She’s around my age, give or take a year or two. Her hair is dark with faint highlights running through and she has big, blue-brown eyes that are hard to miss. She’s wearing a tiny, shimmery little dress and an extremely confused expression.
“Who the fook are you?” she demands, tripping over her words.
Not Scottish. English. And she reeks of alcohol.
“Um, I’m Jessa. Who are you?”
She frowns, studying me carefully. “What’re you doing in my apartment?”
“Pretty sure this is my apartment,” I tell her. “What’s your number?”
“Are you hitting on me right now?”
All the nervous tension inside me fizzles out, and I laugh. “What’s your apartment number?”
“Oh,” she says, glancing down at the silver sequined purse draped across her body. “My key is in there somewhere… The number should be on it.”
“Jesus,” I murmur under my breath. “How much did you drink tonight?”
“None of your business, Mum.”
Ignoring that, I dip into her purse without her permission and pull out her key. “Ah, Number Twenty-Four. You’re one floor down from me.”
“Doesn’t make you better than me,” she mumbles. She pokes me in the chest before she clumsily plucks the key from my hand.
I smile as she turns to the staircase, tottering like a spinning top, and promptly trips on her own heels. She stumbles forward, giving me a completely-unasked-for eyeful of the hot pink thong she’s wearing underneath her dress.
Rolling my eyes, I grab my own keys and lock my door before heading over to her. “Here,” I say, offering her my hand. “I’ll help you to your apartment.”
She frowns at me. “Really?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You’d do that?”
I shrug. “Sure would.”
“Wow,” she breathes, her expression softening for a second with that classic drunk-girl-in-the-club-bathroom-who-just-told-you-you’re-pretty sincerity before it contorts again. A sob bursts out of her. “That’s so nice.”
“Okay, easy there, cowgirl. No need to get emotional.”
“You know, you’re the first person who… who has been nice to me in this whole d-damn city…” She hiccups and fades into silence.
“I gather you’re new in town?” I ask as I help her down the staircase one slow step at a time.
She nods and sniffles at the same time. “I was sick of London, so I came to L.A. Turns out, it’s even worse.”
“Yeah, I feel like that’s common knowledge. Weather from heaven, people from hell.”
It takes a circus-worthy juggling act to get her door open while she clings to me, both hands wrapped around my neck pitiful. But somehow, I manage.
Her apartment is an exact mirror of mine, though there’s considerably less furniture. She doesn’t even have a couch. Just a big beanbag in the middle of a lonely patchwork carpet. I drop her on the bag and double back to lock her door.
It strikes me as I fill a glass with water and walk it over to her that an opportunity has presented itself. I can stay here and make sure this hot mess is okay and avoid spending the night alone in my apartment.
You know, just in case someone is actually watching me.
Feeling reasonably satisfied with that course of action, I kneel down in front of my new neighbor and offer her the glass of water. “Drink up.”