He Locked Me Out and Let Her In novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Permanent Resident
On her third anniversary Maddie watches Dean's friend Lydia unlock his door with a fingerprint, finds the cat she was told he was allergic to, and has the door shut in her face.
For three years, I asked permission every time I slept at my boyfriend's apartment.
I opened the building's app, tapped Request guest access, and waited for the word Approved.
Dean called it his boundary.
A man needs one place that is only his, he said.
I never argued. I liked him, and I thought that was what liking someone cost.
Tonight was our third anniversary.
I stood in the lobby in my good coat, holding a lemon cake in a white box, and my request was already sent.
Approved came back inside a minute. It always did.
It had once come back while Dean was on a plane with his phone switched off.
I never wondered about that.
The doorman nodded at me and went back to his screen.
I was walking toward the turnstile when a woman came through the revolving door behind me.
She wore a camel coat and had her dark hair in a low bun, and she was carrying a tote bag with a bag of cat litter sticking out of it.
She didn't stop at the desk.
She didn't tap anything on her phone.
She pressed her thumb to the pad on the turnstile, and the light went green.
"Evening, Ms. Stroud," the doorman said.
The little screen above the pad flashed her name and two words under it.
Permanent Resident.
I stared at it.
Three years, and I had never once seen that screen say anything but Guest.
The woman looked over and smiled at me, friendly and easy.
"Is that lemon?" she asked. "Lemon is the best one."
"It's for an anniversary," I said.
"Oh, how lovely."
She held the elevator door for me with her free hand.
She pressed 14 before I said a floor.
I didn't think anything of it then.
We rode up with her humming along to the music and me holding the box in both hands.
At the fourteenth floor she stepped out first and turned left.
I turned left too, because Dean was in 14C.
She walked to 14C.
I watched her stop at his door, and I took out my phone without deciding to.
I hit record.
She set her thumb against the lock.
It clicked open for her at once.
She hadn't knocked and she hadn't waited, and nobody had approved her.
Something grey and long-haired shot out between her ankles and ran straight down the hall to me.
It was a cat.
It butted its head against my shin and started to purr so loudly I could feel it through my coat.
One front paw was white.
I knew that sock.
Three years ago, at two in the morning, a grey cat with one white sock had swallowed a hair tie and been carried into my animal hospital.
I held her down for the IV myself.
The man who carried her in told me she belonged to a friend who was out of town.
His name was Dean, and he asked me out the next day.
"Daisy, you silly girl," the woman said. "Did you miss me?"
Dean had told me he was allergic.
I had asked him for a cat three times, and three times he had told me he couldn't breathe around cat hair.
Dean came to the door in socks and a soft grey sweater, with cat hair all down the front of it.
"Lyd, you're early. I haven't even..."
Then he saw me.
His face went still.
"Dean," I said. "You have a cat."
"Maddie." His voice dropped, low and fast. "Go wait in the hall."
I was already in the hall.
"I'm so sorry," the woman said to me, and she sounded sorry. "Are you two having a night?"
Dean did not answer her.
He put his hand on her back, drew her inside, and bent to scoop up the cat.
"Not now, Maddie," he said. "Please. Just not now."
He shut the door.
I heard the lock turn.
I stood on the mat with a cake in my hands, and the cat was still crying on the other side.
I knocked once.
Nobody came.
Across the hall, a door opened and an older man in a cardigan looked out at me with a bag of trash.
He looked at the cake, and then at the door, and then he closed his door again, gently.
The rule had never been that nobody came in.
The rule was that I didn't.
Every night I had waited for a green light, and she had never needed one.
I set the lemon cake down on his mat.
I watched the clip once: her thumb, the click, the cat running to me.
I saved it twice.
Then I said it out loud, to the empty hall, so I would hear how it sounded.
"So I'm leaving."
I took the stairs, because I didn't want to wait for the elevator.
I was on the ninth floor when my phone buzzed.
Guest access for Maddie Donahue has been revoked by the unit owner.
I thought Dean owned 14C, so I thought Dean had done it, from the far side of the door, with me still in his hall.
A second text came before I reached the lobby.
Dean: Don't make this a scene. Lydia is just a friend. I'll explain on Sunday.
I read it on the stairs, standing still.
Lydia.
He knew her name the way you know a name you say every day.
I typed one line back, and I meant it.
Maddie: Sunday you can explain it to everyone.
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