You moved out.”

I raised my hand to shade my eyes from the light. “Micah?”

“She moved out.”

“Sir, it doesn’t look like Ms. Lane moved out.”

“She gave me notice.”

“For the end of the month. Which isn’t until tomorrow.”

Forget divinity. I needed pants. I hitched one leg up and pulled my yoga pants on, then repeated the process with the other leg without turning around or bending over.

“I called you nine times today. First about my heat being off. Then about my electric and hot water. Then just to try to find you. You couldn’t return a call but you could get the police here and the door open before I could even climb through my window.”

“I didn’t want you robbing the place.”

“Of what?” I shouted. I was sick of this. Sick of the whole darn week. My high from finding a place to live was pretty much gone. “My own bed? My clothes? Maybe I’d steal my used toothbrush.”

“Ms. Lane, you’re understandably upset. You’re having quite the week.”

“That’s right I am.”

Wait
. What?

“First assault. Now breaking and entering. I thought I told you to stay out of trouble.”

That sounded vaguely familiar. Hadn’t Abby just told me to stay out of trouble? And to make myself dateable. But, on the sliding scale of how much I was willing to listen to her, that advice was pretty low on just about any list I could come up with.

“See?” Micah demanded. “You’re going to have to pay for that window.”

“Nothing’s wrong with the window.”

“Then how’d you get in? Huh?” Micah stalked past me and began examining the frame behind me.

Meanwhile, I examined the wide bulk of the silhouette behind the flashlight.

Micah muttered to himself, looking for something wrong with the window. This still wasn’t fixing my situation.

“Officer Darby, I have a question.” I glanced at Micah over my shoulder, considering pushing him out the window. Besides the law enforcing witness, the idea that the fire escape would stop any type of fall whatsoever ruined the joy I got from the vision. “Isn’t it illegal for a landlord to turn off your
paid for
utilities and lock you out of your
paid for
apartment when you have a signed agreement?”

“Actually, it is.” I could hear the humor tingeing his voice, a low chuckle closing out the sentence.

“So, not only am I not under arrest, but I might have a case for filing, um, something?”

“Well, not a lot of a case since there were no damages. But you could be a pain about that if you wanted to.”

“No. I really just want to sleep somewhere warm, with lights and hot water, my last night here.”

Officer Darby lowered the light and I caught a glimpse of a strong jaw and short, dark hair in the dim light. Exactly the kind of guy my friend Jayne would go for. He probably rode a motorcycle and glowered a lot. The kind of guy I avoided at all cost. Definitely not the kind of guy I wanted to keep running into while my life was falling apart.

“I think that’s fair. Mr. Marrow, can you get this apartment turned on again?” But, apparently, he was also the voice of reason.

Micah came around to stand beside me and grumbled that he could.

“Within the next thirty minutes?” Officer Darby obviously knew how to ask the right questions.

Micah grumbled under his breath as if I was the person who turned off all my utilities two days early and he had to run around cleaning up my mess.

“So, thanks for coming.” I headed toward the door, hoping to walk Officer Darby right past it and push it shut behind him.

“Not so fast, Ms. Lane.” The door did fall shut, but Officer Darby was still on my side. “Do you want to explain to me this run of bad luck you seem to be having lately?”

“Not really.”

“Do I need to rephrase my question?” He stared down at me, one hand resting casually on the belt above his gun, the other braced on his hip.

“You said I hadn’t broken any laws.”

“Somehow I suspect you’ve been bending a few this week.” Thank goodness it was dark because I knew he had to be giving me that steely-eyed cop look. He was probably the inscrutable type the actors who played cops studied to be all…inscrutable.
 

“I really am a law abiding citizen.”
 

I was. I really was. I just wasn’t looking so good on my downward spiral.

“This better be the last time I’m called out for you.”

“I promise it will be. Nothing else is going to go wrong this week. I’ve had a distinct run of happy-things since last night.”

“Alright.” He drew out the word like he didn’t believe me. “Just, really, behave yourself.”

Officer Darby pulled the door open and I got a peek at sharp, rugged lines, deep blue eyes and jet black hair. I might have been staring a bit. He was only five inches taller than me, but he filled the doorway like it was built around him.