Daisy Tucker and Mr. NYC novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Night Crew

Cleaning the 41st floor under Rhoda, Willa meets Simone and Rhodes as strangers, then fights him in the supply closet, and Simone picks hay off his lapel.

The night crew's supply room was in the basement, behind a door marked "Authorized Only."

A woman sat inside on an upturned bucket, eating a butter mint and reading a clipboard through glasses on a chain.

She was fifty-two, with short gray hair and arms like a stevedore.

"You're the cousin's kid," she said. "Willa?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Rhoda. Don't ma'am me, I'm from Queens."

She looked me over from boots to braid.

"Can you push a mop?"

"I can push a bull."

"Good," Rhoda said. "Don't."

She handed me a gray smock, a cart with a bad wheel and a ring of keys the size of my hand.

"Forty-one gets done first. Executive hallway, glass offices, conference rooms."

"Don't touch anything on a desk, and don't read anything on a screen."

"If somebody important walks by, you've seen a wall."

"A wall."

"Be a wall, kid."

I put the smock on over my jeans.

I tucked the ring under it on a bootlace from my duffel, because a ring on a mop hand felt like a lie.

We rode the freight elevator up.

Forty-one was long and quiet and lit.

Every office had a glass wall and a view of the whole shining island.

I vacuumed a rug the color of oatmeal and I wondered which of these rooms was my husband's.

I had a strong feeling it was the biggest one.

At ten, a woman came down the hallway in heels that sounded like a clock.

She was blonde, sleek, and about thirty, in a cream suit that had never met a spill.

She looked at my cart, then my boots, then my face.

"You're new," she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"I don't recognize you, so I assume you've been told the rules."

"Be a wall."

Her mouth went thin.

"Make sure that's how you behave. My name is Simone Vansittart. I run operations. Anything you break, you pay for."

"I haven't broken anything yet."

"The night is young," she said, in a soft, condescending voice.

I did not like her.

I decided that the moment she opened her mouth, and I have never had to change my mind about a cow or a person.

The elevator chimed.

I felt it before I saw him.

Rhodes stepped out in a charcoal overcoat with his tie loosened.

He saw me.

I watched him see me.

For half a second his whole face went helpless.

Then he put it away.

"Rhodes," Simone said, brightening. "I thought you'd be at the hospital all night."

"I was." He did not look at me. "Good evening."

"Evening, sir," I said to my mop.

"Wonderful," Simone said, and laid a hand on his sleeve. "Come see the budget numbers. I only need ten minutes."

He nodded.

As they walked off, he passed my cart close enough to brush it.

"The supply closet on the east end," he said, so quietly I thought I'd imagined it. "Five minutes."

I almost didn't go.

But I wanted to hit something, and a mop handle was right there.

The closet was narrow, with shelves of paper towels and a sink.

He came in and shut the door and for a second neither of us said anything.

"You own this building," I said.

"I own the company."

"You own the whole company."

"Yes."

"And you let me say 'a big office tower on Sixth Avenue' to your face at four in the morning."

"You didn't ask."

"I didn't ask?" I said, loud, and then lower, because the door was thin.

"I married you, Rhodes. In a hallway."

"You couldn't have mentioned it?"

"You said you needed a job and a roof," he said.

"If I'd told you who I was, you'd have thought it was a favor."

"It would have been a favor."

"You'd have said no to the whole thing."

"Because it would have been a lie."

He took a step.

"It wasn't a lie," he said. "Every word I told you at the hospital was true."

That was nearly the truth.

It was not the whole truth, and I should have known by his hands, which were open and held very still.

"I'm not a charity," I said.

"I know."

"I don't take it from you or anybody."

"I know that too."

"Then why do you look at me like that?"

He didn't answer.

The closet was very small.

I smelled soap and wool and a clean cold night.

I had a bootlace around my neck.

I had a stalk of hay in the pocket of my smock, from the barn at home.

I did not remember putting it there.

My hip bumped the shelf.

A roll of paper towels hit the floor.

He reached to steady the shelf, and his lapel dragged across my pocket.

We both looked down at it, and then at each other, and Rhodes made a sound that was very nearly a laugh.

"This isn't funny," I said.

"No," he said. "It really isn't."

He opened the door.

I followed him out two minutes later, with the cart, as a wall.

Simone was waiting in the hallway with a folder.

She wasn't looking at me.

She was looking at Rhodes's lapel.

She reached out slowly and picked off a single stalk of gold hay.

She held it up to the light.

"How interesting," she said.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend