2. The day she moved in

Steve took a look around in his neighbors apartment. He stood in the middle of the living room, with the front door at his back. To his left and right, doors led into neighboring rooms. The outside wall, however, consisted of large panes of glass that ran from floor to ceiling. A sliding door led out onto a long balcony that took up the entire width of the living room and seemed to extend beyond it.

"You got yourself quite the place there." Steve said, while scanning the room. One of the giant movers just entered hugging a fridge.

"Yes, it's pretty big and has a lot of light. I do work with a lot of artworks and good natural lightning is important for that sort of work." She replied, while picking up a smaller box.

"You are an artist?" Steve asked and opened the sliding door to the balcony. The mover left again, ducking his head under the door frame.

Leanne wagged her head. "No, just an amateur. But I teach art at the College close to Aldana Park. So I get many..."

"Holy moly, this Balcony goes all the way down to mine!" Steve yelled from outside in amazement. The Balcony did in deed take up the whole length of the apartment.

"Yeah, it's pretty long." Leanne said approaching him with the box under her arm. "It's very narrow though. Not really much you can do, besides sit or stand on it."

"Well, people could stand here, drink and have a smoke, if you ever think of throwing a party." Steve suggested with a grin.

Leanne smiled back. "Good thinking. Maybe I should try it out and throw a housewarming party." She didn't seem to be serious about it. She gave Steve a nod. "Common, I'll show you around."

As Leanne walked ahead, Steve could not take his eyes off her narrow waist and voluptuous swinging hips. She first led him into the room that was right next to his bedroom.

"This will be the bedroom. Over there is a walk-in closet. And over here the bathroom." She pointed to everything with a casual hand movement accompanied by the clinking of her bracelets. Steve took it upon himself to walk in everywhere and comment on it with a "nice!" or "amazing". He was about to say that he would be sleeping just a few inches away on the other side, but for reasons unclear to him he dropped it. Instead, he unconsciously stroked the thin wall with his fingertips and let his eyes wander over the large wooden parts of the bed that the movers had piled up on the parquet floor. Simple dark wood, clear form, probably a designer piece.

"Scandinavian?" He asked pointing at the bed parts.

"No, Italian." She replied, slightly surprised but appreciative.

"Nice!"

She led him back to the living room, where they ran into one of the movers who was on his way to the kitchen with a coffee machine in his hand. The man's coarse hands were so enormous that the coffee machine looked like a toy in them.

"Miss," his voice rumbled, "do you have coffee anywhere? I'd like to make us a pot, if that's ok." Leanne gave him a confirming smile and put her hand on his massive forearm.

"Look over there, in that box by the microwave, there you should find coffee." Again her bracelets clinked when she pointed to the box. "And in that box there, you'll find a couple of mugs."

Then turning to Steve she asked. "You will have a coffee with us, right?" Steve hesitated briefly. For a fraction of a second he thought he saw disapproval flitting across the mover's face.

"Sure, uhm, Leanne..." Steve pronounced her name with a certain feeling of awkwardness. This sudden familiarity that was there was still somewhat unfamiliar to him. But Leanne didn't take any notice. She tapped the moving helper on his enormous forearm and instructed him to cook a whole pot for everyone.

The next room was about the size of the bedroom with a small attached bathroom.

"This is the guest room. But I'm going to turn this into a studio for my work." She proudly announced and put her hands on her hips. Her enormous breasts swayed affirmatively. With big gestures she showed Steve were she would put all the things, the racks for the materials and tools, the working table, the light...

Steve couldn't but admire her. Everything about her was energetic, strong, enthusiastic. She didn't sound or move like a dreamer. She was a doer, he could sense that. The way she had talked to the mover before. She was used to getting things done, either by others or herself.

"What do you do, for a living, Steve?" Her voice threw him out of his thoughts. A little surprised he didn't have the time to come up with a good answer.

"I'm a freelancer, I work in IT, you know..." He never liked explaining his job nor his job situation. It wasn't a very good one, specially for a guy his age. Somehow Steve thought, people expect you to be more settled and better situated, when you were his age. It made him feel small and insignificant, when he actually told people, that he had to take every job he could get, to make it through the month without depth. At least IT sounded sort of boring and important enough to keep people from asking more questions.

Leanne showed sincere interest in Steve's work, and he quickly lost the shyness he usually felt when others asked him about his work. He almost burst into something like enthusiasm when he started talking about C++, Java, and other things. Typically, others would get bored when he talked about it, but Leanne's questions revealed that she listened attentively and understood what he was talking about. Then the giant came along with the coffee. The role of the waiter did not suit him and did his best not to spill anything. Leanne acknowledged his efforts with a gentle smile and thanked him.