The apartment smelt weird, it was different. New leather and never-slept-in sheets. She missed her place in New York. The familiar smell of home, her well worn sofa with the just-right dip where she sat on those rare evenings she had time. The bathtub wasn't the same either, it was functional, but ordinary. She missed her big, clawed bath where she read his books.
Walking over to the cabinets, she grabbed a wine glass and then a bottle of white from the fridge. It was a cheap bottle she picked up on a whim in the local store. Nothing in comparison to the exquisite reds she and Rick had made their way through in the evenings at his.
Most of her things were still in boxes, placed in their respective rooms. She approached the box she'd been dreading opening since she arrived, it contained his books. They still had special meaning, his earlier ones anyway, the ones that got her through the dark nights alone when her mother felt so far away, but the newer ones, they were a different story. Instead of providing an escape, Nikki Heat drew her into a hole of darkness, a place of longing. They made her miss him more, if that was possible.
Closing the box, she moved to the next one, also containing books, just not his. Picking one at random, she climbed into an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar apartment. It was going to be a long night.