So Long: Bad Boy Next Door

by Kelley Harvey

  Why the hell do I even care?

  Do I want to date her? Like changing status on social media dating?

  I don’t even know.

  What I do know is that I want another chance to taste that sweetness she hides between her thighs. Another chance to make her scream when she comes all over my fucking tongue. A chance to sink my cock so deep inside her she’ll never want to go out with any other guy, because they can’t go as deep or as long as I can.

  All that, and to hold her all night. Make her blush and smile. Have her dress up in those red heels for me. Most of all, I want the chance to convince her how beautiful she really is.

  I want to fix what I fucked up when she overheard me on the phone.

  I tug the collar of my t-shirt away from my suddenly sweaty neck.

  Shit. Maybe I do want to date her.

  But the kid. Do I want to date a woman with a kid?

  I envision a smaller version of Kelsey. Reddish hair hanging down her back, impish grin. Yeah. I think I can handle hanging out with something that cute.

  All right then. Let’s do this.

  First, to choose a profile name.

  Can’t use just straight-up Adam.

  It should tell something about me, but without being too obvious.

  I’ve got it.

  NextDoor

  I fill out the enormous number of questions.

  Now, something short and sweet for the About Me portion.

  Strong man seeks soft and willing woman.

  No, that’s probably too blatant.

  Ex-military guy searching for the one who can stand to look at him.

  Cool guy looking for the girl who needs to be heated up.

  Damn. This is hard.

  Hmmm… I should just say that.

  I’d probably get all kinds of action if I put that. But, I don’t want all kinds of women. I only want one right now.

  What would attract Kelsey? Specifically, Kelsey.

  I dick around with the About Me part for a few more minutes until I hit on something that might work.

  Screw it. That’ll have to do.

  I spend three hours looking through hundreds of women’s profiles.

  What the fuck is up with all the duck lip pictures?

  Finally, Kelsey’s beautiful smile shines at me from my screen. My cock insta-firms, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

  I was beginning to think I was on the wrong fucking site.

  I read her info. Look through the photos she’s posted. Each more gorgeous than the last. Even the one with no make-up and her hair up in a messy bun.

  That one might be my favorite.

  I don’t have any good pictures of myself. Plus, I’m not sure she’ll go out with me if she knows it’s me. What if she won’t go out with me anyway? I want a chance to make her see I can be more than a get-laid guy.

  The What She Wants in Her Date section blinks.

  What does Kelsey want? Let’s find out.

  Honest. Check. For the most part anyway. The big things.

  Compassionate. Well, I guess I’m compassionate enough. I help people when I can, if that applies.

  Fun-loving. Who the fuck doesn’t like to have fun?

  Monogamous. Shit. I’m fucked.

  Wait. I’ve been monogamous in the past. There was Rachel. Six months of plugging the same pussy counts as monogamy, right?

  I click on the email her now button.

  What do I say here?

  Hey, pretty lady.

  No. That’s fucking creepy.

  You’re beautiful. I love the photos.

  Damn. I suck at this shit.

  I like your profile. Want to go out?

  Fucking hell. Why is this such a pain in the ass?

  Screw it. We’ll start out simple.

  Hey. How was your day?

  I hit send before I second-guess myself.

  We’ll see if she actually opens my email—and answers. Hope she doesn’t fall head-over-heels, as sexy and red as they are, for the guy she’s having dinner with tonight.

  Cocksucker.

  ELEVEN

  I take a long sip of my lukewarm coffee.

  Ass in chair. Hands on keyboard. Ass in chair. Hands on keyboard.

  This is my mantra. Today and every day until this book gets finished.

  I’m against the wall. I either get to the halfway point by the end of the week, three days from now. Or I’ll have to push the release date, but that isn’t a great option. I don’t get paid until two full months after release month ends. I’m not sure I can cover my bills with the little bit of savings I have.

  I’m going to write this book whether it sucks sweaty camel balls or not. I’ll fix it when I edit.

