Dedication: For Michele, as a thank you for all the laughs, the adventures, and the trips to Applebees just to spy. And for Anna, for all the support, the stories, and all those hours on the cell phone.

Cohabitation

It had started with her offering to get his mail every couple of days while he was at the station house. After all, she lived right next door and had the mailbox right below his. It was on her way, really, and since her brother was a fireman, too, Aspen had been willing enough to help. After a week of living in the station, the last thing Finn wanted to do was trudge over to the post office and pick up the mail they’d stopped delivering to his stuffed box midway through the week. He got more junk mail than anyone should, and Finn was fairly sure his mailman had long ago blacklisted him.

But Aspen solved that problem one day as he pulled another notice from the post office out of his box. She’d simply turned to him and said, in her matter-of-fact way, “Well, neighbor, how about I just grab your mail for you while you’re at work?”

Well, how about it? Finn smiled. It was the perfect sentiment to describe how Aspen approached the world.

“Sure,” he’d said, and then after a moment, “I suppose I’d better get you a key.”

“Sure,” she’d agreed. It had sealed the matter, it had started it all. But what had started as a simple mail-gathering operation blossomed over time. He’d head off to his station house for the week, and Aspen would find her way next door to his apartment. She would make sure there weren’t any dishes left in the sink, that his milk wasn’t going sour in the fridge. Occasionally she’d just finish his carton and pick up a new one before he got back. Every once in a while, if his hamper was looking particularly neglected, she would run a load for him. And so it came to be that she was as at home in his place as she was in her own.

Finn was eternally grateful. He told her so, as often as he could, and he’d even tried to make her cookies once to express his gratitude. That had failed rather miserably, and he’d spent the rest of his weekend off trying to get the smell of flambéed cookie out of his apartment with reasonably better success. After that, he stuck to smaller, pre-assembled tokens of his appreciation, such as a small bunch of flowers or perhaps a promise of Starbucks when they both had a coinciding hour off.

Months passed in this fashion.

Aspen found that she had taken to leaving little things of hers in his apartment. She rarely saw him, but she felt a certain kinship with him -- it was only fair, she thought, since she laundered his underwear on a fairly regular basis. You couldn’t do that for someone and not feel as though you’d been granted access into their inner sanctum. So every once in a while, she would -- accidentally, of course -- leave a piece of herself behind. Sometimes she left her cereal bowl drying in the dish rack by his sink. Or else she would leave a hair-tie on the coffee table. It gave her a strange, ethereal sort of satisfaction that she’d have been hard pressed to explain to someone had they asked her why she did it.

To his credit, Finn quite enjoyed these little odds and ends she left. It made the apartment feel like a place that was being lived in, and not just somewhere he slept on his days off. It eased the loneliness of coming home to an empty apartment, in the same way that it eased the loneliness to put on the pants she’d washed for him or to open the beer she’d dropped off at some point during the week to replenish his stock. It made him feel like someone, at least, would notice if he dropped off the face of the planet.

And so a year passed, and the arrangement flourished, with him sending her a text message any time his shift changed, and her leaving his mail in neat piles on his table, the junk mail having already taken a trip down the trash chute. They had remarkably little contact during this year, except when he forgot to tell her that his shift had changed and she wouldn’t need to drop by for another couple days.

It was after one such occasion that everything changed.

Finn had dragged himself back from the station house after a particularly brutal week. He was certain at this point that people were setting different parts of Queens on fire just to watch him scramble, and when he was finally off-duty, just getting back to his place seemed like a daunting journey. He realized that he’d have to tell Aspen that he’d be home for the next several days until his new rotation started up… With a tired sigh, he promised himself to do it in the morning. It was late, after all, and as he passed her room he decided she was probably either asleep or out, and he just didn’t have the energy to knock.

So in the morning, having forgotten his promise to himself, he was rather surprised to be roused well before his alarm by the sound of someone wandering around his kitchen. He glanced at his clock and then burrowed his face in his pillow. What kind of retarded thief would sack a place at six twenty-seven in the morning, anyway?

He rolled out of bed, half his brain telling him that there wasn’t much for a thief to take anyway, and that he should just go to bed and file a report with the local precinct when he was better rested. He had a grudging respect for the cops that didn’t cross the line into a liking for them, and he figured he’d probably want all the sleep he could get before having to deal with them. But the other half of his brain knew that he should just go out there and deal with it himself. The guy would probably just take off anyhow -- no harm, no foul.

