Unexpected

Chapter Thirteen

Kai bought her flowers. He worried it was too date-like, but after five lunch "non-dates," he was rather confident that she liked him too. It was simply time for flowers. Pretty ones. Pretty like her.

When he arrived, Cinder buzzed him in. The neighborhood itself didn't seem so bad, though it definitely wasn't like the areas of the city where Kai, Thorne, or even Kesley and Scarlet lived. The building just seemed a little more worn down than the average apartment he'd seen. For some reason, he'd been expecting Cinder to live in a shady alley with prison-style bars around the windows. Maybe it was because of how much she'd try to "warn" him about her "living conditions." Whatever that meant. The apartment complex seemed fine.

Several flights of stairs later, Kai was sure that the only obvious disadvantage was the lack of an elevator. Then he felt like a spoiled brat, and cleared his mind. Cinder liked walking anyway, didn't she? Maybe all these stairs were just a warm-up for her.

Kai pulled the flowers out from behind his back after she opened the door.

"A peony bouquet!" she exclaimed, her eyes lighting up. "How did you know these were my favorite?"

Kai beamed. "I didn't. I just thought they were pretty. They reminded me of you."

"Thorne give you that line?" she asked, but her eyes were still dancing with delight.

He pretended to be shocked, but then said semi-seriously, "Actually, I haven't seen too much of Thorne lately. First I was in Beijing for work, and now he's busy because he's hanging out with a new girl."

"A few weeks ago, I was the new girl," Cinder mused.

Kai cringed awkwardly. "Ehm—we already talked about this, I think. In his kitchen, right? He just goes out of with a lot of women. Never at the same time, though," he stressed.

"A lot of women at his place then."

"Sometimes," Kai admitted.

"Should I be worried then?"

"About what?"

"How often do you steal his girls?"

Kai reddened slightly. "Oh, never. We don't have the same taste in girls."

"And yet here I am," she said.

"Well—I—uh, hey! Does this mean that I did in fact manage to steal you?"

"From Thorne? Definitely."

Her light tone made Kai relax, but then he realized he was still standing a bit awkwardly in the doorway. "So, now that we have that issue aside, are you going to invite me in?"

"Oh," she said shyly, opening the door wider. "Right."

Kai brushed her shoulder lightly with his hand as he stepped past her to get inside. Coat still on, he surveyed the room. It was actually a small studio-style apartment. It was very tidy. His eyes breezed over the kitchen area, several bookshelves, the door to the bathroom, and finally landed on the living area, which appeared to double as a bedroom. There were a lot of pictures in that area, all with smiling faces, yet none of landscapes, he noted. Kai slipped off his coat and walked toward the kitchen table, where he draped it over one of the chairs. Cinder followed him silently.

"So is this the part where you tell me about the ghost who lives here?"

"W-what?" she stuttered.

"You set me up to believe like something was seriously wrong with your apartment. And yet it seems like a perfectly functional place where someone lives. It's even clean."