Page 83 of Hello Stranger

I felt an unexpected ping of disappointment at that. But what had I been hoping for, exactly? “Lovely”? “Ravishing in a man’s plaid bathrobe”? “So much better than your stepsister”?

The man was serving me linguine fra diavolo right now. Maybe I could cut him a break.

I took the emotional high road. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

“You’re not rescued yet,” Joe said—and at that, I checked my texts for anything from Mr. Kim.

Nothing.

Fine. Eat first, worry later.

I glanced over to see if I should make a plate of linguine for Peanut, but he was fast asleep, a little pile of blow-dried fur.

“So,” I said, settling onto a kitchen stool and gesturing around at this empty warehouse of an apartment. “What’s the story here?”

“What story?”

I looked around again. “You know you don’t have any furniture, right?”

“Ah,” Joe said. “That’s true.”

No sense in pretending. “This is the saddest apartment I’ve ever seen,” I said. “It’s worse than my place, and I live in a hovel.”

“A penthouse hovel,” Joe pointed out.

“Arooftophovel,” I corrected.

“But it’s surprisingly nice.”

“It’s much nicer than this sad…”—I looked around—“empty warehouse.” Then I had to ask. “How long has it been like this?”

“A year.”

I choked on a noodle. “A year?”

Joe crunched on his salad and gave me a shrug.

“Do you…” I tried to imagine any kind of reason at all why a grown man would live in an empty apartment for a whole year. “Are you… anti-furniture?”

“Not really,” Joe said, like that was all he was going to say on that. Then he added, “I just gave it all to Goodwill when my wife left me.”

Ah.

Okay.

He went on, “I wanted to burn it in a gasoline-fueled bonfire, but that’s against city regulations. Apparently.”

Wow. Joe had a past. And maybe some anger issues. Why did that suddenly make him sexier? “You checked with the city before torching your ex-wife’s furniture?”

He nodded. “It’s all on the municipal website.” Then he tilted his head like he was noticing my point. “I’m very law-abiding.”

“Fair enough.”

“She must have done something really horrible to you,” I said then, all casual, hoping he’d spill it all.

“Yep.”

“For you to want to burn everything.”

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