Chapter 4: Landlord Wars: Chapter 4

Max

Fleet Week in San Francisco was the bane of my existence. The planes I enjoyed, but the people coming into the city for the parade of ships, music, and airshows? Them I could do without.

I stood on the sidewalk in front of my building, and a horn blared. Some BMW dickhead had stolen a parking space on the cramped San Francisco street, and a Tesla proceeded to road-rage the hell out of the other car. The scenario epitomized my mood.

The other day, I’d run into Jack’s new roommate at a restaurant, and I hadn’t been the same since. She’d been distraught after she couldn’t find her reservation number, so I’d given her mine. Seeing her upset was unsettling, and I’d had the unprecedented urge to…help. I hadn’t felt the same since, wondering why I’d gone so far.

Juggling a paper bag of groceries in my arm, I checked the time, irritation brimming beneath my skin. Just before the rooftop party (now in full swing), my mother had asked me to meet her downstairs and escort her up. The party was in celebration of the finished building renovation, and I was officially late.

Not like my mother needed an escort. She had my dad, after all. But she liked the pomp and circumstance. And to inconvenience me.

Just as I was about to call and tell her I needed to entertain my guests, a town car pulled up.

Recognizing the driver, I moved forward and opened the back door, lending a hand to Kitty Burrows.

“Darling.” She stretched up and kissed me on the cheek.

My dad stepped out next, followed by someone who hadn’t been invited, and yet somehow had managed to show up anyway.

“Gwen?” Perfect. All I needed was my ex to make the discomfort and frustration I couldn’t seem to shake complete.

The slim blonde that exited was exactly the type of “good society” my mother wanted me to marry into. Gwen DuPont was highly educated, beautiful, and from a family with more money than the state of California. I’d known her my entire life, and for a while there, I had thought I would marry her. Until I figured out what a terrible idea that would be.

This had my mother written all over it.

“Max,” Gwen said, leaning in for a too-intimate hug.

My hackles rose. “What’s going on?”

My mother snorted. “Maxwell, don’t be rude. You two kids greet each other while your father and I go up. Someone needs to host.”

I ground my molars. There would already be a host had my mother not insisted on my waiting for her downstairs.

I let out a sigh. The only way to get out of a Kitty-induced trap was to plow through.

My parents entered the stairwell, and as soon as they were out of earshot, I leveled a look at the woman in front of me. “Why are you here?”

Sophia

After putting in a few hours at the shop this Saturday, I was almost to my apartment, prepared to unwind with a glass of wine before heading up to a rooftop party Jack had invited me to, when I froze.

Landlord Devil was standing at the steps to our building, and he wasn’t alone. A stunning dark blonde, wearing a classy, knee-length yellow summer dress, was beaming up at him.

The devil had a girlfriend?

I didn’t know why I’d never pictured Max with a girlfriend. I supposed it had something to do with the affection aspect—the Max I knew was as cold as a marble statue, and he wasn’t disappointing me now.

Max’s full mouth was set in a hard, straight line as he peered at the beautiful woman in front of him.

Interesting. The most I’d gotten out of Max was a smirk or a lip twitch. But gauging from his body language—stiff shoulders, hard frown—he was not happy with this woman.

Trouble in paradise?

I wanted to relax, but now my anxiety had reached a high, and I wasn’t even the cause of Max’s ire this time. I was tired and wrinkled, with a waffle-sized coffee stain on my skirt, and running into Max had not been on my list of things to do today. Or any day for the next month.

He had, very strangely, helped me at the restaurant a few days ago, but the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced he hadn’t known it was me. Every time I’d glanced back, he’d been staring at his phone. That moment of chivalry had to have been a fluke. An excuse for him to take a pressing call, like he’d said to the hostess.

I swiveled my head left then right in search of an escape, but it was no use. No way could I walk past the warring lovebirds without being seen. As a matter of fact, if Landlord Devil bothered to look past the blonde, he’d catch me standing there like a Nervous Nelly.

