by Max Monroe
I attune myself to the wall between us, listening for signs of life.
Has she all of a sudden started being mindful of her noise level?
I’m ashamed to do it, but for just a couple of seconds, I press my ear up against the damn wall to see if I can hear better.
Nothing. She’s not home.
Disappointment sets in, and to pass the time, I start browsing TV specs on the internet. Clearly, if I’ve stooped to pressing my face against the wall, hoping to hear my neighbor for entertainment, it’s time to purchase one.
There are a ton of options out there, stretching across all variety of price points, and I quickly get lost in the minutia of it.
I wouldn’t know which one to pick to save my life. I’ve never been the kind of guy to focus on the latest and greatest technology and update every time something new comes out. If it weren’t for the company, I’d still have the last generation of iPhone.
But Caplin, he’s a different story. LED, LCD, HD, plasma, bone marrow…whatever the fuck. He knows it, he’s into it, he’s got the best of the fucking best.
I grab my phone from the kitchen counter, settle back into the couch, and put my laptop on the coffee table.
It rings four times before he answers, and when he does, he seems out of breath.
“Hello?”
Immediately, I groan.
“Please God, tell me you are not having sex right now.”
His laugh is loud and obnoxious, and I have to pull the phone away to spare my eardrums. “Nope. I’m running. But I love that fucking some chick was the first thing you assumed I’d be doing.”
“When all you talk about is sex hovels and shit, it’s easy to assume. Which, by the way, I hope Janine was able to leave your apartment without a raging UTI.”
“Janine?” he asks, and I squint.
“Isn’t that what you said her name was?”
“Yeah, but that was forever ago, Turn. This week, it’s Lucy.”
Forever ago? More like one week ago.
“Of course.” I laugh. “How silly of me.”
“Yeah, dude, it’s ridiculous. Come on.”
I roll my eyes and grab my laptop to open the page comparing TVs.
“Anyway, I am in the middle of a run. Is there a reason you called?”
“Yeah…” I’m just about to dive into asking Cap’s advice on the latest and greatest in all things technology when music comes on next door at a near-deafening volume.
My attention is instantly rerouted.
“Helllloooo,” Cap calls. “Earth to Trent Turner. Come in, Trent Turner.”
I drag out the sound of my I as I make a command decision. “I-I-I’m gonna have to call you back.”
“What the hell? You called me.”
I don’t explain before hanging up. In fact, it’s the perfect moment to give him a little taste of his own medicine.
But not even fifteen seconds later, my phone pings with a text.
Shocker.
Cap: You fuck.
Cap: P.S. You have a date with Susie Gimble. Maybe you should, you know, call me back so I can tell you the details.
Cap: P.P.S. If you choose not to call me back, I will be forced to send her to your apartment at the time and date of my choosing.
Jesus. And here I hoped he’d be too busy with his sick sex hovels to remember the whole Susie Gimble thing entirely.
Whatever. I’ll deal with him later.
Right now, my mind is focused on something else.
Someone else, actually. A certain someone who is slowly becoming the most intriguing human being I’ve ever met.
I drop my phone onto my kitchen counter and head for the door, in the direction of the apparent nightclub that’s just opened next door.
Greer
I’m halfway into my chorus, shaking my butt and pulling the string of my thong up and out of my pajama pants—you know, to go with the theme of the song—when my door shakes again, kind of like it did two nights ago.
I shake my hips as Sisqó sings about how scandalous I am and head for the door.
With one quick swipe, I put the umbrella up on my shoulder and turn the knob.
He’s smiling until he sees the makeshift weapon and ducks, hands up in defense.
I dissolve into a fit of laughter.
“Oh my God, you should have seen your face. Thinking I would actually swing this at you.” I drop it back into the holder, leave the door open, and walk back into my apartment as he shouts to be heard over the music.
“You just swung it at me the other night!”
“But is past behavior really a precedent for future?” I challenge.
“Yes!” he yells with a disbelieving smile. “There’s even a quote about it. Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior!”
“Oh well!” I shrug nonchalantly, and then quick as a whip, I’m hit with the realization that this is the first face-to-face interaction we’ve had since he found out I was playing Dear Abby with a burner phone. “Did you change your mind?”
“Change my mind?” he shouts over the music. “About what!”
“Fire…murder…kidnap… You know, change your mind!”
He laughs and shakes his head. “No!”
Thank everything for that.
“Okay, good!” A sigh of relief leaves my lips just as Sisqó really starts to get into it and the bass coming from my speakers jumps up a few notches.
Trent winces a little and puts a hand to his ear. “Can we turn the music down?”
“Are you kidding?” I shout. “This is the ‘Thong Song.’ The only way to play it is at full volume!”
Resigned to his fate, but plainly too stuffy to join in, he watches as I dance around the room from his spot behind the couch, hands tucked casually into the pockets of his jeans.
I sway my hips just like I was before and even drop into a slightly more conservative twerk.
Through all of it, he watches—intently.
So much so, the weight of his stare makes my stomach sink and turn over all at the same time.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he’s…attracted to me.
