Page 24 of Marry Me, Right Now

“Nice to meet you, Zav,” I smiled as I shoveled myself into the elevator. “Have a great day.”

“You too, Miss.”

Checking my hair quickly in the mirrored elevator, I was glad for the ride up to the forty-third floor, so that I could run a brush through my thick subway-breeze styled hair.

Jacob answered the door so fast he must have been waiting for me.

“Welcome to your new home, m’lady,” he grinned, sweeping me into the foyer. Then he saw me dragging two huge suitcases, and grabbed them from me. “I hope the cab driver was careful with these.”

“I took the subway.”

The look of horror on his face was so extreme that one would think I had taken some sort of demon vortex through the fourth circle of hell. “Why... why would you do that?”

“That’s what humans in Toronto do, Jacob. They take the subway. It wasn’t rush hour – don’t worry, I was fine.”

He shook his head, taking my things to my room, while I followed. “I’m going to set your phone up with both of my car services. Now, where did you say the rest of your things were being stored?”

I told him the name of the storage facility and the address. He entered everything into his phone carefully. “Do you have the key with you?”

“It’s a keycode. Unit seven in the orange block, code 30405.”

He took everything down and sent a text. “Your things will be delivered here this afternoon. I’ll have everything brought to the hallway outside your door so that your room isn’t cluttered and you can unpack easier.”

“But your hallway will be a mess.”

He flashed me a warm grin that instantly put me at ease. “I want you to be comfortable here. Take your time unpacking and arranging your things. Order any furniture you need, and have it delivered. The concierge can have it delivered into our foyer if we’re not home, and I have a furniture assembly guy who can come in on twenty-four hours notice, sometimes less.”

I’m not sure what expression I was making, but he suddenly laughed at me. “What? What’s that look for?”

“Do you have a guy for everything?”

He shrugged. “Pretty much, yeah. Except for my plumber and my decorator. Those are ladies.”

I shook my head. “Weird.”

Jacob’s warm eyes regarded me carefully. “It’s the way my family has always been. It makes life go more smoothly, don’t you think?”

“I’ve never had the option of thinking about it.”

“You’ve never hired movers before?”

I laughed. “When regular people move, they talk their strong friends into working for the day, and pay them in beer and pizza that night.”

“What about the furniture?” he asked quite seriously, leading us into the living room.

“That’s when you really need to hope that Kevin and Jamie are available that day. Otherwise, you might have four girls doing their best, and you’ll end up with a couple of dents. But it’s the only choice we have.”

“You risk damaging the walls? Denting your wooden furniture?” he asked, sitting beside me on the couch, apparently fascinated by this conversation.

I nodded, surprised that a sharp guy wasn’t getting this. “Rent is insane. People can barely pay for it every month. You can’t be spending a few hundred dollars on movers, then suddenly get the flu and miss a week’s worth of work.”

His awkward unease was actually kind of sweet. “Damn. I’d never thought of that.”

“You’ve never had to.”

His head tilted down slightly, as if he were ashamed. “You must think I’m beyond spoiled.”

I stared at my hands for a moment, trying to think of a diplomatic yet honest answer. “You’ve always had everything you needed, plus everything you’ve wanted. You’ve never had to decide between eating and buying new shoes because your only pair has a hole in the sole and leak when it rains. But that’s the world you were born into, so I shouldn’t judge you.”

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