I woke up in the wrong bed— quite literally; I was in Sandra's old room.
Not only that, but there was the sound of buzzing against the floorboards. I braced myself, preparing mentally to see whatever monsters that lay underneath her bed before dangling my arm down and praying to Jesus that it wouldn't magically be severed by the time mission impossible had been completed.

I grabbed my phone, and the display screen was blinding. At this point, I could hear the Specsavers adverts mocking me in full force.

"Fuck." I muttered as I rubbed my eyelids in dismay, then came "What the fuck?," when I realised that I had no clue as to who the hell was calling me.

"Hello?" I said groggily, still half drunk from my strange sleeping endeavours.

"Hi there. I'm calling about the advertisement." a low, male voice responded down the phone. It was smooth and fluid like dripping honey. He sounded oddly familiar.

My mind went blank. I was trying to put the missing puzzle pieces together and I must have been quiet for a while because the man on the end of the line started to call out for me again.

"Huh? Oh yes!" I said a little too enthusiastically, nearly shouting down the phone when I finally had my 'eureka' moment. Everyone had a 'phone voice'. You know that overly-exaggerated polite sound that's dragged up from the depths of your inner anus, or more commonly known as 'the voice of customer service workers who have dealt with approximately three middle-aged soccer moms in the last hour or so'.

"So is it still available?" he asked and I wiped the saliva from the corner of my lip as if he could magically see me.

"I'll have to ask you to do an interview, just so I know that you're not a complete psychopath." I chewed my lip, hoping he'd understand the seriousness in my slight humour.

I heard a soft chuckle down the line and it sounded awfully familiar again, and it came it with the mental image of perfectly shaped, pearly-white teeth.

"I can pay a month's rent in advance." he said again in his deep voice that was probably an unfair advantage against me.

I thought about it carefully. A month's rent would be a literally life-line to me right now. As much as I wanted to be completely rational, there was a moment of weakness that gave way to what was probably a terrible decision on my part.

"Swing by at two." I told him.

"Does that mean I got the offer?" he seemed hopeful.

"No, it means 'swing by at two'." I stated bluntly, rubbing my eyes again. If he did turn out to be strange, I could always use the excuse that I offered him the interview whilst heavily under the influence of a long slumber.

"See you at two then." he confirmed and before I had a chance to do anything, the line went dead.

———

I shuffled towards the kitchen in my dressing gown, donning the fluffiest and pinkest slippers known to mankind. My twiggy fingertip flipped the switch on the kettle to boil some water. I stared at my fingers. They were in fact quite 'twig-like'. I had this weird issue with them where they liked to splay out in different, bumpy, directions because of a little hyper mobility in my hands. When I was little I thought it was because they didn't quite get along, so I used to draw little arms and faces on them in pen and press the fingers together to make it look like they were hugging. It was quite an innocent act, however I didn't really consider how 'left out' my thumb would feel.

I looked at them now, all weird and knobbly and I snorted. Jane had her nose, Bill had his immense forehead and I had my little hyper-mobile fingers. I think that out of the three of us, I had won the better genetics in the lottery despite the occasional finger dislocation.

The switch on the kettle flipped and I did another spontaneous dance number out of fright, making good use of my long legs as I jammed my knee-cap into the cupboard.

"Ow! Fuck!" I cried as I cradled my tender knee-cap. Then there was a rhythmic knock on the door to the apartment. I did my best to suck it up and limp towards the door, I had probably ordered a package and forgotten it after-all and the last person I wanted to annoy was the delivery man that saw me more than any friend I had in existence.

I pulled open the door, accidentally stubbing my toes on the bottom of it before I had even revealed the poor person behind the door.

"Holy fuck!" I let out as I bent down and did the only logically thing possible in that moment; grabbing my toes and hopping around on my good foot.

"Not quite, but okay." the figure behind the door said as if I had missed something quite funny.

I looked up, and to my complete bewilderment there was the man from the subway that I almost assumed I had only dreamt about until now. He looked sinful; his dark tresses styled to be dishevelled with a few loose buttons at the top of his black shirt that made me feel like I needed to stay hunched over longer so I could swear a little more and probably mourn my last bit of sanity.

