She awoke early the next morning to the sound of an unfamiliar alarm clock. Slowly Madeline stretched, coming to stare at the locked bedroom door. The scent of freshly brewed coffee from the kitchen permeated the air, its aroma clearing the fog of drowsiness from her head. Tossing aside a blanket she didn’t remember getting the night before, she crawled lazily out of bed and walked toward the dresser to grab some clothes Levi said he’d placed there days ago. Without giving her attire much thought, she grabbed underclothes, the pair of jeans, and a what happened to be one of her most comfy t-shirts. Bringing it to her nose to smell the comforting fragrance of her own laundry detergent, she wondered how he knew it was one of her favorites. Perhaps it was the fact that frequent wear had made the fibers softer than her other shirts, but it would have been ridiculous for him to consider such a trivial thing, wouldn’t it?

Despite the bath last night, she felt like taking a quick shower. Her eyes still felt puffy from all the crying, and she was hoping the water would help them look more refreshed. As she entered the bathroom, she recognized her own hairbrush on the sink counter and quickly realized she didn’t have any makeup. Closing her eyes hopefully, she placed her hand on the knob of the top drawer and decided to tempt fate by opening it. Low and behold, all her makeup, her toothbrush, and a few other toiletries were stacked neatly inside. He was definitely thorough, and the feeling of her violated privacy was giving way to one of gratefulness.

She showered, got dressed, and was out of her room in about 30 minutes.

When she exited, she found Levi dressed in jeans and a grey henley shirt, his bare feet propped up on the cocktail table, laptop on his lap.

“I made coffee,” he said, eyes locked on the screen, which cast an electric light on his features in the dimness of the living room as he typed. “Thought we should take it with us. The rental car should be delivered in about 5 minutes.”

Madeline looked through the kitchen cabinets and didn’t see any travel mugs.

“Cabinets above the fridge,” Levi called out from the living room as if reading her mind.

There she found a bag of disposable cups with lids, similar to the kind the popular coffee shops around town would serve their own brews in. Pulling out a set of two, she walked over to the coffee maker and stood there with a dilemma. She honestly didn’t know how he made the coffee as good as he did.

“I got it,” he said, appearing suddenly from over her shoulder and reaching for one of the stainless steel canisters that sat on the countertop.

“Thanks.”

Stealing a glance at his face while he twisted the top off of the container that held the imported chocolate powder, Madeline noticed Levi’s eyes were brown this morning.

“Contacts,” he responded indifferent to her silent inquiry. “The less attention I bring to myself today, the better.”

“So normal that it’s boring,” Madeline said, repeating his words from the night before. “Got it.”

After adding the chocolate to the cups, Levi poured in some half and half, eyeballing the measurement. After finishing with a pour of coffee and a quick stir, he popped the tops on the cups and handed one to Madeline. He then slipped a pair of black boots over his bare feet and they exited the condo, heading downstairs to the rental car that was idling out front of the building.

It took about 40 minutes to drive to her old apartment. Levi insisted they stop at a well-known bakery along the way to pick up some breakfast. She questioned as to why they just didn’t go through one of the dozen or so fast food drive-thrus instead, to which Levi wrinkled his nose, obviously disgusted by the suggestion. When they arrived at her old building, Levi parked right out front next to Madeline’s old Acura, and they approached her front door arm-in-arm. He removed something from his pocket and slipped it into the lock. Madeline didn’t see what it was, but the door opened right up as if with the actual key. They stepped through promptly and he shut the door behind them, locking it.

“I know this is going to be quite a blow, so take your time, “ Levi said gently, releasing her arm.

Every drawer and box in her living room was either pulled out or pulled apart, but nothing else appeared to be broken. Papers from her plastic file box were tossed all over the ivory carpet. They had definitely been looking for something specific. Levi immediately set down his half-empty coffee cup and began to put the contents back into drawers and straighten up the living room. Madeline walked over to her small computer desk and began to file papers back where they belonged, and sorted her current bills into a separate pile. Looking around for her purse, it had been emptied out on the floor on top of some more of the papers, but nothing looked to be missing.

