Chapter Text
Divorce was never something easy to go through, and the change that came with it was painful. Nathan already had lots of his feelings to sort through, and it was worse knowing that his life couldn’t stop. He had a contractual obligation to keep filming Nathan For You episodes, to keep working. It was weird to meet with his ex wife only to sign papers, break out the lease and pay a fee. He realized how much of the domestic life both had was taken for granted. The little moments - waking up besides a loved one, kissing her goodbye when going to work, having someone to hug when he got home after a long day, every day. He had spent weeks in hotels, trying to find another place to rent and move his stuff immediately. He sold a lot of things he owned with his ex, mostly furniture, and brought his most prized possessions with him, which weren’t many. After looking around for a while, he found an okay place in West Hollywood, which wasn’t really what he wanted, but it was the best thing he could find. He was newly single, and he just needed a place to live with his cats Rocket and Jackie. The cats were already stressed enough, and he was relieved to move in.
Nathan's neighbors didn’t really know who he was, which was nice. He was going to live on the third floor of that three story building for a while and as much as he loved his job, he wasn’t really in the mood to be stopped all the time and asked about the new season of his TV show, or to reveal what was real and what was not. He was happy to only smile and wave in the same awkward way he always had done throughout his life. No person he’s ever talked to wanted to pry on his private life, he didn’t say anything, just engaging in superficial chit chat when it was needed. None of them asked if he was single, or why he had just moved. He got questions about his accent, and his cats, and that was it. He was privileged enough to just fly under the radar. He had a friendly relationship with all of them.
Except for one. The neighbor to his left.
He didn’t know her name. He would think of her as 301, because that was her apartment number. Every time he took the elevator, it would open and it would directly face her door. Nathan lived in apartment 302, and he’d see her around sometimes. Their interactions weren’t just weird, they were downright uncomfortable. She never said a word to him. He’d say hello and she would pretend he wasn’t there. Sometimes they’d take the elevator together, sometimes she’d arrive before him and he’d ask her to hold the elevator and she never did. Sometimes she’d take the stairs and go straight ahead to her door, unlock it and go in, unceremoniously. He learned after a week to not directly talk to her, because she didn’t even turn to pay any attention. He’d think he was dreaming if it wasn’t for the other people he talked to, while also being there. He’d say hello to people who lived in other floors, and his neighbors from the same floor answered him with no problem. Everyone seemed to communicate normally. She, for some reason, didn’t. It made him nervous.
301 was insanely attractive. Drop dead, excruciatingly attractive. He could hear his own heartbeat when he was next to her, which made him self conscious. She would never acknowledge him, or his nervousness, even if he looked directly at her. He had never seen her smile as well. It made him curious. He wondered if she talked to someone else, and she did, sometimes. She had some accent he couldn’t place, it wasn’t American, nor Canadian, which meant she was an immigrant. She had curly dark brown hair, thick lips and big brown eyes. She was perhaps around five-foot-seven, and she always smelled delicious. There was a magnetism about her that he could never explain with the best of words. She dressed casually, hoodies, t-shirts, jeans and sneakers. She had a great body, and he was so ashamed for noticing it. He knew she had an hourglass figure even though most of the time she was wearing baggy clothes. He caught a glimpse of her wearing a tank top only once and he could never erase the image from his mind.
Nathan wanted to ask about her so badly, but it would compromise one of the boundaries he set for himself. He limited the conversations he had with the neighbors to a superficial level, so they wouldn’t ask about his life. He never let anyone inside his apartment, except when he hired someone to petsit his cats. Now there was that very attractive woman that people seemed to know, but she never talked to him. It bugged him, just because of how much she ignored him. Most humans would at least be aware of the other people in the room, but she wasn’t aware of him. He thought about saying something weird, morally reprehensible, anything to get a rise out of her, to make her react. But in the end, she wasn’t doing anything illegal or rude. It would usually be considered impolite not to answer someone in public, but she had a neutral expression every time he referred to her. She would never turn her head to face him, and if he ever stood in front of her, it seemed like she was looking through him. She had some kind of blank look.
He needed to know about her. What she liked to do, what was her favorite food, her favorite color, or if she liked cats or not. It got to the point that he would think about her all day during work. He didn’t know what was moving him, it was either curiosity or arousal but at that point it didn’t matter. Even the way she acted towards the neighbors was weird, as she would only give short answers, shorter than any conversation he ever had with the same people. None of them ever seemed to think it was weird. She would talk with a neutral face, she didn’t seem angry or grumpy, but very polite. If he knew her, he would say it was a Nathan For You bit. People used to say Nathan was emotionless, but he was never that blank. To see someone act like that was a bit scary.
Scary but attractive, nonetheless.