"Why." I choked out, not really able to get out my full sentence and not really sounding like I was even asking a question. What I had meant to say was 'why are you here', but as always, nothing really went according to plan.

"I believe we spoke earlier on the phone." he smiled, his eyes began moving as he looked about the apartment, and then they began looking at me again. His eyes were moving painfully slow, looking me up and down, and I had a feeling it was all on purpose to make me feel self-conscious about my choice of slippers. However, I was beyond humiliation now. I was humiliation in itself.

"I told you to come by at two." I reminded him.

"Yes, and it is in fact two o'clock. Is that a problem?" he pointed to the time on his watch which also gave me a better understanding of just how much money he had in his possession.

I had slept all day again. I was notorious for doing so. I mumbled a few apologies before I lead him to the sofa, my little slippers making a rubbery sound as they squeaked against the floorboards.

"How soon would you be able to move in?" I asked him once he had set himself down on the low sofa, his arm spreading against the top of it like it had on the seat of the subway carriage last night. I licked my lips, and they were still sore to touch.

"As soon as possible if that's alright. I won't bother you too much, I promise. I have a lot of affairs to attend to so it would be like I'm not even here most of the time." he smiled and I wanted to groan. It was truly remarkable how genetically perfect he was; no strange appendages, no oversized nose and definitely no sign of balding any time soon. It made me wonder why he'd be interested in living in such a place. He definitely had the money to shop around elsewhere.

"So what's made you decide on this place then?" I asked him, folding my arms as if it would actually help me look more serious but it only made me look more ridiculous in my oversized, fluffy pyjamas.

"Well, lets just say that it is a gut feeling." he said as he looked directly at me.

"You said you have a month's rent in advance, right?" I pushed, just testing to see if he actually meant business, though I couldn't have seemed very threatening in my attire.

"Yes. I've got it right here." he said as he went to reach for his pocket. I stopped him. What idiot would carry around that amount in cold, hard cash in this part of the city? Perhaps he had a death-wish, or perhaps he liked spending his money in these parts. Maybe he was a business man, only his money was dirty. The thought made me shiver.

"What do you do?" I asked him.

"I run a corporation of sorts."

"And you don't have anywhere to live?" I scoffed.

He bit his bottom lip in thought. I had hit a nerve somewhere. "I don't have anywhere to live on this side of the country. I'll only be in the city for a little while if all goes to plan, so it's not worth spending loads."

I stared at him for a moment. I wanted to believe what he was saying but something told me it was all very carefully calculated. Perhaps it was just a gut feeling.

"You have any other adresses I can contact for confirmation? I'd like to make sure this isn't a scam." I said as I stood up, and he sighed.

"Sure. I'll give you the details." he said as I handed him some pen and paper from the cork board hanging by the door.

"What's your name by the way?" I asked him as he scrawled down some information in cursive, somewhat ashamed I hadn't asked him before.

"I go by Louie these days." he said with a hint of a devilish grin. Was I missing something?

"You sure don't look like a 'Louie', you look more like a 'Xavier' or some fancy shit." I remarked and he laughed.

"Yeah? And you don't look like a 'Tara' either." he said as he handed back the paper and pen.

I furrowed my brows," How do you know my name?"

"You put it on the advertisement, Tara George." he reminded me as he stood up and made his way to the door, "Let me know your decision soon. I won't be hanging around for long."

I nodded, "I'll think about it."

All he did was shoot me another one of his fleeting smiles before he closed the door behind him. I had quite literally melted into a puddle, collapsing onto the floor behind the door. I had forgotten all about the pain in my knee and my toes. It was like he was magic.

Out of curiosity I looked at the paper and tried to make sense of the calligraphy. Well educated indeed, I thought as I mused over the beautifully penned letters. I picked up my phone and carefully punched in the digits written down.

"Hello? Yes! I'm calling in regards to a previous resident, he goes by 'Louie'."