One Hit Wonderful Read Online Free PDF Page A

opened his door. “This guy’s meeting us?”
    Lily followed suit and stood at the end of the drive. “He said if he didn’t answer the bell to go ahead and take a look.”
    Charles arched his neck to peer up the empty driveway. “I don’t see a car, so maybe he’s not home. Want to just go up?”
    “Yeah. That way if it’s a dump, I don’t have to talk to the guy. He sounded like a jerk.”
    Charles chuckled as he started up the drive with her. “Let me guess, he wasn’t up to your exacting standards of phone etiquette.”
    “There’s just no reason to be rude,” she muttered, getting irritated all over again. “He didn’t even say goodbye, he just hung up.”
    “Yeah, that’d drive you nuts,” Charles decided as they turned the curve. He stopped short as the building came into view. “I don’t think it’s going to be a dump, sweetie.”
    “Probably not,” she agreed, and kissed her hope that this apartment would be at all affordable goodbye.
    The garage, if such an elegant old building could be termed such a mundane thing, was built of the same gorgeous brick as the house, and the same ivy climbed the walls. It looked as though it had once been an old carriage house, more at home on some East Coast estate than a small college town in Colorado. The wide bay doors were painted a bright white and covered almost the entire lower front of the building, with small windows across the top. Lily walked up and stood on her toes to peek in, but curtains shielded the view.
    She dropped back to her heels and turned to Charles. “You think he actually uses this place as a garage?”
    Charles had his hands on his hips, surveying the structure. “Doubt it,” he said absently. He looked up. “Wow, check out those windows.”
    Lily tiled her head back and felt her jaw drop. “Wow,” she echoed. Windows took up the entire facing wall of the second floor, sparkling in the late-afternoon sun. “Talk about natural light.”
    “No shit.” Charles had walked around the right side of the building. “They wrap all the way around the side.”
    “There’s no way I’m going to be able to afford the rent,” Lily muttered, “unless the place is rat infested and drafty.”
    “That’s what I love about you, Lil.” Charles wrapped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed. “You’re such an optimist.”
    Lily sighed. “I know, think positive.”
    “That’s my girl,” he encouraged. “Where’s the door we’re supposed to look for?”
    “He said the blue door around the side,” she said, and together they followed the path around the left side of the building.
    “Blue door,” she said, and gave the knob a twist. It opened smoothly under her hand, swinging wide to reveal an enclosed stairwell, with another door on the opposite wall.
    “That probably goes to the main space,” Charles decided, giving the door a soft thump. “Second floor, right?”
    “That’s what the landlord said,” Lily replied, and started up the stairs with Charles behind her.
    “It’ll be a pain in the ass to walk up stairs every day,” Charles commented.
    “Yeah, but they’re nice and wide,” Lily countered. “And they look brand new. See the sawdust in the corners?” She pointed. “I think he must have just had the staircase added. The exterior wall is original brick, but the inside wall looks like new drywall.”
    She stepped up onto a generous landing awash in light from the wide window set in the brick wall. “Nice wide landing, good light.” She looked at Charles. “The landlord said to just go on in.”
    “Then let’s go on in,” he replied, and pushed open the door.
    They stood for a moment in the doorway then moved as a unit into the space. The wide, light-filled, high-ceilinged, wood-floored space.
    “Well.” Lily looked at Charles. “I’m hoping the landlord is insane.”
    Charles didn’t look at her, he was too busy gaping. “Why?”
    “Because that is the only way the rent is going to be low