Chapter Text
Eloise
As she climbed the stairs she felt as if her life were flashing before her eyes. Sweat beaded on her forehead and she considered jumping down the failed elevator shaft.
Her apartment in the city was not a cheap investment, and it was hardly much to expect a functioning lift that would save her calves from the burn they were currently experiencing.
Dear lord, she needed to lie down.
Eloise groaned and shouldered the door open to her floor. Yet as she did so she heard a yelp of pain from someone on the other side as the door swung back at her.
As it collided with her arms, she loosened her grip and watched in horror as her box of ceramics fell to the floor with a deafening crash.
“Fuck,” Eloise groaned. “You must be kidding.”
The door opened once more, slowly this time, revealing a tall woman with long blonde hair that cascaded past her shoulders. “I am so sorry, I did not realise there was someone on the other side,” she said as if Eloise wasn’t the main culprit who had slammed a door into her face. “Your things!” she said, floundering. “Oh gosh, was it anything of value?”
Eloise stared at the box, and then at the woman who left her feeling a variety of emotions- none of which she wished to inspect too closely because the woman before her was giving… straight vibes. “Nothing much, just some priceless antiques my grandmother left me after passing away last month.”
It was a bit of dark humour as she held back the upset, but the words only seemed to worry the woman more.
“I cannot apologise enough. I didn’t see you there,” she said quickly, kneeling down to appraise the box of shattered goods. “There are a few mugs intact.”
“They were pretty ugly anyway,” Eloise said, trying to make her feel better. “My grandmother had a thing for collecting things that were visually offensive, she used to line them up in the window in hopes of scaring cold callers away.”
“Did they try to sell her things that often?” The woman said, raising a brow.
“Oh no. It was the local Mormon church, they frequently tried to get her to join. It turned into a weekly palaver.” Eloise smiled.
“Was she not keen on joining?” she teased.
“Well, she was a lesbian. Every time she announced that the conversations took a very different tone.”
The woman choked then, her cough turning to laughter as her cheeks flamed. “Why did they continue to return if they did not want her to attend?”
“Because I think as much as my grandma pretended to dislike them, and them her, they strummed up something of a friendship. I assume it became a weekly joke to see if they could pull her from the grips of lesbianism and into the arms of God, and my grandma probably thought she could wear them down too and have them march alongside the Leather Daddies at a Pride festival. The woman always could talk for years on end.”
“She sounds like she was an interesting woman.”
“Interesting,” Eloise echoed, “Slightly unhinged with an oddly large Playboy collection.”
“It’s a shame that wasn’t in the box instead,” the woman replied. “I should think it would be hard to break a stack of erotic magazines.”
Eloise bit her cheek. She was not flirting; this woman was only being polite. Yet Eloise couldn’t help but feel a pull of attraction there. “It’s fine,” she said, picking up the box of broken ceramics. “I should get this back home.”
The girl frowned. “You live here?”
“I just moved into thirty-four,” Eloise said.
“Oh, I live in thirty-three,” she replied. “I’m Cressida Cowper.”
“Eloise,” she said, leaving out her last name.
Bridgerton, a family name many knew. Whilst most of her family worked in law on high-profile cases, Eloise stuck out like a sore thumb. She was an author and enjoyed writing things on the… spicy and gay side. It meant that many preferred to focus on her siblings instead, giving her a tad more anonymity.
“Nice to meet you, Eloise. Do you have any more boxes? I could spare a moment to help.” Cressida smiled brightly.
“No more boxes thankfully, I’m quite alright this was the last. But if you would like to help me assemble some furniture, you’re welcome over.”
It was a joke, clearly, but the humour went straight over Cressida’s head, and she said, “Do you have a toolbox?”
No, Eloise did not. Shit. “No.”
Cressida shrugged. “Let me find mine and change,” she said. “I’ll be over in thirty minutes."
"Okay,” Eloise said, feeling as if she had been knocked off balance by this twist of events.
The woman wearing a pink crop top and bleach-washed jeans owned a toolbox?
When she got into her apartment Eloise spiralled into full-on panic mode. She grabbed any boxes containing underwear and shoved them behind everything, and then she went about rapidly searching for the box with her perfume because she had climbed those stairs so many times that she knew she smelled grim.
“Dear god, where is the damn- aha!” She grabbed it, spraying herself down. It didn’t mask the smell entirely, but it was an improvement.
She tried to dot her plants around the place to make it look less cluttered, yet boxes remained dotted around the floor as someone knocked on her door.
Nothing in the world could have prepared her for the sight of Cressida dressed in overalls with a toolbox in her hand and her hair pulled back into a ponytail.
Eloise held in the groan, though her eyes hungrily took her neighbour’s appearance in. “That was faster than expected.”
“Sorry, I can-”
“No, it’s fine!” Eloise cut in. “Hi, hello, hey.” Oh god, get it together. “Would you like to come in?”
Cressida shot Eloise an amused look and nodded. “What did you want to start with?”
