Chapter 2 - The Hallway Boyhood and the Bus Schedule
Three weeks earlier, my universe had been entirely contained within the boundaries of Bellamy Fabrics and Apartment 3A, which I shared with my twenty-year-old sister, Lily. Life was a relentless, grinding cycle of rent payments, inventory logs, supplier invoices, and trying to keep our heads above water. Our mother had passed away when Lily was nine, leaving behind a mountain of medical debt and zero life insurance, and our father had vanished into the humid Chicago ether long before that. By twenty-one, I had automatically transformed into sister, guardian, bill collector, emotional anchor, and professional liar. Whenever Lily looked across our cramped kitchen table and asked if we were going to make rent this month, I always flashed a bright, convincing smile and said the exact same thing.
"I got it covered, kiddo. Don't worry about a thing."
I was always worried. Every single second of every single day.
Then Ryan appeared in Apartment 3B, carrying two cardboard boxes and looking entirely out of place in a neighborhood where most people had lived for three generations. It was a Tuesday morning, and I was struggling up the three flights of stairs with a heavy brown paper bag of groceries when the bottom gave out with a pathetic tearing sound.
Two cans of crushed tomatoes rolled down the hallway like bowling balls. A rogue orange bounced off the baseboard, skidded across the worn linoleum, and came to a gentle stop against the toe of a clean leather shoe.
I froze, groaning internally as I looked down at the mess.
A hand reached down, scooped up the orange, and held it out toward me. I looked up, following a long, well-muscled arm straight up to a pair of sharp, intelligent hazel eyes and a jawline carved out of pure architectural granite.
"First day here," the man said, his voice deep, smooth, and laced with quiet amusement, "and the neighborhood is already throwing fruit at me."
I couldn't help it—a reluctant laugh escaped my lips. He was entirely too handsome for a building where the front door lock required a specific, violent shoulder-check to latch properly. He was tall, dark-haired, and dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a plain black t-shirt that clung to shoulders that clearly spent a lot of time in a private gym.
"You're the new tenant in 3B?" I asked, clutching the remaining groceries tightly against my chest.
"Is it that obvious?" he asked, glancing around the dim, peeling hallway.
"You have the look."
"What look?" he asked, raising an eyebrow, an expression of genuine curiosity crossing his face.
"The 'I have made a terrible housing decision' look," I said, stepping past him to unlock my door.
He looked toward his own door, then back down the hall, letting out a dry breath. "Give me twenty-four hours."
I took the orange from his warm hand. "I'm Natalie."
"Ryan," he replied.
That should have been the end of it—a cute, two-minute hallway encounter forgotten by dinnertime. Instead, it was the opening salvo in a masterclass of deception.
The very next morning, I stepped out of my apartment at seven-thirty with my travel mug of black coffee, only to find Ryan sitting squarely on the top concrete step of the front porch, staring intensely at a laminated CTA bus schedule as if he were trying to decode ancient Sumerian hieroglyphics.
"You okay over there?" I asked, pausing on the step above him.
He looked up, blinking slightly, looking genuinely baffled. "I’m trying to figure out how to get to a hardware supply place over on Archer."
"Which one?"
"Dawson’s."
I pointed vaguely toward the corner. "You’re walking the completely wrong direction. That bus goes downtown."
He looked down at the colorful map, then up at the street sign, then back at me. A slow, self-deprecating smile spread across his face. "I knew that."
"No, you didn't."
"No," he admitted, chuckling softly as he stood up and brushed off his jeans. "No, I absolutely did not."
That became the first thread in the unraveling sweater of his backstory. Over the next few weeks, Ryan integrated himself into my frantic, exhausting routine with an ease that felt entirely too natural. But looking back now, the warning signs were flashing in neon lights from day one.
He didn't know how city bus transfers worked. He stared blankly at the coin slot, fumbling through his pockets like a man who had never held a physical token or quarter in his life. He expressed genuine, wide-eyed shock when I explained that buying produce at the corner bodega was twice as expensive as taking the train two stops to the large supermarket.
And then there was the laundromat incident.
We had hauled our baskets down to the basement of our building—a damp, concrete-floored cave where the washing machines hummed like dying jet engines. I was digging through my purse for quarters when Ryan stared blankly at the coin-slide mechanism of the industrial washer, frowning deeply.
"Where," he asked, turning to me with complete sincerity, "am I supposed to swipe my corporate card?"
I stopped, staring at him as if he had spoken in Mandarin. "Swipe your corporate card? Ryan, this is a coin-op machine from 1984. You feed it quarters. Have you seriously never used one of these?"
He froze for a fraction of a second—just a microsecond of hesitation before his smooth composure snapped back into place. He leaned close to the machine, inspecting the rusted coin slot with feigned fascination. "I’ve... lived a very sheltered life in Wisconsin," he muttered smoothly.
At the time, I thought he was just embarrassed about being broke. He had told me he lost his job when a mid-sized construction supply company went under in Milwaukee, that he had packed up his life in a beat-up sedan to come to Chicago for a clean slate, and that his cash reserves were bleeding out faster than a punctured tire.
My heart had ached for him. Knowing what it felt like to watch every dollar slip through your fingers, I had taken it upon myself to help him survive.
When Mrs. Delgado, who owned Delgado Home Supply down on 32nd, complained bitterly over the counter about her stockroom boy quitting without notice, I didn't hesitate.
"I know someone," I had told her.
"Is he reliable?" Mrs. Delgado demanded, wiping her hands on her apron.
"He needs work," I said, convincing myself more than her. "He'll show up."
That evening, when I knocked on Apartment 3B and told Ryan what I had done, his reaction hadn't been gratitude. It had been sheer, unadulterated shock, mixed with something that looked suspiciously like terror.
"You did what?" Ryan had stared at me, his eyes widening as he leaned against his doorframe.
"I got you an interview," I said proudly, crossing my arms. "Tomorrow morning at eight. Put on a decent shirt."
"Natalie, you barely know me," he stammered, running a hand through his dark hair.
"I know you need a job, Ryan. Rent is due in two weeks."
"You do this for everybody?" he asked, studying my face with an intensity that made my breath hitch.
"No," I answered honestly, feeling a sudden warmth creep up my neck. "Just you."
He smiled, a slow, breathtaking expression that made my chest ache. "Good."
May you like
"Why is that good?" I whispered.
"Because," he said, stepping just a fraction closer, "neither do I."
