LITMIR.BIZ

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catch a bat. Maybe I could go upstairs and ask my hot new neighbor to come deal with the animal. He’d said to let him know if I needed anything, and I figured this definitely qualified.

      But I couldn’t venture up to his apartment dressed in practically nothing. I gave myself a pep talk and dashed inside, grabbing a pair of jeans from a laundry basket in the hall and sprinted back to the porch, slamming the door behind me. I quickly stepped into the jeans and pulled them up my legs, buttoning them overtop of the shorts.

      I straightened my shoulders and marched up the stairs to Cohen’s third-floor apartment. It was cool outside and the wooden steps under my bare feet sent a chill up my spine. Well that, and the idea of waking a complete stranger in the middle of the night to ask for a favor. But I had no other choice. There was no way I could go back into my apartment, let alone go back to sleep with a bat flying around in there.

      I reached his door. It was the same solid dark wood as mine, with a decorative brass knocker in the center. I knocked on the door loud enough to wake him. I wasn’t sure if he was a heavy sleeper, but I didn’t want to take the chance. I normally felt safe in my neighborhood, but the combination of waking up to an animal in my room combined with being outside at this hour lent a creepy vibe I couldn’t shake.

      I was about to knock again when the door opened and a sleepy, shirtless Cohen stood before me.

      ‘Liz?’ he croaked.

      ‘Can I come in?’

      He moved away from the threshold so I could come inside. ‘Did something happen? What’s wrong?’

      I nodded and paced his tiny living room. ‘There’s a bat. Downstairs.’ I pointed to the floor.

      ‘In your apartment?’

      I nodded again.

      ‘Christ.’ He ran his hands over his face. ‘Okay. Wait here. I’ll take care of it.’

      He retreated to what I assumed was his bedroom and returned a minute later dressed in jeans and a fitted gray T-shirt. His hair was rumpled from sleep and he looked adorable.

      ‘What are you going to do?’ I asked, hoping he had previous experience in bat removal.

      ‘I don’t know.’ He went to the closet near the front door and pulled out a tennis racquet.

      ‘Wait.’ I jogged to his kitchen and grabbed a pair of oven mitts from near the stove and a plastic shopping bag from the counter. ‘Here.’

      I handed them to him. He put on the oven mitts and held the tennis racquet defensively in one hand, the plastic bag in the other.

      ‘Okay. You’re ready.’

      We both laughed at the ridiculousness of this situation.

      ‘Just sit tight. I’ve got this.’

      I grinned at his confidence. ‘Thank you.’

      He nodded and disappeared out the door.

      I bit my lip and I hoped he wasn’t mad about me waking him up. But the way he’d laughed about the oven mitts before heading downstairs put me at ease. I sunk down onto his couch and waited.

      His apartment was tiny, but it was clean and neat, and furnished simply with comfortable pieces. The living room consisted of a worn leather couch, along with a beat up trunk for a coffee table. His dining nook held a round kitchen table laden with various textbooks stacked in piles and was surrounded by several mismatched chairs. Definitely homey and inviting.

      A few minutes later, Cohen was back.

      ‘Well?’ I jumped to my feet.

      He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t find the little bastard.’

      For just a moment I wondered if I had dreamed the bat, but no, I was certain I hadn’t.

      He shucked off the oven mitts and returned the tennis racquet to the closet by the door. ‘I assume neither of us will be getting back to sleep now,’ he mumbled, running a hand along the back of his neck.

      ‘Sorry about that.’

      He met my eyes. ‘Don’t be. I said to let me know if you needed anything, and I meant it.’

      Now that the bat episode was behind us, my adrenaline plummeted. I rubbed at my temples, suddenly realizing how crappy I felt.

      Cohen stepped in closer toward me. ‘Are you okay?’

      ‘Too much wine earlier. I’m fine.’ I waved him off.

      He headed into the kitchen and returned a second later with a glass of water and two white pills. He dropped them in my palm. ‘Here. Pain reliever for your headache.’

      ‘Thanks.’ I took the pills obediently and finished the glass of water before handing it back to him. It was room temperature and tasted like it had come straight from the tap, but I wasn’t about to complain. It was a nice gesture. I’d never talked to my neighbors much, and it was nice to think that someone I could count on lived above me.

      I noticed a university sweatshirt hanging from the back of a chair and nodded to it. ‘You go to school here too?’ DePaul was just down the street, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but this really wasn’t a student housing area.

      ‘Yeah. I’m a junior. You?’

      ‘I’m in the second year of my Ph.D.’

      ‘Wow.’ He stared at me as though seeing me for the first time. I could practically see him trying to calculate my age. I knew I looked younger than my twenty-five years, and telling people you were studying for a Ph.D. had a way of intimidating them. But Cohen didn’t seem thrown off, just…impressed and curious. I liked his honest reaction. According to his grade, he was probably twenty or twenty-one.

      I wondered what to do now. There was a bat loose in my apartment, and it was too early—or too late, depending on how you looked at it—to call my landlord.

      Cohen stood silently studying me, and I was suddenly self-conscious about my appearance. I’d fallen asleep without washing off my makeup, so I was sure to have smears under my eyes, and my hair probably looked like it’d been styled by a raccoon. Way to make a great second impression.

      ‘Liz? As in Elizabeth?’ he asked, softly.

      ‘Nope, Liz as in Eliza. But everyone calls me Liz.’

      ‘Eliza,’ he said thoughtfully. The word rolled off his tongue in a way that was both foreign and reminiscent of long ago.

      It reminded me of the past too much, and a pain stabbed at my chest. ‘Call me Liz,’ I corrected.

      Cohen was silent for a moment longer, then took my hand and pulled me toward the door. ‘Come on, Easy E. Let’s go get your hangover fixed up.’

      Easy E? ‘Where are we going?’

      ‘Breakfast. And don’t argue. Bat hunting makes me hungry.’ He grabbed a long-sleeved T-shirt and yanked it on over his head.

      I laughed and followed him to the door.

      I noticed him attach something to his belt loop and when I got closer, I saw that it was a pager.

      I followed him down the stairs and fell in line beside him as we began walking down the block. I made a point of eyeing the pager strapped to his waist, cocking an eyebrow at him in question. ‘Nineteen-ninety-six called and wants its pager back.’

      He chuckled low under his breath, shaking his head. ‘I need it for work.’ He adjusted his T-shirt so that the obtrusive object was concealed.

      ‘Are you a pimp?’

      ‘Nope.’ He smiled.

      ‘A drug dealer?’

      ‘Um, no. I’m a volunteer at the Chicago Fire Department.’

      ‘You’re a firefighter?’

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