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Maybe, though, I can help her. Just this once.
CHAPTER 4
DAHLIA
Iwake with a headache, staring at the crack in the ceiling. Sometimes, I think it will cave in, and the apartment above will crush me. Once, I spoke to my landlord about the sagging, cracked ceiling, and he just looked at me like I was insane.
I’m sure the headache comes from my lack of sleep last night. After speaking with Dimitri, it was like everything else was dark and gloomy in comparison, as though our conversation was a single light color in a painting of gray.
Going into the bathroom, I take a quick, cold shower since the hot water is busted, then quickly towel myself off and get dressed. Luckily, it’s been a warm summer so far. I’m not looking forward to fall and winter, though I’ve got to be grateful I live on the West Coast. I’d be screwed if I was in some snowy, windy, miserable place.
I’ve just put on my work clothes when there’s a knock at my door. I’m guessing it’s my landlord since the knock is coming from the apartment door—not the buzzer, which means they’re outside. I bite down, fighting off the annoyance. The rent is duetomorrow, but he often likes to hassle me. I guess it makes him feel big.
But it’s not my landlord. It’s my neighbor, Lyle, the man who routinely hits his wife and shouts so loud it’s like he wants to keep the whole building awake. When I see it’s him—bald, tatted, and mean—I half close the door.
“Can I help you?” I say.
He makes a low, weird, shuddering noise. I look closer. What the hell? He’sterrified, I realize. Lyle is usually the bully, the big bad wolf huffing and puffing.
“I wanted to say sorry,” he mutters, staring at the floor with what looks like tears in his eyes. Or are they allergies? “… for all the times you’ve heard me and my wife arguing.”
“If you were really sorry,” I say, gripping the door hard as I get ready to slam it, just in case his response is to do something violent, “you’d leave that poor woman alone.”
“She’s gone,” he says, “to a woman’s shelter. We’re never going to see each other again. I’m leaving Vegas. I just had to—wanted to—say sorry.”
With that, he turns away, leaving me to watch him go with confusion. Lyle is usually drunk, but he seemed sober then, so maybe it’s that. He’s finally had a clear, non-drunk look at what a monster he truly is. It’s inspired him to change his ways. Is that it?
It’s hard to accept because he was so cruel before, but I guess it’s not impossible. Either way, I don’t have time to hang around and think about it. I have to work.
At work, I switch from podcasts to a fantasy audiobook. I’ve been trying to listen to podcasts to help me find the motivation and the means to reinvent my situation, but sometimes, I just need an escape. Everybody is talking about Mr. Konstantin, speculating about how he died, but I only hear that when I’m forced to remove my headphones to look professional.
Finally, it’s the end of the day. Should I take my painting stuff home? I can’t use the office as my painting studio forever. Now that Lyle and his wife are gone—I silently wish her luck—there’s no reason to hang around, is there?
What about Dimitri?
Ah, there’s that voice. That silly, immature, optimistic voice needs to grow the hell up. It’s the voice that tells me a Prince Charming is going to ride into my life and make everything better. Clearly, the fantasy novel has gotten to me today.
“I was wondering when you’d turn up,” Dimitri says when I walk into the half-finished office.
Dimitri is sitting on a chair that wasn’t there before, that same smirk on his face. He looks tired, but somehow, it makes him more handsome, like a wolf ready for the hunt. Beside him, there’s a large A-frame easel that looks like it cost at least a hundred bucks. There’s also an extensive collection of paints, brushes, pencils, and paper.
“I didn’t know what kind to get,” he says in an intense, husky voice.
I approach the display, feeling like a kid inside a candy store on Christmas morning, which also happens to be their birthday. There are expensive jars of tempera paint, tubes of gouache, even smaller jars of oil, and some acrylic. I laugh as I pick up the can of spray paint. “Won’t you be mad if I graffiti your new office?”
His smirk and the new brightness in his icy eyes are playing many tricks on me.
“I figured I could have this stuff moved to your apartment,” he says. “Hopefully, it’ll be quieter now.”
I put the spray paint down, looking at him closely. He looks… proud? It’s silly to thinkIcould read him. He’s a CEO, a millionaire, if not a billionaire. He’s almost twice my age—online, it says he is forty, and I’m twenty-two—but I’msureI’m seeing this right.
“Was that you?” I say.
“You deserve a peaceful place to live,” he tells me. “Although that apartment is a rundown hellhole. You deserve abetterplace to live…”
He trails off. I get it. He doesn’t have to say anything. He won’t randomly give one of his employees a new home or, even sweeter, move me in withhim.
“What did you do?” I ask. “Lyle was terrified this morning. I’ve never seen him like that.”
