Say You Still Love Me(11)

My door connects with something solid just inside.

“Hello?” I holler through the crack.

“Piper! Hold on! Let me move that!” comes the responding shout.

Bare feet slap against the hardwood, followed by a series of grunts and the sound of a heavy object sliding across the floor, and then the door flings open and a freckled face appears.

“Sorry!” Ashley exclaims, panting. “I meant to move those earlier, but I got caught up with unpacking.” She takes a deep breath, exhales, and then grins. “Hey, new roomie!”

I laugh as I hip-check the door shut and shimmy past the wall of stacked blue containers to set my purse on the kitchen island. “Is this all your party-planning stuff?”

“Yeah,” she admits, smoothing over the lifted corner of a label marked “Ribbons.” “I’ll make it all fit in my room, though, I promise.”

“No worries. How’d today go? Did security give you any problems?”

“Nope! They even met the movers at the service elevator.” Ashley runs her slender fingers over her hair, attempting to tame the strawberry-blonde halo of frizz around her messy topknot, to no avail. The only day of the week that it’s truly ever smooth is Friday, if she goes for a blowout at the salon. And if it’s a humid day? Forget about it. Even that won’t last an hour.

“Good. I stopped by the front desk this morning to make sure they remembered, but you never know with them.”

“That shade of green looks amazing on you,” she murmurs, dusting her hands over the ratty concert T-shirt she obviously threw on to unpack. The disheveled, frumpy outfit is so opposite her usual feminine boho-chic look.

“Thanks.” I kick off my heels with a groan, stretching and wiggling my toes. I’m going to need to swallow my pride and start changing into running shoes for the fifteen-minute walk from work. “Is Christa home yet?”

“On her way. And she’s bringing dinner, so don’t order in.”

“Thank God.” Christa is the general manager at a popular steak house nearby, with a staff of seventy-eight, open 364 days a year. On the rare occasion that our schedules cross paths over dinner, she usually brings a fully prepped meal, hot off the grill, saving me from day-old sushi and wilted salad.

I round the island and wander over to the adjacent living room, to take in the charcoal-gray velvet sectional. “So, this is the infamous couch.” The one that sparked the colossal fight between Ashley and Chad that ended in their breakup. The one that Elton, Christa’s severely cross-eyed Siamese cat, is currently perched on, calmly and methodically licking away at his paw.

“I told you it would be perfect for this room,” Ashley says, her gaze assessing the space with a smile of satisfaction.

“It’s starting to look like an actual home in here,” I agree. When I ended things with David, I left with my bedroom set and two white leather chairs. Everything else was his and I didn’t want any of it. My dad offered me this place—a spacious three-bedroom, four-bathroom penthouse unit in CG’s newly completed Posey Park project. It’s far too spacious for one person but it’s close to work, so I happily accepted, having every intention of hiring Marcelle, my mom’s interior decorator, as soon as I had time to care about things like furniture and artwork.

For all the effort I put into decorating my office, I’ve put in the opposite amount here. Almost four months have gone by, and the generous space still sits mostly empty and undecorated. Christa moved in last month and brought with her a flat-screen television to hang over the gas fireplace, a chunky oak coffee table that is heavy enough to break shins, and a four-person round-tabled IKEA dining set that screams of low budget.

Basically, we’ve been living like a couple of college students who found a penthouse to squat in.

But now, it’s starting to come together. With some style, too, as Ashley’s beautiful, huge sectional and geometric black-and-white rug complement my white leather chairs perfectly.

I sink into the couch to test it out. “Oh . . . I’m not getting up again tonight.”

“See? I told you it was comfortable.”

“So comfortable.”

“And two people can lie down on either side, easily,” she goes on, as if still selling the thing to me. “It’s perfect.”

“Oh, it is,” I agree, adding more gently, “though I can see why Chad might think this was too big for your place.” The tiny midtown bungalow that they were renting couldn’t have been more than nine hundred square feet.

“It was a bit tight for there,” she admits sheepishly. “But we could have made it work. He didn’t have to be such a jerk about it.”

I offer her a sympathetic smile. “Was he there today?”

“He showed up as the movers were carrying out the last load, just to make sure I didn’t take anything I wasn’t supposed to. Like his TV.” She rolls her eyes. “I don’t even know how to turn on that stupid thing.”

“So, things didn’t leave off amicably then?”

“I’m sorry, what? Did you say you wanted a glass of pinot noir to celebrate my move in?” Ashley sashays over to the kitchen island and pours two glasses of red wine from an uncorked bottle, artfully avoiding my question. She hands me mine and then takes a seat beside me.