Landlord Wars(20)

If I ever needed an ego lashing, I could pick up one of Lizzie’s calls.

Her expression grew serious. “You weren’t a good fit with Gwen, and I never understood why you were dating her to begin with.”

“Not a good fit…” I considered that a moment. “You’re the first person to think so.”

My mother, and everyone else hobnobbing in the mansion tonight, had thought Gwen and I would get married, and they supported it.

As though her ears were burning, Kitty took that moment to look up. I loved my mom, but she was partially responsible for the reason this town believed Gwen and I were still together. Even my own mother wouldn’t acknowledge it was over.

Never underestimate the influence of a mother hellbent on making a good match for her son.

With the moves of a linebacker, in her Jimmy Choo pumps and silver embroidered cocktail dress, my petite mother shouldered past Mr. and Mrs. Drake on her way to intercept me and Lizzie. “What are you two whispering about?”

“Just telling Lizzie here how much happier I am now that I’m single.”

My mother frowned. “Said like a man who has everything. One day you’ll wish you had the support of a good woman.”

Gwen wasn’t a bad person. But she was too caught up in appearances to genuinely love anyone. It was a casualty of wealth and power. “I don’t plan to be single forever.”

I’d thought I could spot a schemer from a mile away after my breakup with Gwen and Jack’s horrendous relationship with his last roommate.

Now I wasn’t so sure.

I’d been wrong about Sophia. And a part of me was uncharacteristically pleased about that.





Chapter Ten





Sophia





Elise opened the semi-walk-in closet inside my bedroom and studied the space. It was bigger than a reach in, but small in the sense than only one person could step inside at a time. Then again, any walk-in closet in San Francisco, where space was a rare commodity, was unheard of. “Did the white dresser come with the closet?”

“No,” I said, puffing up my chest. “I bought it and put it together.”

She looked over her shoulder. “You built this?”

“Don’t act so shocked.”

“Well, I am. You suck at building things.” She eyed the dresser. “How long did it take you?”

I crossed my fingers behind my back. “An hour.”

I may have taken care of things back home, but not without help. I had a phone and knew how to call in the professionals.

Elise sent me a disbelieving look.

“Fine,” I said. “It might have taken closer to two hours to build.”

She looked at me pityingly. “You realize that when you move, you won’t be able to bring this with you, right?”

I glanced at the closet. “It’ll fit through the doorway. Especially with the help of my loving sister.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. It won’t fit at home.”

The breath whooshed from my lungs, and I stilled. I’d been so focused on moving forward, I’d forgotten what it would mean to move back.

My new furniture wouldn’t fit at Mom’s. Nothing would fit inside my family home, not even me.

I squeezed the top of my head, forcing back a headache. Moving backward didn’t matter. And it didn’t matter if the darn dresser fit. My aversion to hostile people who disapproved of me surpassed my reluctance to move into my mother’s house. Mostly.

Part of this was my fault for caring so much what people thought, and part of this was Landlord Devil’s fault for his attitude and subtle threats.

I joined my sister at the closet and started pulling the jeans and pants I’d carefully hung not long ago off the hangers and setting them in one of the boxes I hadn’t gotten rid of. “I have no choice. Max has made it clear I’m not wanted here.”

“He seemed fine last night. He even stuck around until you got home.”

That had been a surprise. Though it likely had nothing to do with me. “To be your and Jack’s referee! What was up with you two?”

Elise waved off my comment. “We disagreed about a reality show and men’s motives. It was no big deal.”

“No big deal? Elise, for a moment there, I thought you might come to blows.”

She sank onto the bed, her gaze focused on the wall. “Maybe it’s not such a bad idea for you to leave this apartment.”

I sat beside Elise, shocked. She had been urging me to move out of Mom’s for years. She was the last person to support my neurotic reason for moving back home.

She turned to me. “That Jack character is a massive jerk.”

Now we were getting to the real issue. Enough of this relaxed attitude about me moving out.

Elise’s face turned a reddish shade, and her hands clenched in her lap. “He had the balls to say that women are to blame for why men flip out.”

My head jerked back. “Wait, what? That doesn’t sound like Jack.”

“And then he went on to praise some guy on the reality show for lashing out at a woman in order to protect his fragile male ego,” she said, her voice rising.

I glanced at the door. “Keep it down. Jack is home, and he can hear you if you yell like that.” My nose scrunched. “Are you sure you understood his meaning?”