Superfan (Brooklyn #3)(59)

“—know each other. So you’ve said. But I think your relationship is happening in dog years. The time you’ve spent on texts alone this week is more togetherness than some married people have in a year.”

It’s true that Delilah and I are talking. A lot. And I can’t wait to go to California to see her concert. Unfortunately, I’ll have to leave the day after the concert. Even so, I’m missing the first two practices of the season. Nobody does that. Ever.

And Delilah seems to have even more on her plate than I do.

There are a few things that Heidi’s chirpy, upbeat attitude just can’t fix. I’m afraid this is one of them.

“You could give Delilah one of the bedrooms as a studio,” Heidi says. “The master bedroom would be that one—” She points. “That leaves you a nice living room, and the den could have a foldout couch for when your mother visits.”

“That is a lot of life planning,” I say tightly. “Didn’t you say it was time for lunch?” But now I’m glancing around the space again. It’s gorgeous. Beringer’s pad was the sweetest one. “How much is Dave trying to get, anyway?”

“The buyers he lost were paying two point nine.”

“Million?” I gasp.

“It’s the biggest unit in the building.”

“Why didn’t the sale go through?” I hate that she’s making me think about this. But I want this little picture she’s painting. I want to walk through that door after practice and see Delilah on the sofa with her guitar.

I want that so bad.

“The buyer was getting transferred here from San Francisco,” Heidi says, backing up to take a photo of the couch and its well-fluffed pillows. “Then his company went belly-up and he no longer has a job. Dave let him out of the contract.” She spins around. “I think he’d take less now. He just wants to sell and be in Vermont with his cute family and have another baby.”

“Are you getting a commission or something?”

“No.” She walks over and pats my arm. “You should take a few photos, too, in case you want to discuss it with your girl.”

“She’s not my girl,” I say reflexively.

“But she could be. I’m going to go order that pizza. Meatball and roma tomatoes. With olives?”

“Yeah, thanks,” I say, trying not to buy into Heidi’s fantasy.

It’s already too late. I’m busy wondering if I could afford this apartment. It’s not an easy question. I make nine hundred thousand a year, and when my contract is renegotiated this year, I’ll make more.

But I’m so superstitious. If I make an offer on this apartment, Delilah will probably freak out that I’m moving too fast. Which I probably am.

Or I’ll get traded to another team nowhere near Brooklyn, and I’ll still be on the hook for nearly three million bucks. This shit happens. Since luck isn’t always on my side, it would probably happen to me.

Buying this place would be a terrible idea. What’s the down payment on three mill? Almost a half million dollars? I don’t have that much money in the bank. Maybe I will in two years. But not yet.

Still. So tempting. I pull out my phone and take a couple of photos, damn it. I already asked Delilah if she wanted to visit me in Brooklyn next week. August is too long to wait. She said she’d check with her scary new manager.

I wonder how casually I could mention the unit for sale in my building…

It’s crazy to think this way. Even so, I pull out my phone and search: how much house can I afford? And I don’t like their answer.

So I go back to our rental unit to stuff my face with pizza.





Delilah





“I’m here to see Charla Harris,” I tell the woman behind the frosted glass desk. She’s dressed head to toe in what’s supposed to be a soothing shade of seafoam green. Instead of a regular desk chair, she’s sitting on something that resembles a giant pebble.

“Namaste,” the woman whispers, giving me a chin dip that’s meant to be a bow. “One moment please.”

I can’t wait to tell Silas about this. The thought pops into my head, as it seems to do all the time now. We talk all the time, too.

It doesn’t feel like enough.

“Right this way.”

I follow the seafoam woman through a doorway marked, Dressing Pod.

Dressing Pod?

“Clothes off, please. All of them. Here is your robe,” she says once we’re inside.

I don’t take the robe. “I’m sorry, but I’m not here for a treatment. Only a chat.”

She points one perfectly manicured finger at the opposite door, where a sign reads, Robes Only Beyond This Point.

“Um…”

She thrusts the robe in my hands and opens a locker door. “You may put your things in here. When you’re properly attired, follow the yellow healing dots to the oxygen room.”

“The what to the what?” But she’s already disappearing through the door.

Silas is definitely hearing about this later.

I remove all my clothes and put on the robe. Feeling like an idiot, I walk barefooted out the far door. At my feet there are large, bubble-shaped dots in various colors painted on the floor. They lead off in various directions. I follow the yellow ones down a corridor.