Oh, for the love of God, this was ridiculous. Maybe he wouldn’t notice me walk past with the beauty queen making eyes at him.

I tipped my chin down and headed briskly toward the building…and caught the tail end of their conversation.

“I made a mistake, and you blew it out of proportion,” the blonde said.

Max let out a tight sigh. “Regardless of how things went down, it’s over.”

I froze like a deer caught in the headlights. Crap, crap! Max was dumping his beauty-queen girlfriend? On the sidewalk?

And his tone wasn’t gentle.

Figured.

The generous businessman he’d presented at the restaurant wasn’t the real Max. Landlord Devil was back in full force. A part of me was disappointed but not surprised.

Max took that moment to stare straight at me.

His expression was startled. And then his eyes narrowed and shot darts of blue fire my way.

Did he think I was eavesdropping?

Great, just great. “Don’t mind me,” I said, and speed-walked past them.

The woman looked over in annoyance. She glanced between Landlord Devil and me and frowned.

Holy shit, how did I get myself into these situations?

I raced up the steps and into the apartment, dropping my bag in the entry before I splayed my back against the closed door, breaths coming out in puffs.

Jack looked over from the kitchen, where he seemed to spend a good portion of his time. “Rough day?”

I lifted my back off the door. “Not my best, but it just got worse. What’s going on with—”

A knock sounded behind me, and I jumped several inches.

When I stood stock-still, refusing to answer, Jack sent me a questioning glance. He finally took me gently by the shoulders, moved me aside, and opened the door.

Max entered the apartment without an invitation, his gaze searching. Until it landed on me, eyes blazing.

He’d followed me here? Because of what I’d witnessed downstairs? Crap!

“I was just grabbing some beers,” Jack said, returning to the kitchen, oblivious to the tension in the room. “Did you pick up the chips and salsa?”

Landlord Devil didn’t respond. He was too busy glaring. Though he did it with style, one hand in his pants pocket, the other holding a paper bag. He was wearing a pressed light-gray suit today. Did the man never wrinkle?

Jack glanced between the two of us. “Sophia, this is Max. He owns the building. He’s also my best friend.”

The taste of acid choked me. First Max lives upstairs…and now he’s my roommate’s best friend?

How was I supposed to avoid this man?

Max’s heated look fixed on me, as though he were trying to read me. “Were you listening to my private conversation?”

“What?” I said, shocked. I mean, I knew he might have suspected that, but why did he always jump to the worst conclusions?

“Max?” Jack said. “What are you talking about?”

Max didn’t move his gaze off me. “She was eavesdropping out front.”

“I was not eavesdropping!” I crossed my arms. “You were standing in front of the building. There was no way to avoid overhearing you dump that poor girl. Maybe you should have chosen a more private location?”

Landlord Devil’s jaw clenched tightly, and Jack moved between us. “Whoa, man, she’s right. If you didn’t want others to overhear, you should have had your conversation someplace else. Who were you talking to, anyway?”

Max looked distractedly at Jack. “Gwen.”

Jack nodded as though it were all clear now and turned to me. “Gwen and Max broke up several months ago, so he wasn’t dumping her.” He looked at Max. “Were you? Did you guys get back together?”

Max set the paper bag on the counter and ran stiff fingers through his hair, ruffling the silky, dark locks. “We did not get back together.”

Max had been angry earlier and even a moment ago, but now he just looked stressed.

Jack entered the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge. He popped the cap off and handed it to Max. “You look like you could use it.”

Landlord Devil reached for the bottle, took a deep swig, and his shoulders noticeably lowered.

I glanced down the hallway. Should I go to my room? Was this another private conversation I shouldn’t be privy to?

Jack tipped his chin up at me. “You want one, Sophia?”

I glanced at Landlord Devil, unsure of my welcome. But I didn’t need to worry, because Max wasn’t paying attention to Jack’s offer to join them for a drink. He was scanning the living room, shifting his critical eye to something new.

