Alison's Wonderland (12 page)

“Mr. Bowman?”

Oh God. The clock said 11:35 p.m. No, no, not again. Zeke sat up, cleared his throat. “Yes, Mrs. Sheridan?”

“Ms.,” she corrected.

Zeke swallowed a mighty sigh. “Yes, Ms. Sheridan?”

“It’s doing it again, Mr. Bowman.”

Zeke ran a hand over his face. He swore he could hear his brain cracking from the stress and exhaustion. This woman. This beautiful, annoying, infuriating, odd woman was going to be the death of him. “Can it wait until morning?”

“No, Mr. Bowman. It cannot. I cannot sleep. And if I cannot sleep—”

“I don’t get to sleep,” he groaned. “I’ll be there in a few minutes. You know, if you just jiggle the—”

“I have jiggled the
thing
and it is doing no good. So please do come up, Mr. Bowman.”

Zeke buried his head under the pillow to hide a groan. He mashed the phone back to his ear and growled, “Yes. I’ll be right there, Ms. Sheridan.” Zeke pulled on his jeans. His hamstrings were singing and his calf muscles felt like rocks.
He pushed his tired feet into his boots and pulled them tight. Grabbing his toolbox (which he would not need), he started up the eight flights of steps to Pine Sheridan’s apartment. His fourth—fifth?—trip of the day? He couldn’t remember. All he knew was if someone wanted buns of steel all they had to do was work for Pine. Pine would make your ass as hard as titanium if she could.

“And the damn elevator is still out. Perpetually and forever out, it seems,” he muttered to himself. Talking to himself on the long flights up helped. He had made up songs such as “The Devil Is a Redhead” (dedicated to
Ms.
Pine Sheridan) and “Siren’s Song” (which wasn’t too bad) as he climbed. He had mentally rebalanced his checkbook and plotted out his running route until 2014. And every day, many times a day, he and his trusty toolbox got to trudge the long white staircases to
Ms.
Sheridan’s apartment. Most of the time for her toilet. The forever running, running, running toilet.

“I have no fucking clue what is wrong with that thing,” Zeke said to himself. “How can one woman screw up a toilet over and over again? From the looks of her, she doesn’t even need a toilet. I don’t think she’s human. Beautiful but inhuman. Some kind of demon or ethereal being. And surely they don’t need to use the facilities.” He laughed softly to himself and realized he was downright punchy. Punchy from the phone ringing every two hours for the running potty that would not die.

“And it’s thanks to Uncle Dom,” he growled. “I’ll teach you a lesson, boy. I’ll show you what it is to be a man. Get your head out of the clouds, stop dreaming about music. Just man up! Being a good man and earning a living is an uphill battle, just like keeping an aging building running smoothly. Something you have to tend to. Something you have to work for!” And it was true. His salary was awesome. Allowing for equipment like he never could have afforded simply working
gigs at weddings and the like, but the hours were ridiculous. They were 24/7. He was on call if he was in the building. Sort of like being mother to twenty small apartments. On some days that was a downright nightmare.

And then there was Pine Sheridan. Tall and thin with skin the color of milk. She had a spattering of caramel-colored freckles over the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were green like new spring grass and her hair was so shockingly red that it resembled some mythical flame all knotted up in a sexy mess atop her head. She was maddening. And gorgeous. Truth be told (only to himself on his lonesome upward trek), Pine Sheridan had starred in more than one of his lonely, tangled wet dreams. “But she is the devil,” he reminded himself.

“True,” he answered.

And what did she do, anyway? I mean, my God, the woman was home at the most ungodly hours. One day the previous week, she had called at seven in the morning, eleven, one, three and then at five. Six hours later, she had called at 11:00 p.m. and made him climb all the way up to the fourth floor again. He hated her. But he thought he was slightly obsessed, as well. That night she had bent forward to examine the chain attached to the ball float. The one that Zeke was desperate to teach her to unkink so he could stop doing stair-step-a-looza every day. When she had leaned forward, her dark blue nightgown had gaped forward and one perfect, pale teacup-size breast had been visible for only a flash. The nipple, the palest pink round of flesh nearly the same color as the tea roses his uncle used to grow. In his mind, for that exhausted instant, he had imagined turning her, trapping her thin wrists in his hand and taking that nipple in his mouth and sucking it until she begged him for something other than an unkinked lift wire and a flush flapper ball.

