Malignant Virtues

III

The next morning, Taz rolled over and looked at his phone, unlocking it to find his half-finished text to Gretta from the night before still pulled up on the screen. He frowned at it, considering for a moment, before deleting the message and typing a new one: More job hunting today. You in?

He set it on his night stand, but his phone chimed almost instantly with her reply.

Yep!

He saw that she was typing a response and waited several seconds, but the currently typing message disappeared soon enough, only to return and vanish again. He set his phone back on the nightstand to wait for her to make up her mind, and rolled over onto his back to stare up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the dull throbbing in his temple. He wondered how the night would have ended if he hadn't sent their conversation spiraling in the wrong direction with his poorly-timed comment about Gretta's brother, but there was always the promise of a second date. The pretty blonde from upstairs had been another intriguing development, creeping out of her apartment, barefoot, with a bottle of wine before midnight.

He'd thought about the blonde and about Gretta as he'd settled himself onto his couch with the last bottle of wine in his apartment, clicking through a few dozen channels on his oversized television before settling on a baking competition. By the time the last competitor had been eliminated and a winner had been crowned, he'd found himself quite a bit more sideways on his sofa than he had been when he'd started, struggling to keep his eyes open, the wine bottle empty on the floor beside him. Staggering his way to bed, he'd considered taking a detour to his apartment's kitchenette for a glass of water but decided against it, a choice he was regretting now.

Another chime from his phone sent another jolt of pain shooting through his head. Wincing, he groped blindly for his phone with one hand, squinting at the bright light from the screen.

Gotta be back by 4 this afternoon. Working tonight. Rain check on that second date?

Rain check, he typed back. He closed the message and checked the time; it was already nearly noon. He reopened his messages and typed, I'll be down in half an hour.

He tossed his phone back onto the bedside table and heard it chime again, but didn't bother to check it, pressing the heels of his hands over his eyes, trying to physically push his headache away. A minute or two passed and his phone chimed again, reminding him of the unread message. He groaned and grabbed it, squinting at the emoticon Gretta had sent back. Determining that it was a positive one, he yanked back the covers and swung his legs out of bed, fighting back a wave of nausea as he stood.

Maybe it was a good thing tonight wouldn't be their second date; he wasn't sure another night of drinks would sit well. After a quick shower and an even quicker shave (and a few solid minutes staring into the toilet trying to determine if he needed to be sick), he headed downstairs to find Gretta waiting for him with her purse already in hand, looking much better than he felt.

The afternoon passed much the same way the day before had, the pair of them stopping at half a dozen businesses, filling out application after application, until four o'clock rolled around and it was time to return home. Taz dropped his neighbor off at her front door, planting a kiss on the back of her hand in lieu of the awkward, one-armed hug from the night before, eliciting a fit of giggles from Gretta.

He wondered fleetingly how much she would giggle if he pulled her into him and kissed her right then, but settled for simply giving her a grin and giving her hand another squeeze before turning to head upstairs. As he climbed the stairs to his apartment, he wondered if, like foregoing the glass of water the night before, he would regret his choice the next morning. Sticking his key into the lock on his door, a thought struck him, and he couldn't help but glance over his shoulder, but the upstairs blonde from the previous night was nowhere in sight.

The following weeks passed much the same way; Taz spent his days filling out job applications and making phone call after phone call to follow up on applications he'd already submitted, but his potential employers maintained their silence. Some days, he would go alone in search of jobs; others, Gretta would go with him, and those days were the better days. Her bright smile was an almost a permanent fixture on her soft features, and she was never short an encouraging word when he felt his motivation running dry. She laughed at all his jokes and always had a list of places that were hiring that he hadn't even considered; when they'd stop for lunch she'd slide into the booth beside him and pull up a map of the surrounding city blocks on her phone, pointing out the places they'd already been and the places they had yet to go.

In the evenings he would either drop Gretta off at her front door, or if she didn't have to work that night, he would follow her in for a drink, and they would share a bottle of wine, or Gretta would make him some new cocktail she was working on perfecting. She would curl up on the couch beside him with her drink, just as she had that first night, and the pair of them would stay up half the night talking and laughing until her brother would emerge from his room, frowning, to remind them that not everyone was able to sleep until noon. Gretta would offer a sheepish apology, and they'd wait for Sforz to shuffle back into his bedroom before breaking into another bout of laughter, after which Taz would finally excuse himself and head home to his own apartment for the night.

The night that he finally kissed her, they were halfway through a bottle of moscato, and she'd tasted as sweet as the cool white wine. Her breath caught sharply in her throat, and for a moment he'd feared that he'd overstepped some unspoken boundary, but then he'd felt her mouth curve into a smile against his own and she'd broken the kiss to dissolve into a fit of giggles that Taz was sure the wine had played no small part in. She'd twined her fingers into his shaggy, ashen hair and bit her lower lip, still giggling, waiting. He'd leaned forward and kissed her again, lingering this time, inhaling the sweet scent of her perfume and savoring the feeling of her lips on his. They'd finished the wine between kisses and Taz had gone home to bed dreaming of moscato and perfume and crimson skin.

Occasionally on his way to and from Gretta's apartment, Taz would pass the blonde from upstairs in the stairwell. He'd offer a smile or a friendly wave, both of which went unanswered more often than not. Returning from his job hunts in the afternoon, he'd often noticed her standing on her third-floor balcony in front of an easel; determined to remedy her evidently unfavorable first impression of him, he'd gone to the local craft store and purchased a new set of oil paints, leaving them outside her door with a note: Got off on the wrong foot. Still plenty of room for improvement. Peace offering? — Mr. Second Floor (Taz)

The next day he'd found a bottle of wine sitting on his own doorstep, with a note of its own: To replace the one your hook-up stole. Peace offering accepted. — Ms. Third Floor (Adia)

Although she still gave him little more than the time of day when they passed each other in the stairwell, she would at least smile back at him and return his wave before tucking her long blonde hair behind an ear and hurrying on her way. He hadn't seen her sneaking out of her apartment in the middle of the night again, and she didn't seem keen to strike up any sort of substantial conversation, but he told himself it was an improvement.

Between exchanging pleasantries with Adia whenever he saw her and spending his evenings cuddled up with Gretta, Taz finally felt as though he were beginning to find his place in his new home — and when he finally received his first call for an interview with a potential employer, he knew things were really beginning to look up.