He padded softly to the doorway and peeked through the bedroom door, which he always left slightly ajar. And then he relaxed. It was no thief. It was Aspen, in sleep-pants and a tank top. She had a cereal bowl from her apartment in her hands, and she was using what was left of his milk. She made a notation on a small pad she’d brought with her, and he realized with a wry smile that it was a shopping list. She was making a shopping list for him. The domestic quality of it made him want to laugh. She obviously thought she was alone -- she was humming ( quite badly ) and her face was bereft of makeup. Her hair looked like it had been raised by wolves and perhaps ate hairbrushes and combs for breakfast.

He shook his head. Cute.

He decided rather than scare her, he’d quietly head back to bed, and then make a lot of noise “getting up” so she’d know he was there. When he emerged from his bedroom the second time, she was waiting for him.

“Hey,” she said, and he realized she was a little embarrassed. After a year, she was embarrassed to be in his apartment at the same time he was. He couldn’t help but smile.

“Hey,” he agreed, heading for the cabinet where he presumably kept his bowls. He was still finding his way around his own kitchen. Usually he just ordered Chinese. But usually, he wasn’t up until one or two in the afternoon.

“I didn’t know you were home.”

“Rotation’s changing. I don’t have to go back until Friday.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Sorry. I should have told you last night.”

She shrugged. “Not a problem.”

He noticed she had scooped the shopping list into her lap, and his grin widened. She gave him a suspicious look, wondering why he appeared to have been let in on some little secret, but she didn’t say anything.

“Any milk left?” he asked, nodding to the carton. She nodded and passed it to him, watching as he dumped the last of it into his bowl. He realized he was rather enjoying going through the motions of having breakfast with someone else. It had been a long time, and although the air was tinged with a slight awkwardness, he found the domestic little scene quite novel. She hesitated, then decided that she would pretend this was normal as well, and lifted her spoon.

She left after breakfast. He waved her out, knowing she had to get ready for work, and then he headed back to bed. She might be ready to face the day, but he needed a little more sleep before he’d tackle it with anything resembling gusto.

He settled back into his covers and it took him a minute to notice he was still smiling. He closed his eyes, feeling his drowsiness drag him back toward unconsciousness. But before he went to sleep, he had one last clear thought.

How did I ever live without her?

How did I ever end up playing house with an empty apartment? Aspen thought to herself at roughly but not quite the same time, jerking on her shirt with perhaps a little more force than absolutely necessary. She was furious, and while she vaguely realized that she had known all along she was being rather silly about this whole thing, she hadn’t actually allowed that realization to penetrate until this point. It had been kind of like a game. She’d been pretending to have a relationship with this man while she -- like a good little girlfriend or housewife -- did his laundry and picked up his milk and deposited his mail into his apartment.

A relationship! She hadn’t spoken to him that much since they’d arranged this little…arrangement in the first place. And as much as she liked Finn, as much as she appreciated what a hard job he did, she didn’t know anything more about him than the size of his pants and the fact that he preferred 1 milk to skim.

She’d spent the better part of the year imagining that she was more endeared to him than she was. And now she was paying for it. Because spending breakfast with him had awakened her to one very important fact: she was not his wife, his girlfriend, his mistress or his maid. She was his neighbor. And she had to keep telling herself that before she remembered how much she liked ironing his shirts and wondering what it would be like to watch him pick one out to wear before he took her to dinner.

When did it get to this point? Her shoulders slumped. Hardly glancing into the mirror to make sure she was presentable for work, she grabbed her purse and keys and forgot to be mad. Instead, a wave of depression swept over her as she locked her door. When had her life become so empty that she’d begun a relationship with his semi-abandoned apartment? She trudged to the subway station and brooded the rest of the way to work. She brooded when she got there, somehow slipping past the notice of every other person at the office. She was still brooding as she put the finishing touches on an advertisement proposal for kosher hot dogs. In fact, she would have been content to brood all the live-long day, except for a voice that interrupted her thoughts and her work.

“So do they let you eat around here, or does self-imposed starvation help inspire your artistic mind?”

Aspen lifted her eyes to Finn’s face, and she would have liked to ask how he knew where to find her, except for her throat was rather cheerfully uncooperative. He was leaning with a hip propped against her desk, and he was smiling down at her in a boyish manner that was obviously meant to charm her into consenting to his will.

“How long did you practice saying that in your head before you interrupted me?” she asked, an answering smile coming to her face although the shock of him being here, at her workplace, was still being absorbed into her system. His grin never faltered, and he shrugged.

“At least three times,” he admitted, and she laughed even as she knew she was falling into the same old trap.