Zeke turned the corner on the fourth flight of steps, trudging ever upward. He shook his head to shake loose the image.
The last thing he needed was to show up at her apartment with a hard-on. That would be bad and entirely useless for fixing her toilet. He rounded the landing, boots slapping on the poured concrete. He hummed a few bars of his song and heard the bass beat in his mind. He’d have to put it down on paper one day. Play it for the boys in the band. “But for now, let’s start the fifth flight of steps, ladies and gentlemen.”

Goddamn, he was tired. And his toolbox weighed what? A million pounds right about now. But on he went, humming and trying to keep the image of that pristine-white breast out of his head.

“Mr. Bowman,” she said, inclining her head. A strand of blazing red hair fell across her face, sliding the length of a high arched cheekbone. He envied that lock of hair for a mind-muddying moment. What would her skin feel like under his fingers? Better than the unpleasant inside of the toilet tank, he was sure. Again he wondered why he’d allowed Uncle Dom to catch him sleeping at the construction site one too many times. Why had he been that stupid? Not having the heart to cut Zeke off, Dominic had put him in charge of maintenance for one of his buildings. Dom called it a solution. Most days, Zeke called it a punishment.

She was staring at him. He cleared his throat and nodded. “Yes. Hi, Mr. Bowman. I presume I don’t need to show you the way.”

“No, ma’am,” he said, and wiped his feet on the doormat. He tromped through to the very, very white bathroom with black accents and set his toolbox on the bath mat. He lifted the tank lid, grabbed the lift wire, gave it a jiggle till the little links fell straight, let it go. Then he watched to confirm that the tank began to fill with water. All as she watched him. When the water was halfway up the inside, he put the lid on and replaced her tissue box. She was blocking the door.

“All done.” He stated the obvious.

“But don’t you want to make sure? Stay until it stops running?” She frowned just a bit and somehow that made her even prettier. She looked to him like some mythical beauty who possessed powers to infuriate and woo men simultaneously.

“I know it’s fine.”

He wanted to tell her never to use her toilet again. Not even to
look
at the toilet. But he knew that was the fatigue talking.

“Really. It keeps getting stuck.”

“I know. We’ll figure it out.” Zeke tried like a champ to keep his eyes to himself, but her damn nightgown was long and sheer and white. A bit old-fashioned for his taste—but damn—on her it worked. Playing into that ethereal-being thing. An angel, a fairy, a goddess. He shook his head. But his eyes were traitors, they skated over the bodice and found the twin discs of dark mauve nipples pushing at the thin fabric. Then (oh, shit) they slid lower and lower. Taking in a shadow he thought to be her navel and then lower, a dark triangle somewhat hidden by folds of gauzy fabric.
Somewhat
hidden. He felt his cock start to respond and forced his eyes away.

Maybe if he dropped the toolbox on his foot…

Saved by the bell! Or in this case, the toilet. It stopped running with a gasping sound and the sudden silence was deafening. Thank God. “There you go, Ms. Sheridan.” He forced a smile into his voice. She led him out and even though he was sad to see the end of her fair form in that nightgown, he was desperately happy to be going back down to his apartment to bed.

He was dreaming it. He had to be. There was no way in merry hell that phone was ringing. But it didn’t stop and
when he peeked, the clock said 2:13 a.m. In big, red demonic digital numbers. Zeke clawed around, knocked the phone off the station, finally snagged it. “Oh, dear Christ, hello?”

“
Mr.
Bowman.”

He didn’t. He couldn’t. Nothing beyond, “I’ll be right there,
Ms.
Sheridan.” And up he went. Jeans, tee, boots, box, trudge. Up he went. Up, up and forever up. Past the fissure in the plaster on the first level, the graffiti that kept bleeding through that said
Josh is an ass crack
with a jagged-lightning bolt. Past level two with the spiderweb of splintered glass in the window. Level three with the pink silk flower on the sill that no one would claim. And finally—
finally!
—level four with the wad of gum stuck on the ceiling so high up even he couldn’t reach it without risking life and limb. Which he would not do for gum, thank you very much.

