Trade Me (Cyclone #1)(29)

My gaze drops to my knees. I can’t meet his eyes. I can’t. He’ll know.

I wait a little too long to answer. “There is no source material, Blake. We were faking.” And once I’m sure I have myself under control, I look over at his profile. I make myself not want to reach out, to brush his hand that lies on the armrest next to mine. “We did what we had to do,” I tell him. “Now we’re done.”

8.

BLAKE

It takes us another six days to get everything in place: a contract to protect Tina (she insisted on it), a subleasing agreement (my lawyer insisted on that when she found out what we were doing), money transfers, bank accounts, a meeting with her current landlord.

We don’t talk anything but business when we see each other, but the chemistry is still there, crackling between us. Our eyes meet a little too long; she refuses to look my way during the class we share. I know it’s stupid to want her. I have shit to solve.

But hormones—damn, when they really engage, they don’t let up. And mine have gone from interested to riveted.

It feels like the best of all possible worlds the day we switch places. The air is crisp and fresh when I hand Tina and her roommate, Maria, the keys to my place. On the one hand, I feel like I’m handing off all my worries.

Just the act of changing things up has made me feel hopeful. And now that we’re really about to execute this trade, I don’t think she can push me away with mundane details. I feel almost happy when I pack my things into my car and follow Tina’s directions.

I kind of expected Tina to live in a dump, but the address she directs me to is in a tidy residential neighborhood, filled with tiny 1950s homes. I wouldn’t choose to live here willingly, but it could definitely be worse.

Tina directs me to stop by an empty lot, high with growing weeds, with a view onto the backend of a supermarket.

“Which one is it?” I ask.

She nods across the street. A peach-and-white trimmed house, with a clipped lawn, meets my eyes. Honestly, it doesn’t seem so bad. I stayed in worse when I went backpacking through Eastern Europe.

“Cute.”

Tina and Maria exchange amused glances, like I’ve said something hilarious.

“You’re in the garage,” Tina says.

My eyes travel behind the house to a detached structure in the back yard.

“Cool,” I say again. “A converted garage.”

That amused glance again. It makes me feel like I should watch my back. I sigh. “Let’s go check it out.”

Five minutes later, I’m convinced that my first impression based on Tina’s reaction—“dump”—was more accurate. Calling the garage converted is like calling the empty lot across the street a rose garden. The garage door still works; the gaps that let in cold air have been duct-taped over, but there’s still a persistent draft. The concrete floor has been covered with carpet remnants. At least those look clean, if a little haphazard.

The furniture is sparse—two beds with metal frames, a desk that wobbles when I toss my duffle on top, a dresser, and a bare clothing rod against one wall. The bathroom is a boxy installation of not-quite-straight wallboard.

There’s something like a kitchen. Which is to say, there is a single sink, which I would have called stainless steel in another life, except it is most definitely stained, and a foot-long stretch of Formica countertop. A microwave and a hotplate round out the cooking gear. Cinderblocks and particleboard shelves make up the kitchen cabinets.

Okay, this is pretty crappy. It’s also cold.

“Where’s the thermostat?” I ask.

The women smile at each other again. “No heat,” Maria says.

“What?” I stare at them. “Is that even legal?”

“No.”

I blink. “What the hell? Why haven’t you reported them? Do you just not—”

“Oh, I know,” Maria says, waving a hand in my direction. “My grandmother is a lawyer for the City Attorney of San Francisco. I know how this works way better than you ever will. We’d report them. Then the city would decide that this does not pass inspection on about fifty different counts. And then we would have to find somewhere else to live, and nowhere that actually meets housing code will charge us only eight hundred bucks a month. The whole thing is totally illegal. But on the bright side, it makes breaking leases infinitely easier.”

Fine. If they’ve put up with this, I can, too.

“Besides,” Maria says, “it’s the Bay Area, not Wisconsin. It’s not like it ever really gets that cold.”

“Outside,” Tina says. “Sometimes, in the morning, it’s kind of bad. Try and get out early; it’s better that way.”

“Yeah,” Maria says. “But you don’t need our advice. You’re a big, macho man. You eat cold for breakfast.”

I’m pretty sure she’s making fun of me, so I refuse to rise to the bait. “Nope,” I say. “What kind of idiot doesn’t want advice?”

They exchange glances yet again.

Maria sighs. “Should we tell him about the space heater?”

“Honestly, he’s better off not knowing.”

“Come on,” I say. “No holding out on me.”

“Fine. But remember, you asked for it.” Tina rummages around between one of the beds and the dresser and comes up with a black, plastic thing that looks like a fan. “But, um, maybe… There is something we should mention.”