Three Floors Down

Lucy first noticed him because he watered plants at midnight.

Not every night. Tuesday and Thursday, usually, standing barefoot on the balcony three floors below hers with a green watering can that looked absurdly domestic against the city skyline.

She was thirty-eight, recently single and sleeping badly. Midnight had become an unofficial second evening: tea, balcony, phone, the occasional regrettable online purchase.

The man below became part of the routine.

He was perhaps forty. Dark hair. Usually a T-shirt and loose trousers. Sometimes shirtless when the weather was hot, which Lucy pretended not to notice with increasingly little success.

For six weeks they never spoke.

Then Lucy dropped a sock.

It was not even an interesting sock. Grey. Ankle length. The least seductive object she owned.

It landed in his basil.

He looked up.

Lucy froze.

“Sorry!” she called.

He picked up the sock and examined it.

“Devastating attack.”

“Can you throw it?”

“Three floors?”

“Optimism is free.”

He tried.

The sock reached the balcony below Lucy's and disappeared.

She laughed so hard she had to put down her tea.

“Excellent work.”

“I panicked.”

The next afternoon somebody knocked on her door.

Lucy opened it to find the midnight gardener holding the grey sock.

“Recovered from level five.”

Up close he was better looking, which seemed unfair.

“Heroic.”

“Tom.”

“Lucy.”

That should have been the end of it.

Instead Tom glanced past her toward the balcony.

“You're the midnight tea person.”

Lucy stared at him.

“You've noticed me?”

“You have a yellow mug.”

“I thought I was the observer.”

“Mutual surveillance.”

The phrase stayed with her after he left.

The balconies changed after that.

Now they waved. Then they talked. Short conversations thrown vertically through warm night air.

“How's the basil?”

“Recovering from textile trauma.”

“How's my sock?”

“Emotionally unavailable.”

A week later Tom held up a bottle of wine.

“This conversation would be easier on the same floor.”

Lucy leaned over the railing.

“Whose?”

“Mine has basil.”

“Compelling argument.”

She went downstairs.

Tom's apartment looked like a more organised version of hers. Books, records, too many plants. The balcony was smaller than it appeared from above.

“So this is the famous garden.”

“Try not to throw anything at it.”

They sat outside with wine.

Lucy discovered he was forty-two, divorced, an architect and an atrocious cook. Tom discovered Lucy worked in publishing and had been pretending not to look at him for weeks.

“I was subtle,” she said.

“You leaned over the railing.”

“For architectural reasons.”

“Naturally.”

The wine disappeared.

The space between their chairs did too.

Tom touched her knee while making a point about something neither remembered later. Lucy looked at his hand.

He started to move it.

“Don't,” she said.

Tom stopped.

Lucy leaned over and kissed him.

All the distance of the previous weeks collapsed. Three floors. Railings. Windows. Midnight glances. Suddenly none of it existed.

Tom's hand returned to her knee. Lucy's fingers found the back of his neck. The kiss became hotter with startling speed.

“This,” Tom said against her mouth, “is significantly better than yelling.”

“Less efficient.”

“I disagree.”

Lucy kissed him again.

They moved inside when the balcony chair became impractical. The apartment was quiet except for the hum of the city through the open door.

The tension they had accidentally cultivated for six weeks finally had somewhere to go. It became hands, mouths, laughter, clothing abandoned without much concern for where it landed, and a bedroom door that closed on the rest.

Later Lucy walked barefoot back onto the balcony wearing Tom's T-shirt.

She looked up.

Her own yellow mug was still visible on the table three floors above.

Tom came behind her.

“Checking on the apartment?”

“Checking the view.”

“And?”

Lucy turned.

“Better from down here.”

The following Tuesday at midnight, Lucy's balcony was empty.

Three floors below, the basil got watered late.

Two weeks later Lucy bought Tom a new watering can.

It was bright yellow.

“Subtle,” he said when she handed it to him.

“It matches my mug.”

“So we're coordinating surveillance equipment now?”

“Obviously.”

Their strange balcony courtship continued even after they no longer needed it. Some nights Lucy stayed upstairs and Tom stayed downstairs simply so they could call ridiculous comments across the three floors.

Other nights one balcony remained empty.

Those were the nights the neighbours probably understood more than either of them intended.

One warm Thursday Lucy leaned over her railing and found Tom already looking up.

“You're staring,” she called.

“Observing.”

“Very scientifically?”

“Extremely.”

Lucy disappeared inside.

Tom frowned.

Thirty seconds later his doorbell rang.

He opened the door and Lucy walked straight in.

“You could have used the intercom.”

“Less dramatic.”

She kissed him before he could answer.

The familiarity between them had not softened the attraction. If anything, knowing exactly how quickly Tom would pull her closer made anticipation sharper.

“Basil first?” he asked when they separated.

Lucy looked toward the balcony.

“Let it suffer.”

Tom laughed and kissed her again.

The yellow watering can remained abandoned outside until morning.

Lucy noticed it while drinking tea in Tom's kitchen.

“Your plants are going to hate me.”

“Worth it.”

She looked up through the glass toward her own empty balcony.

Three floors suddenly felt like no distance at all.

That evening Tom sent her a photograph of the rescued grey sock hanging from his balcony railing.

Lucy replied with a photograph of the yellow mug.

Tom: We have become unbearably sentimental.

Lucy: Speak for yourself.

Tom: Come downstairs.

Lucy looked over the railing.

He was already standing below, looking up.

She did not bother answering the message.

By the time Tom heard the knock at his door, Lucy was laughing in the corridor.

“Fast,” he said.

“Efficient.”

He pulled her inside.

The door closed behind them, leaving the yellow mug upstairs and the watering can downstairs, exactly where their ridiculous little routine had put them.

Later, lying awake in the unfamiliar bedroom, Lucy heard Tom get up to close the balcony door. He paused beside the glass and looked upward by habit.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“You're checking my balcony.”

Tom returned to bed.

“Occupational hazard.”

Lucy moved closer.

“Good view?”

“Better from here.”