Other than a storybook wedding, which her recklessly confident grade school self had planned for the day after med school graduation—having failed to take into account the aching loneliness that endless study, impossible hours, and the grind of residency would exact on her ability to find a suitable mate—Jessica had followed her childhood plan to a T.
And then Jonathan Wright III, MD, PhD, had come along and shattered her painstakingly curated black-and-white reality, offering an opportunity to cross the last item off her list in an entirely different way than she’d imagined. Charming, brilliant, and rich, he’d recruited her for his hush-hush start-up, a private-equity moon shot developing an easy-to-swallow diagnostic tool to detect childhood cancers before Stage 0 and save untold thousands of young lives.
Though she’d been attracted to him the moment she’d first laid eyes on him, the idea they might actually fall in love had been the furthest thing from her mind. Sitting in an auditorium at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix while he shared his audacious vision, she’d been focused on his brilliance. A chance meeting at the reception following his lecture had sparked a connection that was undeniably electric. The days they’d spent together were the most alive she’d ever felt—the weeks apart made that much harder once she knew what she was missing.
And then, without warning, he’d said, “Come to Chicago. I need you here. I need you in my life.”
Dangling the promise of both student-loan-payoff-level money and the chance to work on a team developing the technology to diagnose childhood cancer before it even happened, he had talked her into withdrawing her acceptance from a fellowship at Duke.
She had been looking forward to meeting Jon at the door of the apartment where they would begin their new life together—until this morning, when he’d texted, Meeting’s running long. I have to take a later flight, but I’ll call when I’m on my way. XO.
As she had replied from the road to ask for a more precise ETA, she realized her off-brand USB cord, which worked only intermittently anyway, had stopped charging entirely somewhere near the Iowa-Illinois border. The phone had died before she could hit “Send,” and she’d made the rest of the drive to Chicago accompanied only by the voices of rural radio stations.
Jessica hated to cross the threshold without him, but as she entered the gleaming white lobby and noted the modern artwork, sleek furniture, and slate-tile floor, she was too excited to wait. Besides, she probably had fifteen minutes to get her car unpacked before it was ticketed, towed, and incarcerated in some sort of Chicago parking prison.
She rode the elevator to the second floor. Having spent the first few years of her thirties living in a worn beige block of apartments in a cookie-cutter Arizona development, she’d been craving character and charm, and probably would have picked out something different. On the other hand, she didn’t miss the musty, commingled odor created by years of cooking and human habitation. She also liked the wide hallway, the high ceiling, and the two skylights that illuminated the path to 205 despite the overcast afternoon.
There was a note taped to the door.
For a moment, she wondered if Jon had arrived before her after all and had some sort of surprise planned. Maybe a romantic scavenger hunt leading to what was destined to become their new favorite coffee place?
As she took another step closer, she realized the logo at the top of the page had also been painted on the truck blocking the front of the building: Chicagoland Rent-to-Own.
Please call our office to reschedule your furniture delivery.
“Shit!” echoed down the hallway as she dropped the laundry basket by the door and veered into the nearby stairwell. All her furniture was thrift store and hand-me-down IKEA, so she’d gifted it to an incoming resident at the hospital and kept only what she could fit in her car. Jon had promised to furnish their new apartment and make arrangements with the movers.
Jessica knew he was starting from scratch, too, but rental furniture?
Another question for her growing list.
She flew down the stairs and sprinted across the lobby, but as she burst through the front door, the truck was already moving away down the block. She raced after it, the gusty wind and spattering raindrops chilling her skin.
Thanks to Chicago traffic, perhaps the first and last time she’d think that, the truck slowed to a stop fifty feet away.
Jessica caught up and rapped on the window.
“I just missed you!” she said, pointing back toward her building. “Apartment 205!”
The driver looked at her in surprise before cracking the window. “We had the code to the building but no key to the unit. We tried to call.”
“My phone is dead and my boyfriend is on a flight,” Jessica told him. “Would you come back? Please?”
His hulking partner, who looked like a former football player whose muscles were turning to fat, shrugged and said, “Gotta be done by six.”
“It’ll take us five or ten to get back around the block,” added the driver resignedly.
“I really appreciate this,” Jessica said, glad she had cash for a tip and a few minutes to take in the apartment before they arrived.
She headed back, detouring into the parking lot to check on her car and grab her finicky charger and a couple of boxes. She reentered the warm lobby and called the elevator, which arrived quickly—another promising sign.
Finally, she put her key in the door and entered her apartment. Their apartment.
It was simply stunning. A cozy warm-gray entryway opened into a big airy space, with a white open-concept kitchen/dining area (complete with quartz countertops and stainless steel appliances) on the left and an oversize living room on the right. Between them, metal-railed stairs led to an open second-level hallway that overlooked the living area and two-story floor-to-ceiling
