Page 3 of Up All Night

“Late?” Her laugh finally started to fizzle out. “Are you joking? It’s nine o’clock.”

She wasn’t really asking me if I was joking. Her voice held more of an accusing tone to it, like I was crazy to think this was late at night.

“No, I’m not,” I said curtly. “I was trying to sleep, but your ear-splitting music was keeping me awake.”

She sucked in her lips as if she was trying not to laugh again. “Right. Wouldn’t want to interrupt your precious sleep.” Her face took on a look of feigned concern. “Heck, I wouldn’t want to throw off your sleep schedule and put a damper on your day tomorrow at youronejob. Can’t believe I didn’t think to adjust my life and my responsibilities to make sure thatyourneeds were met. I’ll make sure to revolve my life around yours from now on.”

The door slammed in my face, and within seconds music sounded through the walls, louder than it had been before I came up here.

2

Halle

Sitting in the middle of the floor in my bedroom, I stared at my reflection in the large framed mirror I had resting against the wall. The song I had been dancing to blasted out of my portable speaker. I’d turned it up as loud as it would go, and I ignored the ringing in my ears the excessive volume was causing.

I took my hand and smoothed the scowl lines between my eyes. My anger was still fresh from my conversation with my grumpy and egotistical neighbor.

The audacity of the man! How dare he tell me what to do?

He acted as if he was in charge around here, like he was the superintendent instead of Ron, who was a sweet old man once you got to know him. He was a little gruff at first, but once I got him chatting about his granddaughter and her love for dance and how her parents wished they could sign her up for dance classes but couldn’t afford it, I’d offered her a spot in one of my jazz classes at a discounted rate. I didn’t have the authority to give discounts, but hearing about a little girl’s dream to dance had pulled at my heartstrings. I, too, had once been a little girl who wanted to dance, so the little bit of money I secretly added each month to her account didn’t bother me at all.

So despite West’s complaints and efforts to get me evicted, Ron was completely on my side of things. Plus, I was never loud past ten o’clock, which is usually when any sort of quiet hours would start, so I was well within the unstated rule.

Even though I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him on the other side of my door, I had been. And I definitely hadn’t expected to see him in his slippers and pajamas. I’d only ever seen him in crisp suits and expensive shoes. If all that hadn’t been surprising enough, I especially hadn’t thought to find him even more attractive in a t-shirt and sweats look, his dirty-blonde hair soft without any styling product. I’d also had no idea he was sporting some impressive muscles underneath all those fancy suits.

When I’d first laid my eyes on West tonight, I’d almost forgotten how much I disliked him.

But then he’d opened his mouth.

Who cared how hot a guy was if he was rude, arrogant, and self-absorbed? No, thanks.

I’d been with a guy based on his looks instead of who he was as a person, and I’d vowed to never makethatmistake again.

Yes, my ex-boyfriend had been easy on the eyes, and my attraction to him had overshadowed how he’d never treated me well. It had taken me way too many years and a few friends to get me to finally see what had been in front of me the whole time.

Not that I was even remotely thinking about getting in a relationship with my pompous neighbor. But I couldn’t deny that seeing West had brought up memories of how blind and naive I’d been. Two years of my life had been wasted, and although I couldn’t get that time back, I could learn from my mistakes.

Unlike my mother.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my mom. She is my mom, after all. She was the way she was, and she had done the best she knew how. It had only been the two of us while I was growing up. I had no idea who my father was, and neither did my mother. She’d had me at age seventeen, and we’d been on our own ever since, going from place to place, apartment to apartment, her going from job to job and from guy to guy.

Having a front-row seat to my mother’s unstable financial life and bad choices in men had me working hard to not follow in her footsteps.

I’d been working two jobs ever since I graduated from high school, and though I had tried to date decent guys over the years, Jeremy, my good-looking loser of an ex, as well as Teddy, Spencer, David, Jason, and Troy, had proven I needed to work harder to not take after my mom, constantly picking the wrong guys for myself.

But in my defense, I didn’t go from guy to guy looking for money or a good time, like she did. I’d genuinely thought I could have had a good relationship with each of my exes but had been horribly wrong. My compatible good-guy radar was totally broken.

The song ended, and the music stopping brought me back to the present, pushing thoughts of my past aside. I pressed stop on my phone so it wouldn’t repeat. I really didn’t want to be a bad neighbor, at least to the rest of the tenants in our building. If it was only me and Mr. Jerkface downstairs, I’d play loud music all night long. Maybe even do an Irish stepdance just toreallypound my feet on the floor.

Despite how I had acted earlier, I hadn’t meant to be loud. I had a dance routine that had to be finished being choreographed by Monday. Between my jobs at the gym and the dance studio, I hadn’t had a lot of time to put into choreographing several dances for the dance recital that was in two months.

Soon I’d even be picking up a few more clients at the gym to help out one of my coworkers who would be going out of town. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it all, but I’d have to figure out a way.

I dreamed about someday having justonejob. Not rushing from one job to the next, feeling so exhausted, only to then come home and work more.

But I felt bad complaining. I needed the money, and beggars couldn’t be choosers. In the last ten years since I graduated from high school, I’d worked some pretty crappy jobs, so despite being exhausted, I was beyond grateful to have two good jobs I actually enjoyed.

Some months I was even able to set aside a small amount of money in my savings to hopefully have enough money to start my own dance studio one day. A girl could dream, at least.

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