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Chapter
One
Hayden
I was sitting on a pile of boxes in the hallway of what had been my home as of four hours ago, sweating in the August heat. As it turns out, if your name isn’t on the lease, then it never really was your home. I found myself questioning exactly how my life came to this.
The green door of the apartment to my left cracked open and my girlfriend, well ex-girlfriend, appeared.
“Here. I found your Star Wars bottle opener in the kitchen,” Veronica extended her arm out the slim opening, setting Darth Vader on top of a stack of three boxes, piled next to the door frame. “You’re going to get all these boxes out of here, right? The neighbors are going to complain when they have to play Ninja Warrior to get to their doors.”
I turned my head, certain my disbelief was written all over my features.
“I got here fifteen minutes ago. I need to figure out where I’m going to sleep tonight, let alone how I’m going to get all of this stuff out of here. Your psychic didn’t give you any leads on a new apartment for me, did she?”
At this, Veronica swung the door open, her bright red hair fanning over her shoulder. She leaned on the doorjamb and folded her bare arms with a huff.
“Like I said when you got home, my psychic in Boston has been having serious doubts about our relationship for months, which is why I didn’t put your name on the lease. Miss Hindy recommended Madam London as the best psychic in Washington, DC, and suggested I didn’t make any final decisions until my energy coalesced in this latitude and longitude. But Madam London’s reading today was certain. We have no future. You have no right to this apartment after only seventy-two hours, so figure it out. Goodbye, Hayden.”
With that, the door slammed shut with a resolute bang. Of course, the psychic-obsessed paralegal from my brother’s Boston office, starting at Georgetown Law next week, would have a firm grasp on DC tenant law, but also make major life decisions by what a complete stranger saw in a crystal ball. Veronica and I hadn’t worked for the same department when we started dating late last year; she was a fun distraction from the not-so-subtle hints Duncan had been dropping about it being time for me to take on the CIO job at his firm’s US headquarters. Five years working in Boston after college and grad school, and now I was in another big city I was sure I would hate, starting at a job I wasn’t even sure I wanted, but I owed a lot to Duncan, so here I was.
I felt my phone vibrate next to me. Speak of the oldest brother.
“Hi, Duncan. How’s Brussels?”
“Sproutless. I got your text and only have five minutes before dinner. Veronica kicked you out and is moving to London?”
Looks like some things got a bit jumbled when I was texting under duress. I would need to look back later to see what my text actually said in my SOS message.
“It’s a long story, but in short, I need a place to stay and some help to get all my belongings out of a fifth-floor hallway in Georgetown.”
I heard rustling on the other line, which I took to mean Duncan had put me on speakerphone and was putting on his tuxedo. Soon, he’d be ready to take on whatever corporate stooge he had booked for dinner tonight, probably with someone gorgeous on his arm.
“I told you when you took the job, you could stay at my condo. I’ll call my assistant there in DC and have him arrange for someone to come and get your belongings today, and have the concierge at the building have the keys ready for you. There. Problem solved.”
“Problem solved,” I echoed softly, leaning my head back, so it hit a little harder than necessary on the wall. Texting Duncan seemed smart at the time, but sliding into the fallback of relying on him to fix my life left a bitter taste in my mouth. Duncan wanted me to stay with him instead of taking this apartment with Veronica in the first place—hindsight was 20/20, right? Instead, I thought if I wasn’t going to be completely comfortable with my job or my city, I at least wanted to have some control over my living arrangements. Not my best decision.
“I gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow morning for the welcome call with the other department heads?”
“See you then, Dunc… and… thanks.”
“No problem, little brother. There’s a great beer store around the corner from my building, it’s on New Jersey Ave. Grab something and put it on my tab before you head up.”
The line went dead. I looked around with all my worldly possessions stacked around me, waiting for my phone to ping with details on the movers I knew Duncan’s assistant would magically procure out of thin air.
Veronica’s Boston psychic had been right. Our relationship wasn’t ready for a move like the one we had made, and I could sense some self-destruction and a little moping ahead, but knew it would ultimately be for the best. Navy Yard was more my kind of neighborhood than Georgetown, anyway. I hated needing Duncan’s help this way, but suddenly, I couldn’t wait to be home.
Chapter
Two
Charlotte
Had I walked under a ladder, as a black cat crossed my path, broke thirteen mirrors, and then stepped on every crack on the sidewalk? I don’t remember doing any of those things, but I must have pissed off the universe somehow. There was no other way for me to accept just how terrible this day had been.
The balls-hot humidity I encountered every time I stepped outside here in the nation’s capital greeted me as I left the offices of the Independent Bookstore Alliance. Leslie Knope was not kidding when she called it a “stupid swamp town.”
I fired off an SOS text to my best friend as I moved toward the Metro station and let out a sigh of relief when my phone rang a moment later.