  I stretch and wiggle my fingers to loosen them up.

  I’m twelve thousand words into it. Another forty-eight thousand or so, and I’ll have a full-length book. That’s all.

  Okay. Let’s do this.

  “My lady, please, don’t spurn my attentions. Your father has promised me your hand in marriage.”

  I turn up my nose. “Then we should wait until the banns have been read and the vows exchanged, sir.”

  He comes close, his words soft in my ear. “Aye, we should. But we won’t. My manhood swells for you, its thirst great. You must quench it.”

  My cheeks heat and my heart pounds under my breasts as he takes me in his arms.

  “I fear I’m a wanton woman.” I swallow hard and lift my face to his, my hands clinging to his broad shoulders.

  His lips brush mine and I’m carried to the heights of the heavens. Passion sweeps me up on the wings of a white dove as he ravishes my body and sears my soul with the heat of his own.

  The chime of my doorbell peals through the house.

  Great. Right as I was getting started.

  When I open the door, my mom smiles and throws her arms out, doing her version of jazz hands. “Surprise!”

  Oh geez. Now I’ll never get anything accomplished.

  “What’re you doing here?”

  She pushes past me into the living room, dragging a couple of shopping bags with her. “I came to visit my granddaughter, of course. Clarissa! Come see Granna.”

  “I told you, she’s at Pat’s. It’s Matt’s visitation time.”

  Mom’s face falls as if I’ve told her the sun won’t rise ever again. “Oh. I forgot.”

  “I told you last week—for the third time.”

  “I just can’t believe they take her for the entire month. It makes no sense to me.”

  I smile sweetly. “He’s her father. They’re her grandparents. Just because he’s not interested in spending time with her, doesn’t mean that they aren’t. They love her too.”

  Mom rolls her eyes. “Well, I know that. How could they not love her? But still.”

  “Mom, let’s not go through this again. Please.”

  She gives me a tired huff. “Fine. Why did you let me drive all the way down here and not even tell me she wasn’t here?”

  “I would have gladly told you…if you’d have called before you came.” I try to keep the annoyance out of my tone. It never does any good with her anyway, she never seems to notice what tone I have. “What would you have done if I wasn’t here?”

  “I have a key, silly. I’d have let myself in and set up these little gifts I got for my girl in her room.”

  She means well. She really does. She does. She does.

  “Hey, I’m working. And it’s been really hard lately. If you want to set up something in Clarissa’s room, go ahead, but I really need to go dive into my writing cave. Okay?”

  She cocks her head and looks at me like she used to do when I was a kid. “I didn’t come to bother you. You go on and get done whatever you need to do. Don’t mind me at all. You won’t even know I’m here.”

  I have my doubts about that, but I smile and sidestep her offer for a hug. “Okay. Sounds good.”

  I return to my office.

  Oh no.

/>   No. No. No.

  Chloe lounges on the laptop keyboard. She flips to her back when I rush to her, as though she expects a tummy scratch.

  I wave my hands at her. “Shoo! Get off my computer, you crazy cat.”

  She stretches out, kneading the air with her upside down paws, looking at me with her cocked head. She meows.

  I pick her up, and she goes limp.

  I clench my jaw as I let her slide to the floor. “Go. Get out of here, you terrorist.”

  She runs to the door, but stops and drops to lie down half in and half out of the room.

  I plop down into my desk chair, cringing as I check the screen.

  It’s covered in a block of jumbled characters, nonsense strings of letters, symbols, and numbers typed by a relaxing kitten’s body. I scroll up to see how far I’ll have to backtrack to get to where I was.

  I scroll.

  And scroll.

  And scroll.

  I finally get to actual text that at least makes nominal sense.

  I read and re-read.

  Holy fucking—oh shit. No.

  I grip the hair at my temples, growling.

  I turn and glare at Chloe, looking all innocent and shit, lying in the doorway. “I should make a hat out of you, you little turd.”