He knocked on 444 and waited. The door opened and there she was. Pine Sheridan. Who in no way looked like it was the God-blessed middle of the night. She was gorgeous and blushing and…what
had
she been doing? Again he shook the thought off before he could get wood. Not that he hadn’t woken with his morning wood, but the Andes-like trek up the flights of steps had dealt with that. And the nightgown was different. Midnight-blue, silk, it clung to every damn curve of her. Hugging her so succinctly he could see the swell of her sex at the V of her thighs. He stared counting ceiling tiles to stave off the flow of blood to his cock. “Please, come.”

That was what he heard anyway. Something must have said that in the staggering step back he took. She frowned, perfect pink lips turning into an upside-down bend of confusion. “Mr. Bowman? Please, come in.”

“Let me show you how to do it. Please, Ms. Sheridan. At least until the damn company sends an elevator repairman. My ass is a knot, my thighs are burning, I think I’m getting sciatica.” She looked both mortified and amused. He gave a
beleaguered sigh and trudged into the bathroom to fix the most cursed toilet part in the history of toilet parts.

When it was all done and filling, he took a step back, right into smooth, soft, slippery…woman. “Maybe next time, Zeke, you can show me. But thank you very much.” She was standing so damn close to him he could smell her peppermint toothpaste and feel the cool blow of her breath over his stubbly chin. He took a deep heady breath of her and smelled sandalwood and lemon and some kind of spice. Maybe cinnamon. Whatever it was, she smelled good, like dessert. Like a treat. Like something he wanted to eat.

“Zeke?” he said dumbly

“Isn’t that your name?” She looked flustered then and he felt his cock getting even harder. Between the blush and the hair and the full lips and the clingy nightie, he was a dead man. He had to get out and regroup.

“Yeah. Of course it is. I just didn’t think you knew that. Well, off to bed. And please, I pray your toilet holds out until morning, Ms. Sheridan.” He swallowed a yawn but wondered how the hell he was going to sleep with an erection he could hammer a nail with.

“Pine. Please, call me Pine. Did you know it’s Latin for suffering? My parents had no idea.”

“I believe it,” he said, thinking of the torturous stairs, but recovered when she looked beautifully stricken. “But it’s perfect and unusual. Good night. Ms…. Pine.”

“Good night, Zeke.”

And he swore she was leaning in to kiss him, but he was delusional. So he turned on his work boots and fled.

6:47 a.m.

“Zeke?”

“Coming, Pine.”

Up, up, up he went. His heavy, useless toolbox gripped in
his weary fingers. Climbing the never-ending sets of steps. Sometimes he daydreamed (hallucinated) that they unhinged themselves and lay flush and flat like a slide. Then he would slide all the way back to his apartment door in the basement. And he would have to start over. Never knowing when they would suddenly fold in on themselves and shoot him right back to the beginning.

Had he been a weaker man, he would have cried.

Early-morning light was shyly peeking through the cracked safety glass on level two. Pinkish-yellow light that should only be enjoyed from the comfort and safety and darkness of one’s own bed. “Good morning, level two,” he grumped. He hadn’t even had coffee and here he was on his first trip up to Pine’s apartment. For her toilet. The toilet he was thinking now was possibly possessed. “Maybe a sledgehammer would fix the toilet.”

Level three, he stretched, his shoulders popping, his knees crackling. He was young, but even the young could get repetitive injury to joints. Did climbing the same sets of steps perpetually and almost without interruption count as repetitive? He was pretty sure it did.

And level four. Almost there. Amen. He raised his hand to knock, looking down into the pit of crazy turns all the way down to the ground floor where he had started. No wonder he’d been eating like a horse lately. How many calories was he burning doing that much climbing every day? These were not short, compact modern steps. These were old school, spaced, steep, narrow steps from back in the day when they, according to Uncle Dom, knew how to construct a building. Whatever the case, if he got one more cramp in his ass, he was going to scream.

“Good morning, Zeke,” she said, and captured his attention. White capri pants despite the frigid February chill, red-and-white-striped socks that made him think of candy canes,
and a white sweater with a dipping V-neck that somehow showcased everything and revealed nothing. No bra. His brain was working well enough to spot a stunning braless woman when he saw one.

“Pine,” he said, giving her a nod. His voice sounded like a gasp. Like someone was slowly constricting the air from his lungs. Someone was—Pine! “I know the way.”

He brushed past her but somehow her breasts, her belly, her hip bone raked over the sleeve of his jacket and he had to close his eyes and steady his breathing. He could not throw down a tenant and have his way with her like some caveman. No matter how beautiful she was. No matter how interesting. And annoying and…