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Frederick J. Fitzwilliam
I set down the note, smiling despite my exhaustion.
Please let me know if these cooking implements will suffice. He had to be joking, right? These were the nicest pots and pans I’d ever seen outside of the high-end stores on the Magnificent Mile.
As for the rest of Frederick’s note, I couldn’t help but wonder what he’d think when he saw the ancient fox hunt painting currently hanging in my bedroom replaced with a canvas full of Lake Michigan’s finest beach trash. Based on his other decorative choices I doubted he’d like my work at all.
But the fact that he was at leastcuriousabout my art made me feel warm inside, for reasons I was too tired to analyze.
In fact, I was so tired I felt about ready to collapse. But before I showered and went to bed I wanted to write a reply.
Frederick,
The pots and pans you got are AMAZING. You totally didn’t need to get anything this fancy just for me. Especially since my cooking repertoire is fairly limited. The next time we’re both in the apartment I’d be happy to cook you something to thank you (as long as it’s scrambled eggs, pasta, or beans).
Cassie
I made my way into the bathroom and stripped down. Frederick’s bathroom was massive—at least twice the size of the bedroom in my old apartment. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to it. The floor was white tiled marble, which was achingly cold beneath my feet. I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised by that, given how cold Frederick kept the rest of the apartment. I’d have to talk to himabout that at some point; wearing sweaters whenever I was home wasn’t something I really wanted to do.
I opened the door to the glass-walled shower and hurried inside, turning up the water temperature as high as it would go and letting the hot steam warm me.
Years of high student loan payments and minimum wage jobs taught me to fear utility bills and to keep my showers efficient and quick. But Frederick paid the utilities here. Just for once, I decided to treat my sore and aching muscles and linger for a while.
I sighed, luxuriating in the feel of the steady spray and perfect water pressure hot against my back. I let my mind wander as the water sluiced over me, thinking through how I might spend the next day. With all the chaos of my eviction notice and moving, I hadn’t been to the studio where I did most of my work in weeks. After sleeping in as long as I could, maybe I would head out to Pilsen and poke around on something new the rest of the day.
After a while—ten minutes? an hour?—I glanced down at my fingers. They were wrinkled as prunes from the water. How long had I been in there?
I reluctantly turned off the hot water and opened the shower door. The air felt even colder than it had earlier after the hot shower I’d just taken, causing a riot of gooseflesh to erupt on the backs of my arms. I grabbed my towel off the back of the door where it hung from a silver chrome hook and wrapped it tightly around my body, tucking it under my arms.
My shower had steamed up the mirror. I quickly rubbed the back of my hand over it so I could see my reflection.
I frowned at what I saw.
My hair was growing back from the impulsive scissors incident from a few weeks ago, but it was still shorter than I usuallykept it. And weirdly uneven. Once it dried, it was going to stick up in the back no matter how much product I put in it.
Once I got my feet under me a little more, the first thing I was going to do was make an honest-to-god visit to an actual salon to fix what I’d done to myself. In the meantime, I should probably do what I could to make myself look presentable.
I thought of the fabric shears in my bedroom. They were probably too dull to do agoodjob on my hair. But they’d be better than nothing.
Tucking my towel a little more tightly around my body, I opened the bathroom door and prepared to make a beeline straight for my bedroom—
—and barreled directly into Frederick, my face smashing right into his chest.
Hisbarechest.
I must have been overheated from the shower, or from embarrassment—or both—because his flesh felt almost unnaturally cool. He stood there as unmoving as a statue, a pair of small white linen shorts slung distractingly low on his hips, as I yelped and sprang away from him. His right hand was raised in a fist, as though he’d just been about to knock on the bathroom door when we collided.
His eyes were wide as saucers, his face as pale as moonlight.
We babbled out our apologies at the same time.
“Miss Greenberg!Oh, I beg your pardon, I—”
“Shit!I’m so sorry! I didn’t—!”
In hindsight, it should have occurred to me that living with another person meant walking around in nothing but a towel wasn’t something I could do anymore. But he’d made such a big deal about usually being out all night. How was I supposed to know that at the exact moment I’d decided to leave the bathroom he’d be standing right outside the bathroom door,shirtless?
As I stood only a few inches away from him in nothing but a towel, my wet hair dripped steadily onto my bare shoulders. His chest was at a level with my eyes, and...