  Several pages of the blood, sweat, and tears that I’ve wrung out of my blocked-up creative center are gone. Simply gone. Covered over by Chloe the Terrorist.

  I take a deep breath. And another. And a third, trying to calm myself.

  It’s okay. It has to be okay. I’ll SAVE AS a new document, and then recover the other one. Surely, it auto-saved at some point.

  “Please, God, let it have auto-saved. Please!”

  Mom pokes her head around the door frame. “Everything all right in here?”

  I fight the bitter words I want to spit at the universe.

  Mom doesn’t deserve that. This isn’t her fault. “The cat got on my laptop. She erased some of my latest book. I’ll have to recover the document. But it’s okay. I’ll deal with it.”

  Mom leans against the wall, just inside the room. “You should think about locking her out. She’s a kitten. She doesn’t know any better.”

  I let out a sigh. “I usually do lock her out of my office, but the doorbell rang, and I—I forgot.”

  Mom picks up Chloe and kisses the top of her head. “Poor kitty, you didn’t mean to mess up anything, did you?”

  The woman is a traitor. “You hate me, don’t you?”

  “Of course I don’t hate you.” Mom gives a little smile. “I love you. You know that.”

  I rub the ache developing between my eyebrows.

  She takes a step further into my office. “You’ll have to be more careful—”

  I hold up one hand to stop her from sitting. “Mom, I need to get busy.”

  “Oh, of course. I’ll go make us some lunch. I brought greens and black-eyed peas.” She sing-songs that last part—the part that makes my insides wither like a tree doused in diesel.

  “None for me, thanks.”

  Mom purses her lips. “You need to eat. I’ll fix you a plate.”

  “Really, I’m not hungry.” I’m ravenous, but I’m not eating greens or peas. Years of being force fed rabbit food and legumes ruined me for anything not drenched in ranch dressing.

  “Your body needs sustenance. All day, you sit in here typing on that computer. You’re going to waste away.”

  She turns toward the kitchen.

  “But, Mom, you know I don’t like”—I slump in my chair, my voice trailing off—“black-eyed peas or greens.”

  She’s humming her way down the hall and doesn’t even care that she wants to feed me my most despised foods.

  After only three more interruptions from Mom, for the death lunch, to show her where I keep the laundry soap, and to help her carry in the other six bags of clothes and toys she brought for Clarissa, plus two and a half hours of searches and opening and closing documents, I admit defeat.

  I’m woefully under-educated in all things technical and clerical.

  I can’t find it. It’s not here. The only thing I have left of the first quarter of my novel is what’s left after the Chloe-tastrophe and a copy of it the way I saved it before she decided my keyboard looked like a hammock.

  I drop my forehead to my desk.

  God, don’t you love me anymore?

  How am I ever going to make rent? Those words took so much to get onto the screen.

  Chloe weaves between my feet as I trip my way into the living room.

  Mom looks up from her magazine. “Oh, good. You’re done. I didn’t want to bother you.”

  Like she’s not bothered me at all today?

  Finally, I manage to talk her into heading home before the traffic gets too heavy.

  She loads her dishes of left over dirt beads and weeds—I mean, beans and greens—into the car. “All right then, I guess I’ll be on my way. You’ll call when Clarissa is home, right?”

  I give a non-committal grunt and try to sidestep Mom’s hug.

  “Oh, stop it. Give your mother a hug. You might never see me again.”

  If only…

  I suck in a deep breath as she takes hold of me like a polar bear hugs a seal it particularly hates.

  I wheeze one word. “Mom?”

  She doesn’t loosen her death grip. Instead, she squeezes tighter. “Oh, I just love you.”

  I clamp my cheeks together, but there’s no helping it. A fog horn rips out of my ass. It bounces off the houses as it echoes down the street. It’s surprising a blinding light doesn’t shoot out of my forehead.

  Mom lets go of me and covers her face. “Kelsey Marie!”

  “Well, it’s your fault. You’re the one who thinks a hug is a test of strength and endurance.”

