by Alice Bello
“Hi Miss Jones,” Georgia said. She walked over to where I stood, and looked relieved to be around someone other than Billy.
“I see he talked you into ice cream after all.” I prodded.
She looked over to where Billy was polishing a fingerprint from his metal beast, then to me. “I don’t know what to say to get him to back off.”
Oh…
“I mean, he’s nice and all, but I like Adam too much to…” She shrugged a shoulder and sighed. “I’ve even tried setting him up with a couple girls I know. They were willing, but he shut them down before I could even introduce them.”
Billy stopped to say hello to Darla and Bette sitting at the picnic table. Of course he’d know Darla. They were practically the same age.
I stepped closer to Georgia. “I don’t mean to come off all knowledge lady…” God knew I’d screwed my love life up to the point of implosion. “But I’d say you need to be as honest and direct with him as possible. If he hasn’t a chance in hell of getting you, then you need to let him know.” She looked at me and frowned. “And no sugar coating it. Blunt is best, especially if he’s not really hearing what you’re saying. Make sure there’s no wriggle room in what you’re saying.”
Georgia’s expression turned thoughtful, and then she rolled her eyes in frustration.
“I just don’t want to hurt him. I’ve known him almost my entire life, and he’s such a good friend to Adam…”
Billy waved goodbye to Darla and turned toward us. The Big Bad Wolf glowed in his eyes, and his smile was just lecherous.
Georgia gulped audibly. “Maybe you’re right.”
Billy swaggered over to us like a cowboy coming in from a long day of roping calves. With a visible effort he pried his gaze from Georgia to look at me.
“Hi there, photographer lady.”
“Hey Billy.” I smiled, trying to put as much happy in it as I could muster. I didn’t think I had much of that left in me, but I should at least try. Especially when talking to a model prospect. “So do you think you could come for a photo shoot sometime this week? I need to get a new cover ready.”
His pouty lips pursed as he mulled this around in his head. “Sure,” he said, absently scratching his broad, cotton clad chest. The deep green of his shirt made his eyes practically sparkle like emeralds.
“And if you can manage to bring a pretty girl with you?” I cajoled.
He glanced Georgia’s way and his smile deepened.
Damn…
If he wasn’t the perfect Big Bad Wolf, then I might need to turn to girls.
The thought kind of left me confused… and strangely warm inside.
Again with the head shaking. I needed to get these crazy ideas out of my head.
After all, I’d only had a big girl crush once, and that was on a fictional character: Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Alyson Hannigan is a lovely, beautiful actress, but I only had the yearning for her when she was the werewolf loving Wicca who turned lesbian halfway through season four.
Again I shook my head and blinked my eyes, trying to get the crazy to fall out of my head.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Billy said, licking his thick, pouty lips. “I’ve still got your card, so I’ll call you.”
“Perfect.”
I felt bad as he turned away and pulled Georgia into his wake, steering them toward the order window. He didn’t have a chance at getting Georgia.
I sighed and headed over to the picnic table. Bette and Darla were finished with their ice cream, and Darla was on her cell phone telling Drew to pick her up at my house. She sounded sad as she said goodbye.
I looked askance at her.
She perked right up. “I want to surprise him with already having my license.” She smiled naughtily.
Bette snorted. “She wants to rub his cute little nose in it too.”
Darla shrugged. “Maybe a little.”
The two looked at each and burst out laughing.
“Maybe more than a little,” I said, and we headed back to Bette’s Caddy.
Chapter 4
In celebration of her passing the driver’s test, Bette conceded control of her Sirius satellite radio to Darla. We were treated to Fall Out Boy Light(ing) it Up, Kelly Clarkson sounding angry and liberated about People Like Us, and finally Pink hamming it up, singing that she’d just lost her husband, and didn’t know where he went…
It was at this moment that we rolled onto my block, and I closed my eyes and thanked god we’d somehow made it home all in one piece, and without even putting a scratch on Bette’s high priced automobile.
When I opened my eyes I saw a strange sight in my side yard, the one facing away from Bette’s house.
A tall, broad shouldered young man stood next to my sycamore tree, pulling off a white t-shirt, exposing not only luminous caramel colored skin, with some of the nicest, sculpted musculature I’d seen, but some swirly, multicolored tattoos curving down his right arm.
I felt myself straighten in my seat, and I leaned closer to the window to watch as the now shirtless man bent over—wow… that’s one nice bubble butt!
“Oh my…” Bette said breathlessly.
“Ah… who is t-t-that?” Darla stammered in the same tone of voice, and then reddened in embarrassment.
And then this veritable god stood up wielding a large yellow chainsaw, which he yanked the start-up chord on, widened his stance, and then started taking aim at the base of my tree.
That fucking lunatic was going to cut my tree down!
“Stop the goddamn car!” I snarled like an angry mountain lion.
The Caddy screeched to a halt. I was out of the rear passenger side door in a flash, not bothering to close it, and was halfway across the lawn, screaming at the chainsaw wielding nit-wit to stop.
But the damn chainsaw was making so much noise I couldn’t even hear myself.
