I stood at the curb, waving bye to Taylor and Rocky. I felt terrible that I couldn’t go with Taylor, but a little grateful I didn’t have to face her family. They were lovely people, just a little too involved and in your personal space. I liked distance and my space.

I headed back upstairs and found Blake on the phone with someone at the lift. He was angry, and the words coming out of his mouth weren’t very fancy. But, nevertheless, he hung up on the person and stabbed the lift arrow. He must have sensed me behind him.

“Shit, I’m sorry. Did you hear much of that?” He asked timidly

“It’s okay. I heard only a little. I don’t think the person on the phone will mess with you again,” I laugh, trying to lighten the mood. “Everything okay?” I asked.

“No! My furniture was meant to arrive today. I came up early because they told me it would be here today. But, instead, they just called and said the truck broke down, and they don’t have a replacement, so I won’t get it till tomorrow,” he said, shaking his head. “What the hell am I meant to sleep on tonight? I can’t believe this is happening. This week has just been a shithole”.

I felt awful for the guy. This was another first for me. I didn’t really socialise or make new friends, and here I was, wanting to help this stranger. I was once in a situation where I needed a friend, and if it wasn’t for Taylor, god knows where I would be today.

The lift dinged, and we both got in. “I have an air mattress in our apartment. Would you like to use that for tonight? I can give you some spare blankets and pillows as well. Nothing too flashy, but it will get on through the night.” I tried not to make eye contact. I was a little scared I was pushing too far.

“Are you usually this nice or just a special occasion for the pretty sad boy across the hall?” He asked. I looked up, and he had a cheeky smile on his face. I started to laugh.

“Yeah, sure, I’m a sucker for pretty sad boys that need help”, I joked, and he cracked up laughing.

“Thank you very much for all your help today. I will take that offer. An air mattress will save my back from the hard cold floors. Although, in return, I’ll buy dinner tonight. Would that be okay?” Something about the fact that he gave me a chance to say no to his offer made me smile.

“Sure sounds like a reasonable deal’ I said and laughed.

We got to our floor, and he walked over to his door.

“So what would you prefer? BBQ pork stir fry or honey chicken fried noodle?”

He remembered what I had told him. Impressive.

“BBQ pork, please, and thank you. I shall go get the mattress,” I said and walked into my apartment.

He was cute.

As I walked around the apartment gathering the mattress, pillows and blankets, I couldn’t help but think about him. I didn’t even know him, and he had taken over my thoughts. In my 28-year life span, I had achieved a lot. An excellent job, a successful career, some great friends, a double degree, a very comfortable life, but I was still single and had never really felt much emotions towards man. I was straight, but my younger life had given me no reason to love or trust a man. If anything, I had hate and bitterness for any guy that didn’t have respect for women. I didn’t want to involve myself in a relationship and have a guy rule my life like an object. If my mother’s mistakes had taught me anything, it was to love myself. To build me. Not letting circumstances take away my ability to live my life.

I resented my mother for the childhood I had. It wasn’t her fault. Well, not entirely. I knew one day it would catch up with me, and I wanted to build my life to the point that when that day arrived, I could walk away from it without any issues.

When I see Taylor and Rocky, yes, I am envious. Rocky wasn’t like other guys. He was raised by a single mom that had taught the boy well. I just hadn’t found someone that I wanted to trust. Blake was stirring feelings in me, and like Rocky said, it could just be hormonal. I had never “been” with a guy. The intimacy scared me even more. But damn hormones. You can’t run from them, can you? I didn’t trust Blake, but there was no harm in getting to know him.

There was a gentle knock on my door that pulled me out of my thoughts.

I opened the door, and Blake held up 2 bags. “Foods here,” he said

“Oh, awesome. Lemme just grab the sheets, and I will be right there” I collected everything and closed the apartment door behind me.

Blake had left his apartment door open. I walked in and put the stuff on the floor near the kitchen bench. He was busy pulling out food from the bags. Poor guy must have been hungry. Without asking or thinking, he just started to eat. I stood and watched him and began to laugh.

“What?” He asked with food stuffed in his mouth.

“So much for ladies first, huh?” I joked.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry. I’m so rude. Please come and eat.” He said, putting his food down.

“Blake, it’s okay. You carry on. You’re obviously hungry. I’m a grown-up. I can help myself. “I grabbed the box that said BBQ Pork and found a corner to sit in before digging in.

Blake walked over and sat on the opposite side of me and got comfortable.