“Mmm…and why are you here, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Finn shrugged, pushing himself off of her desk. He examined her workspace for a moment, then smiled at her again, and she thought maybe he wasn’t as cool and confident as he appeared.

“Lunch? It’s the least I can do, don’t mention it,” he added in a rush, before she could protest. “You take good care of me, and I should return the favor while I’m well rested. Plus…” He shrugged. “Daytime television is awful.”

“Oh, I see,” she said with a laugh. “You’re bored and you want someone to play with.”

He flushed, but he was grinning. He shuffled from foot to foot with an embarrassed little wriggle. “Well, I was going to use your lunch break to talk you into playing hooky for the rest of the day. I mean, your boss would understand, knowing the state of your poor Uncle Louie,” he said, his expression growing somber as he mentioned her ‘poor uncle.’

“Louie?” she asked.

“Sure.” He brightened. “A Desert Storm vet. He was married to your Aunt Liz for forty-three glorious years and when she passed away, well…” Finn shook his head, and placed his hand on his heart as though imparting a tragic love story of great import to them both. “He’s been a shadow of himself ever since, and he’s so frail these days.”

She blinked at him. “You are absolutely without moral compunction, aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “I’m a firefighter.”

“Oh, comforting.”

“C’mon, so you miss an afternoon….it’ll be fun.” He winked at her. She shook her head and knew she was giving in. So, apparently, did Finn.

“Okay,” she said on a sigh.

He blinked, then looked exceedingly too pleased with himself. “That was easy.”

“Don’t push your luck.”

He led the way out of the building, stopping to hold open doors for her at times, and as she stepped out onto New York’s streets, she was hit with a sense of unreality. She was going to lunch with a man. With a decent-looking man. With a firefighter. Sure, he was a neighbor, and sure, he probably felt like he owed her ( hadn’t he said as much? ), but she was still going to lunch with a man.

He caught the breathless look on her face and lifted an eyebrow. She caught the glance and forced a smile, although she was pretty sure she was having an out-of-body experience. Hadn’t she just been lamenting the lack of life in her existence? She tilted her face up to the sunshine, and the hopeless romantic in her rejoiced while the stern librarian in her told her not to get her hopes up and for heaven’s sake, get a hold of yourself, girl!

“I’m getting the feeling that there’s a whole inner monologue I’m missing out on,” Finn said. She looked at him again and his smile was a bit wry, his eyes dancing with amusement.

“Trust me,” she said. “You’re not missing much.”

He laughed and nodded. He seemed at ease with her, with himself, with the world. She was struck with sudden jealousy, because she was a total wreck. He’d caught her completely off guard, and dammit, he appeared as if he’d planned it that way and was extremely glad it had turned out just how he’d wanted it to. He caught her elbow as she cursed the unfairness of it all and steered her into a quiet restaurant with more grace than she’d have given him credit for.

“It’s Japanese,” he said. “I hope you like Japanese.”

“Sure,” she replied, taking in the lacquered tables, tatami mats, shoji screens and the sushi bar. Finn took off his shoes and left them near the door, and Aspen followed his lead, entranced. The noise from the street disappeared, and the hostess bowed to them as Finn led them forward.

“Ah, Finn-san, you bring a friend today,” she said, sounding very satisfied with the prospect. Finn bowed back to her, a little awkward but smiling.

“This is Aspen. She’s been helping me out and I thought I’d bring her to the best restaurant in town.”

Flirt, Aspen thought, smiling as she watched the older lady smile and bow again, pleased with the compliment. She led them to a table and Aspen sank to the tatami mat, watching as Finn sank to a similar cross-legged position across from her. The menus were placed before them, though he didn’t bother to look -- Aspen had already guessed that he came here often. He did, however, play with it, his fingers tracing and plucking at the edges of the glossy paper. And then, watching him, she had another revelation that took her breath away. He was just as nervous as she was. And…

She had the upper hand.

She had been in his personal domain, she’d gotten a glimpse of who he was without them ever even having a full conversation. She had put together some of his likes and dislikes just from the things in his apartment. But Finn was operating on very little information -- just the glimpses of her he’d gotten over the last year. And he was doing a good job of playing it cool, but all of a sudden she was the one holding the cards.

He caught her appraising look and glanced down at the menu, distracting himself. Aspen smiled, relaxing a little. His turf, but the ball was in her court, and she liked those odds.

“So what made today the day?” Aspen asked, running her eyes over the menu. Finn paused, as though the question took him by surprise and he wasn’t sure himself.