But that can’t be right, so I shake my head to clear my vision.
When the song finally comes to a close, he’s still looking at me like he can see through my clothes, and I’m still confused.
I chatter to distract myself. “You disrespected the song, you know? Just standing there like that. You don’t stand still while the ‘Thong Song’ is on.”
“I was watching you,” he says simply, and I shut my big mouth. Because, yeah, I know. “What’s with partying like it’s 1999?”
“Ah, so you do respect the song. You wouldn’t know what year it was from if you didn’t.”
He smirks. “I guess you caught me.”
I fire finger guns at him because I’m awkward and socially inept. Why they even let me out of the womb, I’m not sure.
“So, what’s with the music?”
“I love to listen to stuff from my youth. Jam out to Sisqó, test my memory on ‘Freak-A-Leek’ by Petey Pablo, rage out to Linkin Park. What? You don’t?”
He shakes his head and rounds the sofa to take a seat. I watch with barely concealed angst as he makes himself at home on my couch and stretches an arm across the back.
Am I in a parallel universe? Are we friends now?
Like, what is happening here?
I honestly thought he would straight up kill me if he ever found out that I was the burner-phone messenger. But he knows. And I’m still kicking. It’s almost too much to comprehend.
I turn down the volume a little, just to make it easier to hear him.
“I haven’t listened to any of this music since I was a kid,” Trent says. “Junior high, I think. Does that sound right?”
“I don’t know. How old are you now?”
His eyebrows pull together. “I’m your age. Thirty-three. You didn’t know that?”
“No,” I say wi
th a laugh. “How would I?”
He shrugs. “Google. Wikipedia.”
My laughter is so manic, it’s almost scary. “Oh, that’s right. I almost forgot. You’re a billionaire.”
He rolls his eyes and picks at imaginary lint on his knee. “I’m not. My parents are, but I am not.”
I plop onto the couch on the other end and tuck a knee to my chest. “Yeah, but it’ll be yours one day. Same thing.”
He laughs, but let me tell you, I don’t think it’s because he thinks something is funny. It’s scornful and pessimistic in a way that only I, a cynic myself, understand.
“Wow. What’s that reaction all about?”
He shakes his head and pauses, but then speaks anyway. When he does, he makes eye contact, and I instantly feel like my skin is too tight for my body. “My dad isn’t exactly my biggest fan. I was supposed to take over Turner Properties when he retires, but lately, it doesn’t seem like he’s too keen to hand it over to me.”
“Whaaaat?” I screech. “Is he looking for an adoptive daughter to leave it to instead?”
He chuckles and points at me with a wagging finger. “Very funny.”
“You may think it’s funny, but I’m serious. Mama could use a little money cushion. I’m even open to servicing him sexually.”
“Greer.”
“What?” I tease. “Nothing too kinky, probably, but I don’t know… I’m undoubtedly willing to let my morals slip pretty far for a billion dollars.”
“He and my mom are still together.”
“Maybe she likes to watch, Trent. You don’t know. Don’t be so selfish.”
“You’re terrible,” he says, but he says it with a smile.
I shrug as something occurs to me. “Wait a minute. Why don’t I ever hear you?”
“What?”
“In your apartment,” I explain. “You seem to hear me all the time, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard you.”
My phone buzzes on the table, and he nods at it.
I scoff. “No way. Don’t try to distract me with my phone.”
“It could be important.”
“Trust me, the last time something important happened to me was in the 1980s, and it was the moment I was born. Answer me. Why don’t I ever hear you?”
He lifts his shoulders and sighs before chuckling a little. “I don’t know. I’m quiet? I don’t have a TV? I don’t cackle like a hyena? It could be any number of things.”
“I do not cackle!” I protest with a smack to his leg. He looks down at the place I smacked him, and I wallow in my embarrassment.
Oh God, what is wrong with me? Hitting the boss is never a good idea, Greer. Even if there is some kind of weird pseudo-friendly neighbor thing going on.
When he looks up, his grin is a relief.
“You cackle. Trust me. But it suits you.”
“It suits me? Are you saying I look like a person who cackles? Do I have a deformity I don’t know about?”
He shakes his head and reaches out to squeeze my hand.
My fingers feel warm even after he pulls away.
“It just means you have a fun, free spirit. I like that you cackle.”
My breath catches in my lungs, and my brain reels through a number of possibilities for escape. Finally, it remembers that my phone buzzed on the coffee table not long ago.
I reach forward and grab it, clicking on the message from Emory to see what she has to say.
Incognizant of my company, I read it aloud.
Emory: You have a date next week, Tuesday at 7 at La Previe. A guy I know. Wear something revealing.
“Jesus,” I say when I’m done, typing across the keyboard as fast as I can.
Trent leans in and whispers, “What are you saying?”
Normally, I’d keep it to myself, but seeing as he’s already involved, I run it down for him quickly.
“I said, ‘Thanks for the offer, but the chances of me going on a date you set up for me with absolutely no details are about as good as me finding some spare fucks to give. No.’”
