had any hope of staying awake long enough to find out if Eli had stashed my laptop in Derek’s apartment, then I’d need a cup of Earl Grey. Unfortunately, Dr. Dish’s pantry was stocked with seven different types of coffee beans but not a single box of tea. No black, no green, and certainly no matcha. Not even the wimpy herbal stuff. What kind of doctor didn’t have a single bag of not coffee? His nervous system had to be shot. Or maybe he’d sold out to big coffee along with big pharma.
I brewed what I figured was a weak cup of joe and looked around while it cooled. The large open-plan area and eat-in kitchen could have been ripped straight from the pages of an architectural magazine. Sleek lines, polished cement countertops, and designer lighting of a modern architectural design. Most of the apartment was dark navy and tan, with pops of white that made the place look fresh.
The fridge was gorged with vegetables, but wedged behind a gigantic cabbage, I found a carton of caramel hazelnut nondairy creamer that turned my coffee into something sweet and divine, rich and decadent. No wonder Derek liked this stuff. The mug was heavy and satisfying to drink from, and I couldn’t believe that even Derek’s crockery was comfortable. With a tentative sip, I felt my brain cells coming back online, so I started poking around the apartment for my laptop.
No sign of it on the dining table, down the back of the couch, under the coffee table, or under the cushions of his many armchairs. I’d never seen so many comfortable places to sit down in one home. But then, the dude did have seven brothers. Did they come over to watch sports? They looked like the type to yell at the television as if the players could hear them.
In the bathroom, I found the bandage that had been around my wrist, and strapped it back on with clumsy, untrained hands. My efforts weren’t nearly so neat and professional as my delicious caretaker’s and made me appreciate Dr Dish’s skills. It’d have to do, at least until he woke up.
I picked up the broken toilet seat and did my best to reattach it to the bowl with one hand. It had been a challenge to get it off in the first place and was even more of a pain to get back on. Lucky I’d been too weak to manage more than a feeble throw earlier, because I might have knocked the doc out cold and then his army of brothers waiting just outside probably would have kicked my ass.
Back in the main living area, I ventured over to a study nook set deep into the wall when I caught a glimpse of silver on the desk there, but my heart sank when I got close. Not my laptop. His. It was hooked up to a large monitor that lit up when I flicked open the laptop. I sipped my coffee as I tried a few predictable passwords to see if I could get in without running a workaround, the kind of key phrases a doctor in his mid-thirties would remember. 123456, hospital, qwerty, blink182, 1111111.
On the fifth attempt, the screen flashed with intruder detection software, warning me it would wipe the drive and alert authorities if I kept trying to get in. Huh. Impressive. Derek was more conscious of cybersecurity than I would have thought, or maybe it was one of his brothers that had set up the gatekeeping software. Either way, it made me curious about exactly what it was he was trying to hide. Patient files? Or something more…sensual? My fingers hovered over the keys, ready to reset to a boot screen and hack my way in, but guilt got the better of my curiosity, and I closed the laptop. If Derek didn’t want people poking around, then I’d respect that. My laptop had to be around here somewhere, so I turned my attention to the rest of the cozy nook.
Like the rest of the apartment, it felt lived in. By which I meant…safe. The safety of money, of family, of a future clearly laid out and planned. I let myself imagine what it would be like to live somewhere like that. My heart twinged. My lips buzzed with the memory of our kiss, but it made me sad. I wasn’t good enough for someone like Derek. Sad, but true.
I set down my coffee on a slab of