Tied Together (The Cade Siblings Duology #1)

38. Alex

CHAPTER 38

Alex

It’s Sunday afternoon and Alana and I are lounging in the living room. By some miracle, I’ve been able to convince her to take it easy and rest this weekend. I think the incident on Friday scared her enough to listen to me, so we’ve been holed up inside most of the weekend.

After we spent the entire day in bed on Friday, I asked her to stay in my room to sleep. I can’t explain the stress I felt when I thought about not being able to see her and make sure she was okay, so having her near was a comfort.

We’ve played countless games of chess and watched so many movies, including Wonka , despite my initial chagrin. I was proven incorrect, it was a great movie.

Now, she’s curled up on the couch reading a book and I’m scrolling through emails on my computer. The quiet is interrupted by a loud knock at our door. I’m not expecting anyone, and it seems like Alana isn’t either considering the confused look on her face.

“Who is that?” she asks.

“No idea.”

I stand and make my way to the front door, then open it to find a tall man standing in the opening in dark gray coveralls with the building’s logo on them.

“I am sorry to bother you, sir.” As he speaks I notice Alana has come to stand behind me, curious as to who our guest is. “We are having a bit of a maintenance issue.”

“What kind of maintenance issue?” she asks from behind me, then wraps her small hand around my forearm. I try not to get distracted by the physical contact, but it’s difficult.

“Someone in the unit next to yours hit a pipe while drilling into the wall. It is a minor issue, however we will need to use your unit to gain access and fix the problem.”

“Okay, no problem,” I say. “How long will you be? An hour?”

The man reaches behind his head and rubs his neck nervously. I can tell by the apprehension on his face that this is going to be more of an inconvenience than I was thinking.

“Unfortunately, this will likely take longer than that.”

“How long is longer?” Alana asks.

“We will need to gain access today in order to properly stop the leak, but one of the parts we need to permanently fix it is having to be shipped. We aren’t sure when it will arrive.”

Well, that’s incredibly unhelpful.

“So, you’re saying we are going to have maintenance people in and out for a while?”

The man hesitates again and I brace myself for more bad news.

“In order to fix the issue, we need to open up the wall. The building would like to move you to a different vacant unit for the remainder of your stay because we are unsure of the timeline of the repair.” He must see the stress on my face, because he quickly continues. “But not to worry, this new unit is fully furnished and will be stocked and ready for your arrival. It’s still in this building, just on the other side.”

Alana perks up a bit at that, I assume because she’s hoping that means we’ll have a view of the Eiffel Tower, and takes a deep breath.

“Alright,” she says. “How soon do you need us to be out?”

“As soon as possible, ma’am. No need to rush, but sometime within the next few hours if possible.”

He lets us know to meet Maura in the lobby with our things when we’re ready and she will get us settled in the new unit.

“Well, who can say they got to stay in two different luxurious flats while in Paris for a month?” Alana asks as we make our way back into the living room.

“Probably a lot of people,” I chuckle and say.

“Hey,” she nudges me on the shoulder. “I’m trying to find the bright side. I’m surprised they’re moving us for the rest of our time here, but I guess it isn’t that much longer at this point. I can’t believe we only have a couple of weeks left. When we got here it felt like we had forever in front of us, but the time is going by so quickly.”

“You’re not wrong about that. How are you feeling?” I reach out and place the back of my hand on her forehead to check her temperature. I let out a sigh of relief when it feels normal.

“Not bad, thanks to the on-call nurse living with me. I’m pretty sure you fixed me right up.”

“You still need to rest, especially if you want to go back to work tomorrow,” I say as we head down the hallway to our rooms.

“I have to go back tomorrow, Alex. There’s too much to do to stay home another day.”

“You can go back as long as you promise to sleep a full eight hours every night and eat enough throughout the day.”

“Scout’s honor,” she says and holds her pointer, middle and ring fingers up in the air. “Are you going to call Heather or should I? We probably need to let her know what’s going on so she can tell her friend.”

“I’ll give her a call.” She nods and heads into her room to pack up her things. I do the same, but before beginning to pack I dial Heather’s number. She answers after one ring.

“Hello,” she says.

“Hi, Heather, how are you?”

“Doing well. Is everything okay? You reaching out on a Sunday has me a bit worried.”

“Everything’s fine. We’re having a bit of a maintenance issue here at the apartment. It’s nothing major, but it is going to displace us for the next couple weeks.”

“Oh no,” she gasps.

“Yeah, not the best news. But the building has another unit they’re going to allow us to stay in that is furnished and ready to go for us, so I think we’re all set. I just wanted to let you know so you could update the owners of this flat.”

“What a pain. Thank you for letting me know, I’ll reach out to her. Are you two doing okay?”

I almost tell her about the situation this weekend with Alana, but decide against it.

“We’re doing great. Things here are a bit hectic at the office, but we’re figuring out how to manage it.”

“Good. Well you two take care of yourselves and let me know if you need anything.”

“Will do, have a good day.”

“You do the same.”

I hang up the phone and stare at all of my belongings strewn about the room. I’m not a messy person, but I wouldn’t say I’m extremely organized. Not nearly as organized as Alana. I walk around the room, gathering items as I go. I dump them all into my suitcase and then head to the bathroom to do the same.

Once everything is in the suitcase, I squeeze it together and wrestle with the zipper a bit before sighing in relief once it’s fully closed. Next, I head into the office to grab my work items and the few books I’ve collected while here.

Alana is doing the same, walking in and out of her room to grab random belongings that have taken residence throughout the unit. Maintenance let us know they would transfer our groceries from the kitchen, so thankfully we don’t have to worry about grabbing all of that right now. We meet back in the living room, surrounded by suitcases, backpacks and bags. I notice her staring at the tree sort of longingly, and make a mental note to make sure I can somehow get that tree to wherever we’re staying next.

After doing one more walk through to be sure we have everything, we pile all of our things into the lift and head down to the lobby.

When we get off we are greeted by an unhappy looking Maura, which isn’t all that surprising considering she always looks unhappy.

“Hello. Your new unit will be 14B, on this side of the building,” she says and motions to the opposite lift from the one we usually take.

Typical Maura, giving only the exact amount of information needed and not a bit more.

“Thank you,” I say. I take the keys from her outstretched hand and we head up to our new home.