Saved by Brother's Best Friend (Marianna and Duane) novel Chapter 5

Marianna

The elevator opens directly into the apartment.

Of course it does. Because Duane Richter doesn't have a front door like a normal person. He has a private elevator that requires a key card and probably a blood sample and maybe a retinal scan, for all I know.

I step out onto marble floors so polished I can see my reflection—wet hair, smudged mascara, dress still clinging to places it shouldn't. The ceiling is approximately three stories high. The windows span an entire wall, floor to ceiling, showcasing Miami's skyline like it's a painting he commissioned specifically to remind visitors that he's richer than God.

Everything is grey. Grey marble. Grey walls. Grey furniture that probably costs more than my college education. The only color comes from the city lights outside, bleeding gold and red through the rain-streaked glass.

It looks like a museum. Or a mausoleum. Somewhere designed to be looked at, not lived in.

"Guest room is down the hall. Second door on the left." Duane's already walking away, not bothering to check if I'm following. "Bathroom's attached. There should be towels."

Should be. Like he's not entirely sure what's in his own apartment.

"Thanks," I say to his retreating back. He doesn't respond.

I stand there for a moment, dripping onto his million-dollar floors, feeling approximately the size of an ant. A wet, pathetic ant who somehow wandered into the wrong habitat and is now deeply regretting all of her life choices.

The guest room is bigger than my entire apartment back in New York. King-sized bed with grey linens—shocking—a walk-in closet that's completely empty, and a bathroom with a rainfall shower and a tub that could comfortably fit four people.

I catch my reflection in the mirror and immediately wish I hadn't.

I look like a drowned rat who got into a fight with a mascara bottle and lost. My white sundress is basically transparent at this point. My black bra is very much visible. My hair is plastered to my skull in a way that makes me look vaguely like a Victorian ghost.

Sexy. Very sexy. Definitely the impression I wanted to make.

I shower for approximately forty-five minutes, using products that probably cost more than my monthly grocery budget, and try very hard not to think about the fact that I'm naked in Duane Richter's apartment.

Naked. In his apartment. Using his soap.

Nope. Not thinking about it.

When I finally emerge, wrapped in a towel that's softer than anything I've ever owned, I find clothes laid out on the bed. A t-shirt—black, obviously—and a pair of sweatpants that are going to be comically large on me.

His clothes.

I'm going to be wearing Duane Richter's clothes.

This is fine. Totally fine. People wear other people's clothes all the time. It doesn't mean anything. It's just fabric. Fabric that smells like him, like that dark woody cologne that's been messing with my head since I got in his car—

Stop. Stop it.

I pull on the shirt. It falls to mid-thigh, drowning me completely. The sweatpants require rolling the waistband approximately seventeen times before they'll stay up, and even then they're pooling around my ankles.

I look ridiculous. Like a child playing dress-up in her father's closet.

Except my father never smelled like this. Never made my skin prickle just from the residual scent on fabric.

God, I need help. Professional help. The kind that involves a therapist and possibly medication and definitely not standing in my brother's best friend's guest room, inhaling his t-shirt like a complete creep.

There's a phone on the nightstand. Old model iPhone, cracked screen, but when I press the button, it lights up.

He left me a phone.

I don't know why that makes my chest feel tight. It's practical. Logical. I needed a phone, he had a spare, end of story. It doesn't mean anything.

Nothing means anything.

I spend the next twenty minutes navigating through password resets and two-factor authentication hell, proving to various apps that yes, I am in fact Marianna Reyes, and no, I haven't been kidnapped by someone trying to access my very unimpressive social media presence.

Finally—finally—I get into my messages.

Forty-seven texts from Jill.

I scroll through them with a mixture of guilt and affection. They start concerned ("where are you??"), escalate to panicked ("MARI I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DON'T ANSWER"), and eventually settle into resigned acceptance ("okay I'm assuming you're either dead or on a plane, please confirm which one when you can").

Me: Not dead. In Miami.

The response is almost instantaneous.

Jill: EXCUSE ME???

Jill: MIAMI????

Jill: You were supposed to be wallowing in our apartment eating ice cream and watching sad movies!!

Jill: What happened to the PLAN

Me: Plan changed. Josh happened.

Jill: Oh god

Jill: What did that limp dick do now

I snort. Jill has never liked Josh. Called him "aggressively mediocre" the first time she met him and never revised her opinion upward.

Me: Caught him fucking Melissa from accounting. On our couch.

Jill: I'M SORRY WHAT

Jill: I will murder him. I will fly to New York and murder him with my bare hands.

Me: Please don't. Orange isn't your color.

Jill: Did you know he's single now?

My stomach does something uncomfortable.

Me: What?

Jill: Duane. He and that model finally called it quits. For real this time, apparently.

Jill: Alina something. The one with the cheekbones.

I know exactly who she's talking about. Alina Lindqvist. Six feet tall, legs for days, the kind of bone structure that makes mere mortals weep. She and Duane have been on-again, off-again for the past two years—a relationship chronicled extensively by tabloids and F1 fan accounts alike.

Me: So?

Jill: SO????

Jill: So you're single, he's single, you're LIVING IN HIS APARTMENT

Jill: The universe is literally handing you an opportunity on a silver platter

Me: The universe is handing me a logistical nightmare. That's all this is.

Jill: Keep telling yourself that babe

Jill: But maybe put on something cute tomorrow. Just in case.

Me: I'm wearing his sweatpants and a t-shirt that could fit three of me.

Jill: ...kinky

Me: GOODBYE JILL

Jill: LOVE YOU

Jill: USE PROTECTION

I close the app before she can say anything else that makes me want to throw the phone across the room.

She's wrong. This isn't an opportunity. This is a disaster waiting to happen—a slow-motion car crash that I can see coming but can't seem to steer away from.

I'm staying in Duane Richter's apartment for three days. That's seventy-two hours of close proximity with a man who makes my body forget all its rules. Seventy-two hours of trying not to stare, not to want, not to remember every dream I've ever had about him.

Three days of pretending I don't feel anything.

I can do that. I've been pretending my whole life.