“I take it you didn’t know she was trying to set you up.” Trent chortles and sits back in his seat.
“Other than the fact that she’s always trying to set me up? No.”
“I can relate to this dilemma.”
I quirk a surprised brow. “How?”
“My friend Cap. He’s all but strong-arming me into going on a date with a woman named Susie.”
All of a sudden, I’m not a fan of the name Susie. Like, it kind of sounds like the worst name in the world, honestly.
“Are you going to go?”
He raises a brow. “Are you going to go?”
Am I going to go?
But he doesn’t give me a chance to answer.
“You know what,” he says, standing from the couch so suddenly, I don’t even read Emory’s text when it pings. Instead, I follow him with my eyes as he moves toward the door. I’m not sure, but it kind of feels like my face is turned down into a frown.
“You should go on it, Greer.” He opens my door and steps through it, facing me again so I can see his face when he speaks again. “And who knows? Maybe it’s destiny.”
The door shuts behind him, and I’m left reeling.
Destiny?
Something doesn’t feel right about this. Not agreeing to this date. And definitely not Trent telling me to go on this date.
Is he going on a date too?
He said his friend Cap was trying to set him up. Does that mean he has already set Trent up or still trying?
My mind spins with a million different questions and no fucking answers.
And, of course, Emory’s message is waiting for me when I look down at my phone.
Emory: You are a spinster with a sincere dislike for cats. You are going on this date if I have to drag you there by your nipples.
Nothing feels right about this.
But when faced with the possibility of Trent going on a date and me just sitting at home like a spinster while trying to hear him fuck some tramp through our shared wall, I agree.
And it feels like the exact opposite of destiny.
Honestly, it feels like destiny just up and walked right out my front door.
Are you sure you’re still talking about destiny?
Trent
La Previe is bustling with ambiance and busy staff and tables filled with people chattering and flirting and doing whatever it is people do inside a restaurant on a Tuesday night.
I sit at the table I requested, off the beaten path but still facing the center of the dining room, and I wait. For what exactly, I’m not sure, but my eyes are fixated near the door as I sip on the fresh drink I grabbed at the bar before being seated by the hostess.
Okay, full disclosure. I know explicitly threatening not to show up for my date if Cap didn’t make sure it was at the time and location of my choosing—ahem, the same as Greer’s, specifically—was wrong.
But I couldn’t help myself.
I haven’t felt the kind of jealousy I felt when Emory texted her about her date since high school.
I asked Catherine Gibbs to prom, but she turned me down to go with Harrison Phelps. He was a pompous ass, and I’m pretty sure Catherine turned out to be a stripper, but the point is, at the time, I was blind with envy.
And when Greer read that text aloud, I flashed back to the same exact feeling.
Obviously, I could have agreed with her, told her to stick to her guns about declining, but…something about that didn’t feel right either.
So, even though every cell inside my body was opposed, I told her to go.
If I want her to like me—which, for whatever reason, it seems that’s the way my mind and body are leaning—I need her to do it on her own terms and with all the information.
If she wants to go on a date with someone else, she should. If her best friend thinks she found a guy who is good for Greer, then Greer should go on a date with him and see what he has to offer.
But just in case, in the name of chivalry, I’ll be here to keep an eye on her.
It’s a real fucked-up mind-set, but I’m not the most rational guy in NOLA.
Plus, it’s not my place to tell Greer what to do or not to do when it comes to dating. I might have a track record for being a controlling bastard on the job site, but when it comes to women, I don’t control; I respect. Their opinions. Their feelings. Their desires.
Any man who does otherwise is a real insecure fucking prick and doesn’t deserve shit.
Glasses clink and chatter rolls on at a dull roar as I take a sip of my water and glue my eyes to the door.
My date hasn’t shown, and Greer hasn’t either, but it looks as though her date has.
For the last fifteen minutes, I’ve been watching a guy at a table by himself check the time on his phone and slam back glasses of whiskey like it’s about to be outlawed.
For Greer’s sake, if this is her date, I’m hoping he can handle his liquor.
And then I see her walk in. Blue dress, blue eyes, and the most perfect nervous smile.
She looks like she’s on the very edge of losing her shit, and I can’t help but grin.
It doesn’t matter the day, the time, or the occasion—Greer is always herself. Genuine and quirky, and I don’t think I’ve ever met any woman like her.
I’m staring at her as she walks to the table with the mystery man in the middle of the room, and my heart jumps into my throat as she leans down to give him a kiss on the cheek.
Her dress is low-cut, her breasts are magnificent, and I have to hold myself in my seat to keep from running over to offer my jacket.
I can’t hear what they’re saying, but everything seems stiff and formal enough. I don’t want her to have a bad time, but if I said I don’t enjoy watching whoever this fucker is struggle to win her over a little, I’d be lying.
I’m settling in for the show when a slender set of hips in a tight red dress block my vision. I follow them up to a face and a mess of blond hair, and her features are unmistakable.
She is the female version of Gavin Gimble, and undoubtedly his sister—my date, Susie.