When the blades of the saw bit into my sycamore’s bark I lost it. I ran at him, hitting him square in the back with my outstretched arms as hard as I could, anger making me strong enough to actually push him three feet away.
He staggered and cursed, the chainsaw making an angry, metallic scream as it cut off.
He tore off a pair of goggles I hadn’t noticed him wearing, and turned on me.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” His voice was hard as a brick and filled with rough edges.
“What am I doing?” I screamed right back, not believing his gall.
“Yeah,” he yelled, his dark, dark eyes squinting in anger. “You could have killed me there.” He held the chainsaw up to me. “This is a dangerous piece of machinery, and someone could have gotten hurt by your childish little stunt!”
That did it… something clicked inside me, maybe it cracked, who knows. All I know is I was suddenly right up in his face, hands on my hips, seething in anger.
“I’m childish?” I growled.
“This should be good,” a joyful, unfamiliar female voice chimed in from behind the chainsaw wielding asshole.
I ignored her and stepped closer to the lunatic. “I’m not the one trying to cut down someone else’s tree!”
His upper lip rose in the beginning of a snarl… but then he laughed.
The crazy asshole actually laughed in my face.
“Your tree,” he grated, glancing for a second at my sycamore and then back to me, “is an eyesore. And it blocks the morning sun from my entire eastern aspect.”
“See there, Mr. Big-shot!” another unfamiliar female voice intoned. Did he have a harem with him or something? “I told you your new neighbor wouldn’t like you hacking down her tree.”
The muscles in his jaw clenched and he closed his dark eyes in irritation. “Shut up, Kyra!”
It was my turn to laugh at him. “You talk to girls like that? What are you… some social deviant?”
His eyes snapped open and his dark eyes blazed with anger.
He licked his full… silky… oh so pouty lips.
A
sshole or not, he was one amazing example of the male form. Long, bulging muscles everywhere. All covered by the creamiest, caramel brown flesh—and the tattoos made the flesh they adorned glow with a silvery luster.
“Thirty-five percent of your… tree’s root-system is on my property. Over forty percent of its overgrown branches hang over my side of the property line. So I do have every right to clear my line of sight and my view of your ant infested eyesore of an elm tree.”
“Sycamore!”
“Whatever.” He sneered down at me as he took a step closer, leaning over me like some kind of school-yard bully. “You should be happy I don’t contact my lawyer and force you to pay for its removal. I’m doing you a favor.”
I could hear Bette gasp as I stepped up closer, until our noses were close to touching. At least the asshole had nice breath… minty even.
I oh so very slowly I broke eye contact with the sexy lunatic, leaning to the side as I moved in even closer, until my lips were almost brushing his earlobe.
“This is Texas,” I breathed, taking in a nose-full of a mix of sweet male sweat, coffee, and something foreign and spicy. “People get shot all the time for messing with other people’s property.”
Bette gasped again.
Darla murmured. “Oh God, she didn’t…”
The still unseen (to me at least) Kyra hooted and clapped. “Mijo thinks he’s so freaking smart. MIT, my sexy round ass!”
“Kyra!” the other female voice scolded. “You know mama doesn’t like us talking smack about his education!”
Mr. MIT rolled his eyes and I heard him growl.
“You went to Texas A & M. You’re a freaking doctor—”
“After two more years of being an intern—”
“And I’m an accountant with my own firm.” Kyra stopped, and I could see his jaw clench again. He was waiting for what she was going to say next. “Mr. Genius over there never even graduated!”
I felt bad for him… for exactly ten seconds, and then he said, “Can’t choose your family, can you?”
And then he winked at me.
Winked at me...
Really?
His thick, full lips slowly spread into a beatific smile, showing off straight, white teeth—the bastard could have done a toothpaste commercial.
“We’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” he practically purred, scratched his bare chest, and then slowly ran his hand down his pec and then lower, down his…was that an eight-pack of hard-as-steel abs? “My name’s Raphael Morales. Everyone calls me Raff.”
I closed my eyes and breathed. This wasn’t happening. Tell me that the new neighbor was not only a complete tree-chopping lunatic, but was also now trying to flirt with me.
And his mother actually named him after an angel?
Oh… now I get it…
I knew his type. I’d seen them all through high school. Big, good-looking jocks who thought they were God’s gift to the female population. And this one had a brain too.
If he couldn’t talk his way through his argument, then he’d pull the I’m to die for sexy card.
I looked up into his dark, fathomless eyes and reached out my hand until my index finger was digging into his chest, right where his sternum was.
He smiled. That was until I kept applying pressure, really digging my barely a centimeter long nail into his flesh, digging into the bone underneath.
With a rueful, grudging groan, he stepped back a step.
“I have a Remington pump action shotgun hanging on the wall just inside the front door of my house. It’s loaded with rock-salt.”
Raphael took another, smaller step back, wincing when I said “rock-salt.”
I took another step closer, a maniacal smile beaming up at him.
“I’m a decent shot, really. But if I’m, oh, let’s say pissed off, I might not hit what I’m aiming at.”
He looked confused, so I elaborated.
