Chapter 5: Second Floor

I kept my distance from 2B for five weeks, and I was proud of it.

Gordon Culverhouse came for his walkthrough, counted the units, frowned at the roof and left without shaking my hand.

Perry fixed three outlets and a kitchen fan for me without once being asked.

He nodded at me in the hall and kept his hands in his pockets.

It was the most polite torture of my life.

On the tenth of October it rained all day, a cold grey rain that found every crack in the brick.

At eight-thirty the woman in 3B called to say her tub drain was weeping through her floor.

I took my toolbox up, found the drain clamp loose and tightened it.

Then I looked down at the wet patch spreading across my boot and realized where the water was going.

It was going straight down into the ceiling of 2B.

I went down one flight and knocked on his door at five to nine.

Perry opened it in a grey T-shirt and bare feet, with a dish towel over his shoulder.

He said nothing at all.

He just waited, with his hand on the door and his eyes on mine.

It was so odd that I spoke first.

"Your ceiling is leaking," I said. "I need to look at it."

"Come in," Perry said.

The ceiling was fine, because the clamp had caught it in time.

I looked at it for a long minute anyway.

Then I put the flashlight on his kitchen table and turned around.

"I don't want to look at your ceiling," I said.

"No."

"I want to be here."

"Then stay," Perry said, very softly.

I crossed the kitchen in three steps.

He caught me around the waist before I reached him, and we kissed.

His mouth was warm and tasted like tea and mint.

I felt his heartbeat through his shirt, hard and fast, so he was nervous, too.

That helped.

"Bedroom?" I said into his neck.

"It's the second door."

"I know where the second door is. I'm the super."

He laughed, a real surprised laugh, and I felt it in my teeth.

Then I walked him backward through the hall and into the dark room with the streetlight on the ceiling.

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