My body froze, and a sense of fight or flight made my heart race. I’d straightened up the boxes in the living room after that first unannounced visit from Max. But that had been a week ago or more. Since then, I might have left one—or several—mugs scattered about the room, as one does.

Landlord Devil’s eyes landed one by one on each of the mugs. “You have a problem putting dishes away, Sophia?”

His low tone caused a frisson of awareness to sweep through me—until my brain registered his words.

Somehow the jackass knew the mugs were mine. Then again, Jack didn’t seem like much of a hot beverage person. “I’m a tea drinker,” I said lamely. “I tend to forget where I put my drinks, or forget I already have one. Haven’t you ever lost your keys?”

His eyebrow rose. “My keys, yes. My coffee, no.”

“It could happen.” Okay, I was a rare case. Even my sister made fun of me.

Max’s grumpy expression didn’t change, and I shifted my jaw in annoyance. He didn’t live here; he had no right to judge me.

My apartment was a gem, it truly was, but Landlord Devil was a plague. Just how often would he stop by?

Ignoring Max and his open hostility, I focused on more pressing matters. “Jack, is this a dressy event? I wasn’t prepared for dressy. But considering Max’s suit…” I looked over and caught Max’s shocked expression.

“She’s coming?” he said.

Jack finished pouring chips into a bowl and shuffled items around on the overloaded tray. “Dude, what is wrong with you today? Sophia’s my roommate. Of course I invited her.” He looked at me and smiled. “Ignore him. He’s a grump, but he means well.”

Max and I snorted at the same time.

Max’s mouth went taut, and the tension in the room grew tenfold.

“And no,” Jack said as he pulled cheese out from the fridge before closing the door with his foot, “you don’t need to change, Sophia. Come as you are.”

Jack was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, so I took him at his word and retreated to the sanctuary of my bedroom. Hopefully Landlord Devil would be gone by the time I returned.

A few minutes later, Jack called out, “Sophia, you coming?”

I grabbed a sweater in case the rooftop grew cold and met him near the door. Thankfully, Max had already left. “Can I help with anything?”

“Do you mind carrying this?” He juggled the tray of food in one arm and handed me a bottle of wine.

“Not at all,” I said.

We exited the apartment and made our way up a set of stairs, passing what had to be Max’s flat, as it was the only door on the entire floor, and headed up one more narrow flight toward the rooftop. “How did you meet Max?” I asked. Jack was so easygoing, while Max was an uptight ass. It made no sense these two had connected, let alone become best friends.

Jack let out a slow breath. “I guess you could call it luck,” he said and shook his head, chagrined. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but me and Max don’t normally run in the same circles. I never would have met him had circumstances been different.”

Luck? I wasn’t sure meeting Max was lucky. “I might have picked up a clue or two.”

He scratched his jaw. “The short answer is I’m a good test taker. I got into a private school on scholarship after I scored high on a test the city gives every seventh grader. Max sat next to me in math at my new school, and while the rest of the students treated me like I was beneath them, Max was friendly. He was nothing like the stuck-up prep-school kids we went there with, and over time, he became my best friend.”

Jack glanced off as though confused. “I don’t know why Max was giving you a hard time earlier. I’m really sorry about that. He’s usually smoother in social situations. In fact, it’s a good thing we’ve never been attracted to the same women, or I would have lost out every time.”

He was grinning as though he’d said something funny, but I begged to differ. Max had the charm of a python while Jack was good-looking and kind. “I’ll take your word for it. Landlord—I mean, Max really is your best friend? Above everyone else?”

Jack laughed. “He’s one of the best people I know.”

Max had behaved like an arrogant jerk the first night I met him, and he’d been a total dick just now. But he had given up his restaurant reservation when he didn’t know it was me, so at the very least, he was mercurial.

Or just a total ass when it came to me.