The look she shoots me makes it clear she thinks I'm ridiculous. "I live in a shoebox."
"So? That should make repairs easier, not more difficult," I say. She shakes her head, like I'm missing an obvious point. I brace my arms against the table. "We can be friends, Freddie."
"You're my boss. Well, technically my boss's boss."
"Sure, we're friends outside of the office. I thought that was a given."
Her smile widens. "Friends."
"Friends," I agree. "So if you need someone to show you around New York or take you to the Met, you can ask me. Not to mention I could get you past the line at Medusa." The improbable words fall from my lips, despite the fact that I have no free time, and what time I have I give to my son.
"Is this because I mentioned I had a date today?"
"The two are unrelated."
"Right." She laughs, shaking her head so the dark locks fly, tangled from the snow and the wind. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you're jealous, Tristan."
"I would never stoop so low," I say. "The emotion is beneath me."
"Oh, of course it is. Too common?"
"By far."
A smile plays across lips I can recall kissing all too well. "Now that we're unofficially friends, there are a ton of things I want to know about you," she says.
I groan, looking up at the neon lights in the ceiling. "I'm regretting this already."
"I'll start easy, don't worry. You're just fascinating to me." The sincerity in her voice is unexpected, seeping through my cracks. "Tell me why you go to the Gilded Room."
"I've already told you."
"I feel like it wasn't the entire truth."
I drag my gaze back to her, to eyes that are sparkling with humor and friendliness, and find myself actually considering answering the question. Even if the response isn't one that'll paint me in the best of lights.
A shadow next to our table stops me. "I'm sorry, guys, but we're closing in a few minutes."
"Oh," Freddie says with a frown, like she's disappointed she doesn't get to talk to me more.
We can't have that.
"Thanks for letting us know," I tell the employee. "We'll be out before then."
"Have a good night."
"You too," Freddie says.
When he's left, I reach over and lift up Freddie's soda can. It's full. "You haven't even had a taste."
"I was distracted."
I lift up my own cup of takeaway coffee, still full. "So was I."
She catches on immediately. "It would be a shame to throw these out."
"It would be wasteful, really. And I'm committed to eliminating all forms of waste."
Her smile widens. "You are famously committed to efficiency."
"So this can't stand." I push back my chair and grab my coffee cup, handing Freddie her gloves. "Show me your shoebox and we'll drink it on the way."
Her breathing hitches, despite the excitement in her eyes. "Show you where I live?"
"If I'm going to fix your heater one day, I'll need to know where it is, won't I?" I push open the door and a cold gust of wind sweeps in. "After you, Frederica."
The coffee is cold and tastes like the bottom of a never-cleaned French press, but I drink it like the flimsy excuse of finishing our drinks is real. Snowflakes catch in Freddie's dark hair.
"This doesn't feel real," she says. "The two of us, walking to my shoebox apartment."
Damn her, for being ambitious and intelligent as well as sincere and shy. I can handle one or the other, but both? It's more than a man should have to face.
"We're friends, and this is a friendly thing to do. How'd you find the place?"
She takes a sip of her soda. "The lady who owns the apartment lives a few floors below. I think it used to be the place their au pairs lived in, and then the maid, when they had one. She's alone now, her husband dead and the children gone. A friend of mine from Wharton lived there while she studied for her undergraduate at Columbia."
I nod. "She put you in touch with the landlord?"
Freddie nods, smiling warmly. "Geraldine is lovely. She doesn't trust easily, you see, and so the fact that I was vouched for by someone she liked helped. Then we met, and she decided she liked me too."
"You do seem like the perfect candidate for impressing old women, Strait-laced," I say. "I trust she doesn't know anything about the Gilded Room?"
"God, no. And don't you dare mention anything about it while we're inside."
"Do you think she's spying on you?"
"Probably not, but I'm not willing to take any risks."
We stop in front of a gray-stoned building, looking much like any Upper West Side residential. Freddie nods to the doorman. He nods back, but gives me a look I know well. It's the you're-new-to-me look, coupled with a dose of watch-yourself.
So Freddie has managed to charm him too, on top of the guy who works at the deli place and her fellow trainees at Exciteur. I'm not surprised, because here I am, heading up to her apartment with a cold coffee in hand that I'm apparently desperate to finish.
"I live on the top floor," she says, pausing by the elevators. "I have one window, but it doesn't overlook anything. Not if you don't count some rooftops, a solid brick wall and a few places where pigeons perch."
"They count," I say. "Brick is… interesting to look at."
"Liar," she says, stepping after me into the elevator and pressing the top button. Her hands clasp in front of her, and as I watch, she goes rigid. Her gaze is fixed on the floor numbers shifting on the monitor.
Ah. The fear of heights.