“Yes, I was starving. Thank you for giving me the restaurants number. This is really good,” Blake said in between chewing.

“That’s okay. We always order from here. Mr Hong’s have the best in town. Hmm, so tell me about yourself” Choosing my words wisely.

“There’s not much to tell about me. I grew up in Huntly. After finishing school, I started helping with the family business. Grandad has a little office in a few places, so he sends me to different locations every few years to just see how things are running. Which means I move a lot. So you would think I would have gotten a little bit more organised with the whole moving issue,” he said, laughing lightly. He was obviously trying to cover up the real reason, but I didn’t want to probe.

“What about you, Rose? You own the apartment across the hall” he asked.

I laughed. “Hell no, I’m not that rich. Taylor owns that. I just flat with her. Taylor and I are original from Greenwoods. We both went to Mariners Bay Boarding school together. We just clicked so well that we haven’t left each other’s side since. After graduation, she liked it here, and I didn’t wanna go back to Greenwoods. So, her dad bought her the apartment, and we settled here. Rocky had gone to boarding school with us, and after we decided to stay here, Rocky decided to stay. Rocky grew up somewhere further up north. Once we decided to settle here, he got a nice place down by the bay and called his mum to come to live with him. He and Taylor just hit it off, and I didn’t get much of choice” I laughed as I said that, remembering Taylor telling me about how she really liked Rocky and thought he was the one. We were 16 when they first started hooking up, and as life got serious, they both decided just being part of each other’s life was more than enough, for now.

“Just not much to talk about, actually. Shall we put the mattress together and make sure it’s comfortable?” I said, changing the subject.

The next hour went into us, blowing up the mattress and setting it up for Blake. He excused himself to take a phone call, and I used that as a way of getting out of there. We said our goodnights and I went to my apartment.

Sleep didn’t come until the early morning hours as my mind kept constantly thinking about useless things. I walked out into the balcony and let my mind wander to Blake. I felt a little silly about not asking him more questions. I had given him more information on me than he had about himself. I couldn’t get over how comfortable I was around him. I couldn’t stop talking, and it was unusual. Blake had a spark in him, and it was drawing me in. I walked back in and lay down in bed. Around 3 am I finally fell asleep, and my tasteless dreams taunted me again.

A loud bang woke me up as I quickly looked around for the noise. The clock on my wall read 10 am, and I was panting from fright.

I walked into the kitchen to get some water when I heard more noise outside the main door. Peeking through the peephole, I saw 4 men trying to move stuff into Blake’s apartment. His furniture must have arrived. Calming myself down, I walked back into my room to shower and get ready for the day.

At around 1 pm the noise finally died down, so I thought I’d go across and check on Blake. When I opened my apartment door, his one was shut. I knocked on it, but there was no answer.

Maybe he has gone out, I thought to myself.

I went back inside ad carried on with my day.

By 7 pm, I still hadn’t heard any movement from across the hall. This irritated me. I was so nice to the guy yesterday. The most he could have done is come and tell me that his furniture arrived and return the mattress. I don’t know if that was what irritated me or that I didn’t see him today. I tried not to overthink the second option.

I ordered some dinner and called Taylor to check up on her. Unfortunately, Grace had passed away overnight, and the funeral would be on Friday. I was actually glad that the funeral was a week away because I wanted to go down for it. So I passed on my condolence, and Rocky said he would be back Monday and we could drive down together on Thursday for the funeral.

I had a long week ahead and really wanted it over with.

I sat on the couch watching Vampire Diaries and working on some projects when I heard some talking outside our door. I quickly went to the peephole and saw a guy that looked similar to Blake knocking on Blake’s apartment door.

When no one answered, the guy got angry and banged harder.

“I know you’re in there, Blakey. Open up. Let’s party. I didn’t drive all this way for you to be a pussy” he said as he banged harder. He carried on for a good 15 minutes before giving up and going back down the lift.

Well, that was intense, I thought to myself. Blake obviously wasn’t home, but whoever it was really wanted to see him. I went back to doing my work. Around 11 pm, there was still no noise or movement across the hall. I kept thinking back to why Blake hadn’t come over to say hi or even return the mattress. Maybe after our conversation last night, he didn’t find me attractive enough to wanna be friends. I knew I was terrible at keeping a conversation. All sorts of random things kept coming to mind. Finally, I had a shower to clear my head and laid down in bed. My favourite songs played in the background as I read my book. At some point, I fell asleep, and my dreams took over my thoughts.