“The bookshelf,” Eloise said.
“Books are more important than a bed?” Cressida asked.
“Always. They’re my tether to sanity and I’m not sure you want to risk cutting off my access to them,” Eloise teased. “You might lose a limb in the process.”
Cressida chuckled and pulled out an electric screwdriver and a set of allen keys. “Okay, let’s make a start on this.”
The bookcase came together quickly. Eloise held the oak in place as Cressida joined the pieces with her tools, and the pair worked methodically like a well-oiled machine. The help was greatly appreciated; assembling furniture was something Eloise would have put off for eternity.
“Thank you,” Eloise said, standing back to look at it.
“Let me fix it to the wall and then we can work on your bed,” Cressida replied.
“You don’t have to do all of this; I feel like I’m taking advantage of a stranger’s generosity.”
“Perhaps I enjoy being taken advantage of.”
God she was trying to kill her. Also, that wasn’t the straightest thing to say. She considered perhaps she was wrong in her earlier assumption.
“Can I get you a drink?”
“A coffee if you have it,” Cressida replied.
As they assembled the bed Eloise felt it tugging at her mind still. “So… do you have a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend?”
Cressida’s panic then was that of a straight woman unsure what to say from fear of sounding homophobic. “I- I- um, no boyfriend. And I only date men.”
Spectacular, Eloise could now go and die in a bush.
“Do- do you?” Cressida continued. “Have a boyfriend? Or um, the other thing?”
The other thing. Eloise groaned internally. “I don’t have a girlfriend,” Eloise said. “I’m quite the raging lesbian,” she added, attempting to lighten the mood.
It seemed to work, and luckily Cressida didn’t act strangely around her after the announcement.
“It’s not for a lack of trying,” Cressida said. “My mother seems to set me up with a different guy each week.”
“Does she long for grandchildren or something?”
Cressida shook her head. “No, she thinks it would be good for my public persona. Relationships sell, they grow your following if you date someone of notoriety.”
“Following?”
“Oh, I’m a content creator,” Cressida said. “And a model. Whilst my follower stats don’t bother me, my mother is more of a… ‘you have to be the best of the best’ type. Nothing is ever enough with her.”
Her heart tightened as she looked at her. That made a great deal of sense. She was stunning and had this natural gravitation that seemed to draw everyone in. “I can understand the whole… not living up to family expectations thing.”
“What do you do?” Cressida asked.
“I’m an author.”
“That sounds rather impressive,” Cressida said.
Eloise choked out a laugh. “Not to them. I come from...” She swallowed thickly. “A lot of my family work in sectors like law and science. Writing to them is seen more as a hobby than a line of work. Something to fill stray time with.”
“What do you write?”
Blushing, Eloise lifted the bedpost as Cressida tightened it in place. “Things. Um, romance. Fantasy. Anything that takes my fancy.”
“Are you good?”
“I suppose so.” Eloise had plenty of awards and she was a New York Times bestselling author. Yet if she addressed that there would only be more questions and then she would have to admit to the smutty literature she wrote on occasion. The District series was her most recent and was more porn than plot. She wrote it as a bit of fun, but oddly it had taken off with the popularity of Twilight.
It even had its own television series.
“Would you like some food after this?” Eloise offered. “I don’t think I can thank you enough, but food feels like a start.”
“Please, that would be lovely.”
Later as they sat there slurping on noodles Eloise laughed as Cressida ended up with peanut sauce splattered across her chin. “You have a little-”
“What? How bad is it,” Cressida said, trying to get it.
“Not quite, there,” Eloise said pointing.
“Did I get it?”
Eloise huffed and leaned closer, swiping away the stray chunk of peanut with her thumb. “All good,” she rasped, realising how close she was leaning in.
“Thank you,” Cressida replied, turning a little awkward in her company.
Chiding herself for her action, Eloise quickly moved back and cleared her throat. Of course that looked like a come-on.
“Sorry,” Eloise uttered, playing with her noodles as she dropped her chin.
But Cressida’s thumb found Eloise’s cheek moments later and wiped some sauce from it. “You had some too.”
“Thank you.” She felt her cheeks heating under Cressida’s intense stare.
“Perhaps we should sort the cabinets now.”
“You don’t have to help me assemble everything,” Eloise said.
“I don’t, but after you asked me which pointy thing you needed to tighten the screw, I know better than to trust you with a screwdriver,” Cressida replied in jest. “I still have much to teach you.”
“Where did you even learn this,” Eloise asked.
“Oh, I renovated a house before I moved here for my TikTok page. A few friends helped me decorate and fix up the place. I wouldn’t have moved but for now, I need to be in the city. People watched along and a lot offered advice and tips. I got pretty good at things.” She smiled. “If you ever need anyone to wallpaper for you…”
“I might just,” Eloise replied.
Eventually, Cressida left, and Eloise stared at her mess of an apartment feeling as if something were now missing.
She could not be attracted to her neighbour.