AM Hartnett - Bleeding Heart

And she was eye-fucking Ryan so hard, Seth didn’t blame Evie for her testiness, even if the young woman had a snowball’s chance in hell of competing with Evie in Ryan’s lovestruck eyes.

Ryan glanced in their direction, then pointed. With the young woman’s wave came her gaze upon Seth, and a smile.

‘See? Teenager.’

‘She’s not that young. You’re just turning into a cranky old man,’ Evie countered. ‘Now go over there and get her away from Ryan before she offers him a blowjob.’

‘It’s kind of hard not to. Like I said, Ryan is the prettiest man in the building.’

‘Well, with Ryan gone, I guess that makes you the prettiest man in the building.’

They stepped forward, and April thrust her hand out at Evie. ‘Hi, I’m April. I’m moving into your apartment.’

‘Lucky you, especially since Seth has been fixing it up the last few weeks,’ Evie replied with a pointed look at Ryan, who snorted.

‘Yeah, he even put in a dishwasher. ’

‘New everything,’ Seth added.

Evie pulled her keys from her pocket. ‘Who gets the honours?’

Seth stepped back and smiled as April lit up as she took the keys to her first apartment. He remembered that feeling, even if the last time he experienced it was a lifetime ago. Even fresher was having the key to the lockbox for every apartment in the building, though it was his late wife who had gleefully snagged that key.

April tucked the key into her pocket and grinned. ‘I guess I’d better start moving in now that you guys are taking off. It was great meeting you.’

‘You too – enjoy the shiny newness,’ Evie offered, and they all watched as she rushed up the walkway.

Cute little thing, Seth thought. With a body like that, she’d be a hell of a lot of fun and a hell of a lot of trouble.

‘Nice ass.’

Seth turned his frown on Ryan, and then on the nodding Evie as she agreed.

‘Very nice. I especially like how you can see her thong through the skirt.’

‘Maybe I should move into the nice house and you can stay here and build your den of sin.’ Embarrassed – which was ridiculous given his sordid history with the couple – he banged on the moving truck. ‘I ought to get up there and give her a walkthrough.’

And that’s when Evie started crying.

He’d seen enough of her tears in the last few weeks and, even though this time it wasn’t Ryan’s fault, Seth still had the urge to thump the other man in the neck.

‘Aw, Jesus, knock it off.’

Still, he welcomed her hug. He expected it would be the last one for a while.

‘Text me some pictures of the new place when you get set up,’ Seth said, offering Ryan a hand.

At the last moment, he grasped hard and pulled Ryan into a hug. Hell, he’d even miss this pain in the ass.

It took a few seconds after their parting for Ryan to wipe the surprise off his face, and then he turned to his girlfriend. ‘Ready?’

Evie didn’t look even close to ready as she looked at Seth, at the building behind them, and back at Ryan.

‘Ready.’

Seth stayed on the curb as they got into the truck. Ryan shot him a grin. ‘Don’t go climbing up any fire escapes.’

Once they were gone, Seth felt shittier than he had expected.

It wasn’t that he was losing lovers in Ryan and Evie, with whom he had been screwing around for the last month before it all blew up. He could get laid any time he wanted to, as his foray into online dating sites – specifically sex sites – had taught him.

He was losing his only friends.

It came upon him with a sickening roll in his stomach before belching up and settling in his chest, hardening at the back of his throat.

When the hell did this happen? he wondered as the moving van turned the corner and disappeared. Where the hell did everyone go? When his wife was alive, they’d been fairly reclusive but they still had their social circle.

Christ, the last time everyone had been together was for Rita’s wake just over two years ago. They came in clusters after that, bringing food (‘just some leftovers, and I know you like…’) and taking discreet looks around his apartment like they thought its cleanliness was an illusion to mask the decay he’d created in the wake of Rita’s death. The conversation wasn’t the same. It wasn’t just the absence of Rita’s foul-mouthed chatter. He could tell that they didn’t want to be there, that they didn’t know what to say to him.

Then came Evie and her little blue teapot. She knew about Rita and, while she always had apology in her eyes when she asked about his wife, she would still ask. He was going to miss their talks.

He turned from the street and looked down the walkway to the foyer, where the newest tenant of Winsloe Court was setting up a small fort of boxes along the stairwell. She looked so funny, a tiny woman in a yellow sundress and scuffed sneakers running her little folding trolly down the walkway.

He met her halfway. ‘Don’t you have movers?’

April stopped and leaned forward on the handle. Her pale skin was painted with a flush that made a map over her cheeks, shoulders and chest, complete with shining lakes of sweat on her brow and neck.

‘I have a couple of friends. They’re bringing the furniture after they get off work – and then I have to unbox it and put it all together.’

‘Brand-new?’

‘Every bit of it. Like I said, it’s my first place.’

‘My first place was nothing but hand-me-downs.’

She shook her head. ‘I had some money socked away. My place is going to look like an Ikea showroom, but it’ll look fabulous.’

In his head, Seth was picturing white stuffed furniture with colour-coordinated throw pillows and curtains, like something you’d see on a television show about single girls striking out on their own in the city for the first time.

He tried to hide his smile but failed, particularly with her beaming back at him. He grinned and gestured to the beat-up red hatchback overflowing with boxes and cloth shopping bags.

‘Need a hand? I can probably take twice what you’re taking.’

A prickle went along his spine as she gave him a quick but thorough once-over. If he had blinked, he would have missed the hunger in her expression.

‘You don’t want to do that,’ she said, her cheerful voice softer now, and a little thick with the remnants of that look. His body responded in kind, blood quickening and beginning that ache in his groin, but he was quick to banish it as she had seemingly done. ‘I saw you out here helping your old tenants move. You must be about done for the day.’

‘That was nothing. I don’t have anything else to do today except stick a label on your mailbox. Come on. We’ll get the stuff in the foyer out of the way and then come back for the rest.’

‘Oh, thank you.’ She smiled, and along came another ravenous flash, followed by something else that made him uneasy: expectation.

He cracked his knuckles and she led the way to the car. She was almost half his age. He didn’t want to go messing with that sort of trouble, even if that trouble did have a round ass beneath that dress he’d love to fill his hands with.

I just need to get laid again, and soon, he thought as he took three boxes from the trunk of her car.

Still, as April beamed at him he had the feeling that a hard screw wasn’t going to shake off the tingle in his chest.

April had a plan when she went to bed the previous night.

On her first Saturday in her new apartment, she’d sleep until noon, when the timer on her coffee-maker was set to start gurgling some of that expensive coffee she’d bought herself as a moving-in gift. She’d drink it in bed while reading the latest Sophie Clairmont book. After an hour of sword-wielding bad-assery soaked in sex and gore, she’d shower and grab groceries at that little market around the corner, make a second run to the liquor store so she’d be stocked for tonight, and she’d finish unpacking.