Vera regarded Casey curiously. "How long have you lived here?"
"T-two and a half years. You?" he asked.
Vera's eyes widened. "Huh, we must have moved within months of each other! I come and go at weird hours though so I usually don't see any of the neighbors. Do you know anyone else on this floor?"
"Not by n-name. I know a f-few people on sight."
Ah. That made sense. People weren't typically friendly with their neighbors in this day and age.
Vera smiled. "Well, it's nice to know someone in the complex in case anything happens. Have a good rest of your night, Casey. I'll see you tomorrow."
"You too."
They both entered their respective apartments and she immediately went to wash the sawdust out of her hair. It was a familiar feeling but still not the most comfortable thing in the world.
The odds of living in the same building for around the same time as a client without ever meeting until he ended up at her store—which wasn't in Seattle—were incredibly small. The world could be a crazy place sometimes.
===
Casey couldn't believe that Vera lived down the hall from him. He supposed they must never be in the hallway at the same time. She did seem to be a busy person with an all-over-the-place schedule.
He definitely would have remembered meeting her because she had a unique eye color. He had never seen such light eyes before.
They were pretty. Vera was pretty in general. She sort of reminded him of Snow White since they had similar hair and complexions. It was kind of funny because one of Snow White's main colors was red and she had red nail polish on when he saw her today.
She had looked much more put together when they first met up than they had afterward when she was covered in sawdust and various other grime from cleaning the cabinets. Her short hair had been pulled back into a tufted ponytail but the black looked much lighter from all the dust by the end of it.
It hadn't even fazed her. She must be used to that sort of thing in her line of work.
Vera was extremely knowledgeable about things Casey never would have thought of. He had been dying of curiosity about what she was doing but had been too afraid to ask before she brought it up.
Concentrating on his book had been difficult because of the noise from the cabinets being dismantled so he couldn't stop looking over there to see what was going on. He was glad she had been willing to talk to him because otherwise he would have been very bored.
Which was strange. Casey was used to being bored. He also preferred not talking to people when he could avoid it. So why had he wanted to talk to her? Just so he wouldn't be stuck with nothing to do for three hours?
"Do you know that girl down the hall?" he asked Kane.
He looked at Casey like he was stupid. "Uh, which one? There are a lot of girls down the hall."
"The one that looks like Snow White."
"Nope. Why do you ask? Don't tell me you have a crush on her. You know how well that worked out for you last time."
Casey grimaced at the reminder. "Shut up. I don't have a crush on her! She's the antique restorer working on the cabinets. I thought it was a weird coincidence, that's all."
Kane raised an eyebrow. "That is pretty random."
"Yeah, especially because we've lived here almost the same amount of time and never saw each other."
"Huh. Anyway, are you going to do the dishes?"
Casey scowled at him. "You could try doing them now and then, you know. I have to do everything around here."
"Now why would I go and do something like that?" Kane laughed before getting up and walking away. "I have far better things to do than dishes."
Casey sighed when he left. He really should be pitching in more but it wasn't like there was anything that could be done about it. He was a free spirit and always had been. The only time he suddenly developed a sense of responsibility was when someone was giving Casey a hard time. He was surprisingly overprotective of someone he made fun of on a daily basis.
It reminded him of this line from a cartoon they had watched frequently as children. The mean older cousin told the villain, "No one messes with my dumb babies except me!"
That was Kane to a T. Nobody messed with Casey on his watch except him.
Unfortunately, his efforts often made things worse. Like with the old crush he mentioned earlier. If Casey ever liked anyone again—and he wasn't sure it was even worth it—he would not be telling Kane about it, thank you very much.
How could he ever get involved with someone when he was a stuttering, bumbling mess? No one would ever like him the way he was.
It was better not to get involved with people. To keep his existence to a minimum. Just because someone was pretty or funny or interesting didn't mean he should get involved.
He had learned that lesson the hard way. It was better to entertain himself with fictional people. They didn't care that he couldn't string together two sentences without botching it. They didn't care that he was embarrassed to ask questions and needed two days to recover every time he made a phone call.
The only way he was ever going to find love was if he found the female version of him. But the thought wasn't an appealing one. He was boring. Besides, how would he even find her? She would likely be hiding in her apartment just like he hid in his.