“Seemed like a good day,” he said after a moment, shrugging. “I figured if my bathroom hadn’t scared you away by now, you’d probably agree to grabbing lunch, and hey, it’s a beautiful day.”

“Let’s not talk about that bathroom,” she replied, and she eyed him over the menu, and they both laughed. He laughed casually, without self-consciousness, and the sun caught the gold in his red curls as his head tilted back with his mirth. It would be easy, she thought, to get addicted to him and his laissez-faire approach to life.

“It’s not so bad,” he said. She just continued to look at him, and he glanced away, a boyish grin still curving his lips. “Okay. It’s that bad.”

“I have to know.” She set her menu down and met him with a serious gaze, and he sobered as he looked back at her, sensing the sudden importance of her coming question. Holding him there, she placed her hands on the table and leaned in, enhancing the absolute significance of what was coming. She could tell he was holding his breath, but she didn’t let her amusement show. “How serious of a Mets fan are you?”

Finn let out his breath in a whoosh, and he leaned back in utter relief. “Jeez, that’s easy. Far as I’m concerned? There is no other baseball team in New York.”

Aspen smiled, satisfied.

“Oh no, little lady. You’re not getting away so easy. I take it you’re a Mets fan, but I’m wondering if you can tell me who Scott Gomez is.”

“Forward for the Rangers,” she replied without pause. He looked impressed and she shrugged. “I had two brothers. I had to like sports.”

Lunch continued in this fashion, and Aspen had to admit that if he hadn’t been endearing before, he certainly found himself a spot in her heart as she watched his big hands maneuver the delicate chopsticks to get the sushi to his mouth. He kept the conversation going when she otherwise might have let it lapse, and she found that she liked him. She didn’t know that much about him yet, but the longer he talked, the more she genuinely wanted to know.

Still, something in her pulled back. She’d been living in her fantasy world for so long, taking care of the Finn she’d constructed in her head, that sitting across from the real thing made her feel cautious. What if he wasn’t who she’d decided he was? And what if, after discovering the difference, he disappointed her? Or, worse, what if he was this amazing guy she’d simply assumed he was, and then something happened to him on the job? He seemed not to catch on to the undercurrent of uncertainty, but Aspen was acutely aware of it. She’d invested a lot in her daydream, and as feeble as it was, she wasn’t sure she could handle being disappointed by reality. It proved unfavorable to her all too often.

But Finn, Finn was proud of himself. He thought the afternoon was progressing rather nicely. He’d intended to get to know his thoughtful neighbor better for a while, and he kicked himself for not doing it sooner. Aspen was a little shy, perhaps, but she had a sharp wit and he could talk sports with her. He definitely appreciated that. He chalked up any awkward pauses to unfamiliarity and he moved on with the conversation. If she seemed a little reserved every now and then, he decided not to take it personally. Hell, she’d seen his boxers and she was sitting here, talking to him. She must not be entirely offended by his presence.

He’d woken that afternoon thinking about her. He wasn’t sure why, exactly, except for that seeing her in his kitchen with her bowl of cereal and her little shopping list, completely unguarded, had made him want to know her. He wanted to know the Aspen that didn’t wear make up, the one the hummed badly, the one who tried to eat and write at the same time and sometimes missed with spoon or pen or both. He didn’t have many friends, he’d never really made many in the course of his life, but Aspen was the kind of girl that you were compelled to. He’d already experienced her generosity, and now he was determined to find out what else made her tick.

Their eyes met across the table, and she looked away first. He caught a flash of something in her eyes, but she had turned them down to the food too fast for him to tell for certain. Unconcerned, however, he grinned and went back to his sashimi, blissfully unaware that she was already trying to reestablish her defenses. Because while Finn felt the time was right to take a risk, Aspen’s sudden realization that she could care for the real, in-the-flesh Finn was beginning to scare her, and lunch wasn’t even over yet.

“So, how ‘bout it? Are you gonna play hooky with me?”

“I…” The waitress, a beautiful young Japanese girl, cleared their dishes away and brought back with her warm towels and hot green tea. Aspen used this time to collect her thoughts. “I shouldn’t.”

Finn waved a hand. “You didn’t look as though you were doing anything particularly urgent when I stole you.”

“Harsh,” she said with a laugh. He laughed with her.

“No offense. C’mon, it’ll be fun. I’m hilarious.”

“And modest.” She couldn’t think of a legitimate reason not to hang out with him, although she thought perhaps she should know better. “Alright, alright, you win.”

“Awesome.” Finn’s smile was wicked, and somehow, Aspen thought she might live to regret this.

Cohabitation