“I keep telling you to bring them to me dirty. I can launder them for you before I iron them. Save your spine.”
“I’m not so old that I’m prepared to have a pretty girl go through my dirty linens. The stairs are fine. But that washer isn’t getting any more efficient.”
Nathan chose that moment to fully emerge from the direction of the bathroom. Mr. Broswolowski looked up then turned in surprise to Tori.
“Mr. Broswolowski, this is—” for no good reason she hesitated to sic her acerbic downstairs neighbor on their landlord “—a friend of mine. He’s helping me with the falcons.”
“Is that so?”
Tori held her breath and waited for the awkward comment to come; some observation to the effect that her neighbor had never seen her with a man, let alone had one wander out of her bathroom as if he owned the place. Which, of course, he did. Not that she was going to share the fact. Her giving Nathan Archer grief was one thing, but exposing him to the collective grizzles of all her neighbors.
“Just the usual, Mr. B?”
The older man might struggle with his eyes and his arthritis, but his mind was in perfect working order. He let his curiosity dissipate, which was uncharacteristic; heavy hints usually only spurred him on. But he glanced more than once at Nathan’s imposing figure and Tori realized this was the first time she’d seen Mr. B outgunned.
“Bless you, yes. There’s a few more than usual,” he said. “I’m spring-cleaning.”
She nudged him toward the door. “Cranes or peacocks?”
He let himself be bundled out into the hall. “In a hurry, Tori?”
“Time is money, Mr. B.”
“Like either of us needs to worry about time.” He chuckled, before adding, “Peacocks.”
Tori returned his smile. He was so predictable. “Done. I’ll have them to you by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Yes, yes. I wouldn’t want to interrupt your date …”
She clicked the door shut behind them pointedly as she followed the older man into the hall, to lessen the chance of Nathan hearing. “It’s not a date. It’s business.”
“Some kind of business, anyway,” Mr. B mumbled, turning away happily.
“None of yours, that’s for sure,” she called after him. His laugh ricocheted back towards her down the dim hallway. She turned and pushed the door to go back in, but it didn’t budge. Her lashes fell closed. That’s right … new door.
New self-locking door.
She took a deep breath and knocked, steeling herself for the inevitable questions. If she got lucky, Nathan would have gone back to work on the camera and not heard a word Mr. B had said. If she got lucky he’d not be the slightest bit interested in what she and her neighbors got up to.
But it had been a long time since she considered herself lucky
An old sorrow sliced through her.
“Come in,” Nathan said with a satisfied mouth-twist as he opened her door. His eyes travelled to the basket overflowing with linens still sitting on the coffee table. “You do his laundry?”
She shifted the clean linen over to the service cupboard that served as a closet and lifted her chin. “He has arthritis. Ironing hurts him.”
The frown deepened. “What was with the peacock?”
Awkwardness leached through her. Speaking of none of your business … But his question seemed genuine enough. To an outsider it probably did seem crazy. “I like to make it special. Fun. I do a sort of hot-steam origami with his linen. He likes the peacock fan for his sheets.”
“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of ironing?”
She smiled. “He doesn’t seem to mind. I did it one Christmas as a surprise and it’s kind of … stuck.”
“One Christmas? How long have you been doing it?”
She frowned. Wow. Had it really been four years? “A while.”
“Does he pay you?”
Heat surged. Was everything about money for him? “Worried I’m operating a home business without a license?”
“No,” he said. “Just curious.”
He shoved his hands into deep pockets, lifting the hem of his expensive coat and flashing the line of his dark leather belt where a crisp white shirt tucked neatly into a narrow waist. It had been a long time since she’d been this close to someone in formal business wear. And a long time since she’d seen someone whom business wear suited quite so much. She immediately thought of her brother dressed up to the nines on his first day at his first Portland job. He’d been so overly pressed and so excited.
Her chest tightened. A lifetime ago.
“We have a kind of barter system going. Mr. Broswolowski was a stage producer and he’s still got connections.”
“You’re an actor?”
Her laugh then was immediate. The idea of her standing on stage in front of hundreds of strangers … Her stomach knotted just from the image. “No. But Angel on three is, and Mr. Broswolowski throws her opportunities every now and again in return for me doing his laundry.”
“Wait … You do his laundry and someone else reaps the benefit?”
“I benefit. Angel babysits the deCosta boy half a day a week as a thank you for Mr. B’s inside information, and in return Mrs. deCosta brings me fresh groceries every Monday when she does her own run.”
If he frowned any more his forehead was going to split down the middle. “Just how many people are involved in this scheme?” he asked.
“Across the whole building? Pretty much everyone, one way or another.”
He gaped. “Thirty-six households?”
“Thirty-five. 8B’s been empty for years. But pretty much everyone else gets involved in one way or another. It suits our needs. And it’s economical. Doing Mr. B’s ironing keeps my refrigerator stocked.”
“What happens when the deCosta boy gets too old for babysitting?”
Tori blinked. Straight to the weak link in the supply chain. No wonder he was a squillionaire. “Laundry’s not my only trade. I have other assets.”
His laugh was more of a grunt. “A regular domestic portfolio.”
She fought the prickles that begged to rise. “Hey, I didn’t start it. Some poor kid with an entrepreneurial spirit came up with it in the eighties as a way of making ends meet. But it works for me.”
Inexplicably his whole face tightened. His voice grew tight. “You do know you can have groceries delivered to your door?”
Tori blinked at him. “Sure. But who would do Mr. B’s ironing?”
The Captain of Industry seemed to have no good answer for that. He stared at her, long and hard. “I guess you have a point.”
She fought down her instinctive defensiveness. The man was just trying to make conversation. “It’s not like it’s against the law, it’s just neighbors getting together to help each other out.”
He turned back on a judgmental eyebrow-lift. “You’re exchanging services for gratuities.”
Heat blazed. “I do someone’s ironing. You make it sound like I’m selling sexual favours in the hallway. That hasn’t happened in this building for a decade.”
He spun toward the television, but not before she saw the way his