Page 6 of Broken Instrument

“Yeah.” I look up at her. “I missed you, though.”

A sad smile tugs at her lips. “I missed you too, but…” She peeks over her shoulder again toward the closed bedroom door.

“But what, Trish?”

“But I’ve been seeing someone,” she admits, her voice hushed.

I should feel disappointed. Hell, I should feel jealous. But if anything, the same numbness only settles into my bones a little more.

“Is he in there?” I ask, my head tilting toward her bedroom down the hall.

She nods. “I’m sorry––”

“Don’t be. Does he treat you right?”

Her smile softens, finally giving a glimpse of the one I fell for all those months ago when we first started hooking up. “Yeah. He’s a good guy. An architect, actually.”

I laugh. “An architect, huh?”

She nods.

“Good for you, Trish.”

“You mean that?”

I nod.

“Thanks,” she replies.

“You happy?”

Another nod.

“Then, I’m happy for you too.”

“Thanks,” she repeats. The dog’s barking reverberates through the shared wall to her right again. She rolls her dark almond-shaped eyes. “I swear, Hadley’s going to be kicked out of her apartment if she doesn’t get rid of––”

Hinges squeaking from the hall cut her off. The shadow of a man appears from the apartment across the hall from Trisha’s. A three-hundred-pound, sixty-year-old with a massive beer belly and a gray combover wobbles out his front door and into the shared hallway. Like he’s off to battle, he marches toward the source of the barking, and Trisha pales.

“Shit. She’s in for it now,” she mutters under her breath, peeking through her still-open door. I follow her gaze as the asshole waddles down the hall, his footsteps heavy and jarring, toward the apartment beside Trisha’s.

His sausage fingers pull into a heavy fist. He pounds on the door and bellows, “Hadley Rutherford! Open the hell up!”

The barking ceases as I look back at Trish with an arched brow.

“The landlord,” she clarifies under her breath, watching the scene unfold like an inevitable train wreck before remembering her manners. She shoves at my chest until the shitshow is hidden from sight, though I can still hear it perfectly clear through the open door. Ah, so we’re out of sight but can still experience front-row seats at the shit show.

Sneaky, Trish.

Apparently, this isn’t her first nosey-neighbor rodeo.

“Hadley Rutherford,” the old man yells again. “If you don’t open the door right this minute––”

Squeak.

I assume Hadley must’ve opened the door because a feminine voice replies, “Oh. Hey, Mortin––”

“Don’t hey, Mortin me, Ms. Rutherford,” the landlord interrupts. “I heard it in there. The dog––”

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