Page 14 of A Perfect Match
His haughty chuckle begins slowly, but it quickly picks up steam.“You are so full of shit.”
I bristle, glad that he can’t see me, because he’d read my body language and know he was right.He’s just two years older than me but sometimes I felt like we were twins growing up.“What did you call for?”
“Just wanted to check in on my little sis after the big news on Wednesday.That landlord still being a piece of shit?”
It takes everything in me to bite my tongue.But I can’t hold it all back entirely.“Well, he burst through my back wall today…”
“What?”
“Something about fire code and the emergency egress.”I sigh.“Our shops are going to be unified at the back.I’ll beconjoined twinswith him.Griff, this is a nightmare.”
“Wait, he literally broke through your back wall?”he repeats.
“Yes!With a hammer or whatever.”I remember the way his forearms flexed as he stepped through the hole in the wall and frown.The mischief and innocence in his smile will haunt me for longer than I want to admit.
“Oh my god.Let me talk to this guy.”
“Don’t.It’s pointless.It’s part of the fire code and it must be done—”
“Yeah, so he’s tellingyou,” Griff says.“Pipes, he’s probably trying to run you out of there.You have a lease, right?Well, what’s more convenient than an ending lease he doesn’t renew?A suddenly vacant second half of the building for him to use however he wants!”
His words land harder than the hammer that broke through my back wall earlier today.I’d not considered this possibility.The idea makes me sick.“You think he’s trying to push me out?”
“It sounds a little fucking suspicious, don’t you think?Who needs to just burst through a wall?Next thing you know, he’s gonna be reclaiming parts of your shop.Then suddenly you lose the whole back room.He probably plans to make it extra uncomfortable for you, so he can have the whole place to himself.”
Lightbulbs are going off.“Oh my god.You’re right!This makes so much more sense for why he’d want the apartment upstairs too—”
“Want what?”
I clamp my mouth shut, realizing I’d leaked the bad news without meaning to.I can hear my heart thumping in my chest.My entire face goes hot.Fuck.
“Say what now?”is all I can muster.
“It sounded like you said…he wants your apartment too?”
Silence throbs between us for a few beats.“I mean…”
“Jesus, Piper, you’re doing it again!What the fuck is going on?”
I crumple against the couch.I can’t keep this up any longer.I backed myself into a corner, and I need to face the big brother music.“Ugh, fine.He’s kicking me out of the apartment.”
“Excuse me?”
I groan.“Yes.I have five—no, three—more days to move.I’ve started packing.I’m leaving.He’s renovating it and moving in—”
“Dude, Piper.I don’t even know where to begin with everything you just said.Where the fuck are you going to go?”
The phone slips away from my face after that question.But it doesn’t matter.Because I know he’ll hear me as I shout my response.“I don’t knoooow!”
I put the phone on speaker because I can’t handle hearing his incredulity right next to my ear drum.“When the fuck were you going to mention this?”
“After I had found another apartment.”
“Which would be when?After you spent a few weeks living on the sidewalk outside The Daily Grind?Jesus.This is insane.Why didn’t you show him your rental contract?”
I drag my hands down my face, melting off the couch.This is the throbbing heart of the matter.The major fuck up that I, the youngest Keegan, am known for.The thing they all saw coming.The detail they’ll hold over my head for the next four decades.“I didn’t sign one.”
Griff sighs.