  Mom purses her lips.

  “Stop giving me the stink-eye, or I’ll have to fart on you again.”

  She rolls her eyes.

  I shrug. “I have gas. Sue me.”

  “Guess I don’t know my own strength.” Mom giggles as she waves her hand in front of her face. “But whew, you sure are strong!”

  I let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re the one who insisted I eat those nasty beans.”

  She ducks into her car. “Peas, dearest. Black-eyed peas. And don’t worry, you’re Grandma Radcliffe had the worst gas of any woman I’ve ever known. She’d walk across the room, farts slipping out with each step she took. Did it so much, she eventually quit excusing herself. Of course, there really was no excuse for her anyway—”

  I step back and cross my arms. “Bye, Mom. Drive safely.”

  “You’ll let me know when she’s home. Don’t forget,” Mom calls as she backs out of my driveway.

  “Of course I’ll call.” When I recover from that last hug and after finish my book.

  She stops when she’s pointed in the right direction. “And, Kelsey, dear?”

  “Yes, Mom?”

  “Do tell that good-looking neighbor of yours that I said hello.”

  My eyes go wide. My heart stutters.

  I may die here and now.

  Please, God, don’t let Adam be over there. Let her have seen him when she got here. I’m begging.

  With a knot of embarrassed dread, I turn. Heat rushes to my cheeks.

  Adam waves and grins. “Your mom?”

  I close my eyes and nod.

  Why can’t a person swallow their tongue on command? Death would be preferable to this moment.

  “She sure loves you hard. Doesn’t she?”

  I drag in a deep breath. “Yes. She does. And I love her. Damn it. I. Love. Her. I do. Really. I freaking love her.”

  I will say these words until they’re true again.

  In the meantime, since I can’t melt into a bubbling gassy puddle, I’ll slink into my house and hope I never see Adam again.

  Ever.

  Demolition work has its advantages.

  Free therapy.

  Tearin
g the living shit out of something could be a form of mental healing.

  I carry out another piece of the kitchen cabinetry. The wood they were made of wasn’t much heavier than plywood, but slinging the sledgehammer let off some of the pent-up pressure I’ve been hauling around with me since the other night with Kelsey.

  She still hasn’t answered my email. I have no fucking idea what that means.

  Did she not like the pictures I posted? Does she think the email I sent was creepy or stupid? Maybe she just hasn’t opened her email.

  Fuck if I know.

  I toss the scraps of broken up wood into the rented dumpster.

  Her garage door is up.

  Is she in there working out?

  Images of the last time I found her in her garage and what happened directly afterward swamp me. My cock hardens.

  Should I casually go over and say hello?

  No. Probably not. I bet she already thinks I stalk her. I don’t, of course—well, not intentionally.

  I pull my phone from the cargo pocket of my shorts.

  She wouldn’t have given me her number if she didn’t want me to text.

  Then again, after yesterday afternoon with her mom in the driveway, she may never want to see me again. The look on her face when she turned and saw me standing there, knowing I’d heard her was fucking priceless.

  Well, only one way to find out if she’ll talk to me.

  -Hey, Beautiful Girl. How’s the writing going?-

  I shove my phone into the side pocket of my pants and get my ass back to work.

  Almost an hour later, her reply comes through.

  -It was going, and then Chloe decided to take a nap on my keyboard and erased a shit-ton of the words I had. Now I have to re-do them, because I’m too computer illiterate to figure out how to recover them.-

  Fuck yes. Perfect.

  I skip the return text and head next door.

  She answers the doorbell, shoving the kitten behind her with her foot. “Hey. What’re you doing here?”

  Her mussed red hair glints like flames in the evening sun. Even with no make-up, she’s striking.

  “I think I can help you.”

  Her expression is puzzled. “With what?”

  “Your file. I think I can retrieve your words for you.”

  “You can? I mean, you think you can?”

  The hope in her eyes is almost daunting.