Dropping down to her knees next to the coffee table, she was starting to feel numb, like everything around her was hazy and she wanted to wish it away like a bad dream. As she slowly placed the bills into her bulky black purse, and the began putting everything else back inside one thing at a time, Levi finished with what he was doing, walked around her, and headed down the hall toward her bedroom.

“The kitchen didn't look touched the night I came to pick up your things,” he shouted from down the hall, “You’ll want to double check that though.”

Madeline nodded wordlessly and finished packing her things back into her purse. In a daze, she stood up and walked into the kitchen. Levi was right, the kitchen looked the same as she had left it before she went to bed that night. Swinging her purse over her shoulder, she headed slowly down the short hallway to her room, steeling herself for what she was about to see. She remembered how everything was thrown all over when they busted in. Her dresser drawers had been flung open and emptied, leaving clothes strewn everywhere.

She wasn’t expecting the sight that met her when she rounded the corner.

“H.. how did you ..?”

The room looked almost normal.

Levi was leaning over one side of her bed with a handful of socks, picking up a few more before putting them back on her dresser. There were some clothes here and there, but nothing like it had been that night. For all intensive purposes, it looked like nothing had happened at all.

“That should be good enough for the movers,” he said, standing up straight.

“Thank you,” she whispered sincerely. She knew he must have done this for her benefit, and sent her to the kitchen as a distraction.

“Let’s just say I know what it feels like to be aggressively uprooted,” Levi responded.

Madeline glanced over at her alarm clock and noticed it was about 9:30 am. They had 30 minutes until the movers were scheduled to arrive if they were on-time. Levi instructed her to grab anything of importance that she wanted to take back to the loft and keep it separated so they could personally pack it up and move it directly into her room. As she did that, he headed to the kitchen to start emptying out the fridge. With his sensitive nose, it wasn’t the most pleasant job, but it had to get done. Luckily, the place had only been vacant for about a week and a half, so nothing smelled overly foul. Everything from it went into a trash bag.

Next was the cabinets. There were some processed boxed foods that were far from expiring, but he couldn’t stomach bringing them to his place. They too went into the trash.

Outside, he could hear the sound of a large truck backing up in the parking lot. The moving company was early, which was okay because he and Madeline were practically done. Swinging the trash bag up and over his shoulder, Levi went out through the front door to welcome the movers. He explained they were going to hold a few boxes back for immediate use, and the rest was to be packed up and moved to the address he had provided them. He’d used these movers often, so he knew they could be trusted with the task at hand. He then set the trash bag down outside the front door before going back to the apartment to get Madeline.

She had stacked up all her favorite clothes on one pile on her bed, and in another pile were various things a human girl her age would have found precious; some stuffed animals from her childhood, birthday and Christmas cards from her grandma, old family photos, a few other knick-knacks, and a handheld game console with cartridges.

“Time to head over to the leasing office. You ready?”

“Yeah, there wasn’t much I needed to box up. Just some mementos, and more clothes. I’m ready.”

“But first,” Levi said reaching into his pocket, “You’ll need this…”

Looking down to see what he was going to offer her, Madeline saw something sparkle in his palm.

It was a ring.

Tentatively, she reached into the palm of his hand and picked it up. It looked like a real round-cut diamond set in silver.

“It is real, and it should be your size,” Levi said, noticing how she was trying to assess the gem. “It’s yours to keep. Think of it as an incentive to do a good job today, and your payment.”

She didn’t know what to say. Other than her necklace, she didn’t own any expensive jewelry. Of course, she realized it was mainly a prop, an engagement ring to flash to the leasing officer, but she didn’t care. It was gorgeous. Slipping it onto her left ring finger, she took Levi’s hand and they started to walk over to the office. His hand was soft and warm, and she let herself get sucked into the scripted fantasy, unaware that she was actually blushing.

On the way over, she spotted one of her neighbors ogling Levi. Turning to face the woman, she smiled brightly and waved.

