Page 24 of Up All Night

I proceeded to give them my address butaccidentallytold them apartment 304.

Oops.

9

West

Isat on the couch looking over the contract my dad and I had revised this week, the occasional tinkling of wind chimes in the background reminding me of mywonderfulneighbor.

My eyes were tired, and the words on the screen were starting to blur. Cannon was out on a date, and when left alone, I tended to work. I checked the time to see that it was only seven-thirty, which was too early to go to bed, even for me. Maybe I could read until nine.

I was about to shut my laptop when my doorbell rang.

I wasn’t expecting anyone, and I hoped it wasn’t another salesperson. Although if it was, I could send them up to Halle’s apartment again.

Chuckling, I closed my laptop and made my way to the door.

Opening the door I found a lanky teenager, his hair sticking up in all different directions as he stood on my doorstep with a paper bag filled with something.

“Here’s your food,” the boy said, trying to hand me the paper bag.

I didn’t move to take it from him. “Uh, I didn’t order any food. You must have the wrong apartment.”

Gosh, what was that smell? It smelled like stinky gym socks that had been left in a locker for way too long. The boy looked fairly clean, but maybe he hadn’t taken a shower in a while, which wasn’t particularly uncommon in this city.

He looked behind me at the number on my door. “Apartment number 304 for West?”

“That’s me, but I didn’t order any food,” I said in confusion.

“Well, this is for you.” He shoved the bag in my hands and walked away, leaving me standing there as I watched him get in his car and drive away.

Okay, that was weird.

I shut the door and walked into my kitchen to see what was in this mystery bag.

I parted the bag and the stench I’d smelled earlier hit my nose.

What was in here?

Slowly, I pulled out the Styrofoam container. The smell of rotten meat or eggs or something worse made me afraid to open it.

With my face pinched, I undid the tabs, releasing the lid. The smell hit me like a punch in the face. A stack of brown square shapes filled the entire container. I gagged at the smell and quickly closed the lid.

Looking back in the bag, the receipt sat at the bottom. Pulling it out, I scanned it to see that what I had here was two orders of stinky tofu.

Stinky tofu? I’d never heard of that before, and I’d definitely never smelled it before.

Putting the repulsive smelling food back in the bag, I hurried to get it out of the apartment. Walking out to the dumpsters, I threw it in with a satisfying thud, glad I would no longer have to smell it.

As I headed back inside, I noticed a beautiful woman sitting out on her balcony with a smile on her face as she looked down at her phone. Her eyes quickly glanced at me, and the look on her face was the only proof I needed.

“You think you’re pretty funny, don’t you?” I called up to Halle.

She gave me a look, feigning innocence. “I have no idea what you mean.”

Yeah, right she didn’t know what I meant. She had ordered that disgusting smelling food to be delivered to my house. If she had no idea about that, I guess I had no idea about a certain salesman.

“My mistake, then.” I stopped on the sidewalk and continued to look up at her, her brown hair down, the last of the day’s sun showing off her highlights. Ignoring how beautiful she was, I said, “How was your afternoon? Sounded like you were able to get some cleaning done with all the vacuuming I heard.”

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