Chapter 1: An Exercise in Gravity and Micro-Aggressions
Sarah was a firm believer that 5-year-olds and adult males possessed the exact same level of spatial awareness.
Having spent the last eight hours coaxing twenty-two Kindergarteners into using glue sticks on construction paper instead of their own hair, she was running entirely on muscle memory, two cups of lukewarm instant coffee, and sheer stubbornness.
Her current goal was simple: carry four overstuffed bags of groceries up three flights of stairs in a single trip. A double trip was for the weak.
“Almost there, legs,” she muttered, adjusting her grip on a flimsy paper bag that contained two glass jars of marinara sauce, a box of pasta, three lemons, and a pint of premium chocolate ice cream. Her small frame—all five-foot-two of her—was leaned back at a precarious forty-five-degree angle to counterbalance the weight.
She rounded the third-floor landing, breathing heavily, when the door to 3B—a unit that had stood blissfully vacant for six months—swung open with violent force.
“Bro, I swear to God, if you drop that couch on my foot, I’m lighting your bed on fire,” a booming voice yelled.
Sarah didn’t even have time to gasp. A wall of broad shoulders clad in a faded gym shirt backed straight out of the doorway.
Impact.
It wasn’t just a bump; it was like a mid-sized hatchback colliding with a dandelion.
Sarah went airborne for a fraction of a second. The grocery bags exploded on contact. The marinara sauce hit the beige hallway carpet with a horrifying, wet thud, shattering like a crime scene. A rogue lemon bounced off a giant sneaker, and the pint of ice cream spun down the hallway like a curling stone.
“Whoa, watch it!” a guy with a backwards cap barked, stumbling slightly.
Sarah scrambled up from the floor, her hands covered in tomato paste, her hair falling out of its messy bun. “Watch it? You walked backward straight out of a door without looking!”
Three massive men stood in the hallway, looking down at her like three giant oak trees examining a misplaced shrub.
The main culprit—a guy who looked like he’d been hand-carved by a renaissance sculptor out of pure granite—stepped forward. He had dark, messy hair, startlingly bright blue eyes, and stood so tall Sarah had to tilt her head back until her neck popped just to make eye contact. He wore a fitted gray t-shirt that had no right fitting that well across a chest, exposing thick, ink-covered forearms.
Luca glanced down at the shattered marinara sauce, then at Sarah’s stained shirt, and finally at his friend.
“Told you the hallway was narrow,” backwards-cap guy snickered, nudging Luca in the ribs.
Luca didn’t offer a hand. He didn’t even apologize. A slow, lazy smirk spread across his ridiculously handsome face as he casually stepped over a stray lemon.
“Keep the path clear, shorty,” Luca drawled, his voice a low, raspy rumble. “We got heavy lifting to do.”
The three of them burst into a chorus of obnoxious laughs, turned their backs, and hoisted a massive leather couch, ducking into apartment 3B without a second glance.
Sarah sat on the floor, stunned into silence, covered in marinara sauce, surrounded by bruised produce.
“Shorty,” she whispered to the empty, tomato-stained hallway, her brown eyes narrowing into fiery slots. “Oh, welcome to the building, absolute nightmare. It is on.”