“Friend?” Levi asked calmly while perfectly keeping up the romantic facade.

“No, actually she’s a huge bitch.”

Levi purposely increased the alluring sway in his step, strutting devilishly. Madeline continued to bounce happily along, still giving a wide smile while leaning her head on Levi’s shoulder and looking like she was in complete bliss. It was hard suppressing her joy at watching the neighbor’s jaw slowly drop.

It was a short walk to the leasing office, and Levi held the front door open for her like a gentleman. The quaint bell tied to the door announced their entrance.

“Can I help y… Oh Ms. McCaffery! Your mail was starting to pile up and I was about to get worried. And who is this?”

The office manager, who was in her late 50s, approached them both, but clearly had eyes on Levi. She ran her hands over her navy blue polyester pantsuit as if to smooth out any impossible wrinkles, and then reached out to shake Levi’s hand.

“This is my fiance,” Madeline replied cheerfully. “And the reason I haven’t been around lately.”

“Fiance? Well, congratulations dear!”

The manager reached for Madeline’s left hand to appraise the ring. It apparently met her satisfaction because she looked back up at Madeline beaming as if Madeline had struck gold.

“Thanks,” Madeline continued to blush. “Unfortunately, that also means I’ll be moving out. Today, in fact.”

The look on the manager’s face soured immediately.

“You do realize your lease is not up, right?” She questioned, furrowing her eyebrows.

“Yes, we do,” Levi stepped in. “And we’re more than happy to pay the remainder in full. That lets you re-lease it right away, doesn’t it? Letting you profit the difference?”

This brightened the woman’s expression.

“Well then, have a seat and we’ll get started on the paperwork.”

She led them to a large office with two plush chairs across from her desk.

“You have movers here today?”

“Yes,” Madeline replied. “We were hoping to do the walk-through today too if that’s possible.”

“Oh listen to you two,” the leasing manager smiled while typing away on her keyboard. “Already doing that whole ‘we’ thing. How long have you two been dating?”

Now it was the question and answer period Levi warned her about. Even complete strangers, he said, got really chatty when someone announced they’ve gotten engaged, married, or had a baby. It never failed, he said.

“Five and a half months,” Madeline answered smiling.

Levi squeezed her hand. Was that suppose to be some sort of positive reinforcement for getting it right? She caught herself laughing at the ridiculous idea. The manager caught on, giving her a quizzical, but pleasant look. Madeline figured she should probably explain her out-of-place laughter.

“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about the day we met,” Madeline continued the charade. “We were at a coffee shop downtown and the barista got our orders mixed up. I mean, how does that even happen?”

“Yeah, how does someone mix up Madeline with Yuuto?” Levi added smiling.

“Your English is very good,” the manager complimented, her eyes dancing all over Levi, which caused Madeline to momentarily lose her newly engaged smile.

What the hell was that suppose to mean? Madeline thought.

Levi didn’t break his sparkling smile, not even for a minute.

“So I have to ask,” The woman continued, her attention now directed to Madeline. “Where did he propose?”

For a moment, Madeline was at a loss, but then she remembered the cryptic bit of info Levi gave her, calling it a ‘bonus question’.

“The rooftop patio at the Hard Rock last night” Madeline answered.

“So romantic!” the manager squealed as she reached for some papers coming out of the nearby laser printer.

Not really, Madeline thought to herself.

“If I could just get you to fill this out, we just need next mailing address and that sort of thing. And the remaining balance on the lease is $1400. You can pay by credit card if you like.”

“That will be fine,” Levi responded, pulling out his wallet and handing the agent a card.

“I’ll be right back after I run this,” the leasing agent said as she left the office room.

“Your English is very good,” Madeline repeated under her breath, mimicking the woman’s voice unflatteringly. “What the fuck was that about? That was pretty rude.”

“Some people seem to think all Asians just got off the boat,” Levi answered. “And it’s been going on like that for a very long time. Believe me.”

“That’s no excuse for being rude,” Madeline grumbled quietly.