“I might not hit your chest, if I was going to pump it full of burning bits of salt. I might miss and hit you…” I started to walk past and around him, letting my eyes drag over his sweat shiny torso. “Right in the balls.”
I turned my head and waved at his two sisters. “Hi, girls. I’m Hope Jones, the neighbor.”
They waved back. “I’m Kyra,” the taller, slightly older one said. “This one here is Tia. I would’ve paid good money to see the look you just put on his face.” The two women giggled and high-fived each other.
“That was awesome!” Tia enthused.
I turned back to my new, brain-damaged neighbor and smiled, really letting the crazy I’d had pent up just roll on out like red carpet celebrities at the Oscars.
“Stop on by if you need to borrow a cup of sugar… or some salt.”
I sashayed away, not looking back, heading at a deliberately slow pace for my front door, Bette and Darla in my wake, whispering back and forth furiously to each other.
Oh God that felt good!
I should threaten to shoot people more often. It was one hell of a rush.
Maybe I’d try bungee jumping or sky-diving next?
As I came up on the stairs there came a low, lecherous whistle from Raphael’s direction. I didn’t acknowledge it, or look back… but I did swing my ass just a little as I strutted up the front steps to my porch, and then went inside.
***
My house was dark and cool, and I led the way back to my kitchen. I suddenly felt like polishing off what was left of the iced tea we’d had for lunch. And maybe I’d call us the Armenian delivery guy and see if he would stop and pick up some ice cream for me, for the proper tip incentive.
“Miss Jones?” Darla said, voice careful. “You don’t have a gun on the wall by your door.”
Bette melted into girlish giggles. “Yeah, but hot stuff out there doesn’t know that.” She gave me a knowing, hard look as she pulled three fresh glasses from my cupboard and started filling them with ice. “And I’m the one with the Remington pump action shotgun loaded with rock-salt.”
“But it’s over her bed,” I crooned.
Darla turned and smiled conspiratorially at Bette. “That’s just where I have mine mounted.”
The two women reached out and touched their fingers together, wiggling them like they were too hot to touch.
I couldn’t believe it. In less than half an afternoon those two had gone from strangers to practically Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
Unbelievable…
Bette leaned in and looked out my side kitchen window, up toward the road.
“What now? Is he trying to cut down my porch pillars now?”
Bette feigned a bored look and then turned back to us, picking up her tea. “It was nothing. Just thought I recognized… a passing car.”
I glared at her, knowing damn well she was lying to me.
But, then again, she was the nosey neighbor who had actual spy gear in her house, keeping tabs and invading her neighbor’s privacy like she was a covert FBI agent.
Good grief… when did my neighbors become the cast of Desperate Housewives?
Thank Bette didn’t have a pool. I’d be up all night wondering who was buried underneath it.
***
After Drew came in to pick up Darla, and she surprised him with her spanking new license—and Bette and I watched as Darla commandeered his shiny monster of a truck and drove them at breakneck speed down the street, Bette smacked me on the ass and headed back on over to her house.
“That was fun,” she cooed as she sauntered up her porch steps. “We should start up a driving school for misunderstood girls!”
I waved her off as she danced into her house, banging the screen door behind her.
I looked over in the direction of my new neighbor’s house. I didn’t see any trace of him, but there was the shining front bumper of what looked like an old muscle car hanging out from his open garage door.
Figured he’d have some shiny, penis shaped sports car.
I spent the rest of the afte
rnoon cleaning my kitchen, the living room, the swamp of a bathroom, and Clive’s litter box.
He glowered down from my bookcase like a displeased Olympian as I scooped out his mess and replaced it all with new, Fresh-Step kitty litter.
Maybe I should invest in one of those self-cleaning litter boxes?
But I’d always been afraid the damn thing would malfunction and I’d find Clive with his little feet caught in it… or worse. Little bloody Clive bits mixed in with the clean litter.
***
That evening I ventured out by myself and did some grocery shopping. My fridge was empty and my cupboards were bare.
Late that night Billy called and told me he and Georgia could model for me the next morning. It was sooner than I’d expected… but then again, I hadn’t actually thought he’d get Georgia to come with him at all.
And then there was Adam, Georgia’s actual boyfriend and Billy’s best friend. No matter how open minded he was—and who knew with the way sexual and personal boundaries were blurring—I didn’t think the guy would take to well to seeing his girlfriend on an erotic romance cover with his best friend, the Big Bad Wolf, drooling all over her.
“Sure,” I said, going along with the flow. I needed the shots, so whatever those two had decided on was fine with me. “About ten thirty? If things go well, we’ll be done before lunch.”
“Sounds good. Georgia said she’d meet me there. So I’ll get there first. That girl would be late for her own funeral.”
I smiled, thanked him and disconnected.
Good. At least my work was going along well.
And if I took some shots of them with Billy’s back to the camera, and accentuated Georgia’s more angular, lovely face, I could always use those pics for another cover.
Chapter 5: Jake
I should have called off or something. I really should’ve—for at least a week.
But I had never called off before. Not when I worked with my dad, not when I owned and ran the shop after he’d passed, and I’d be damned if I’d start doing that kind of thing now. After all, I wasn’t sick, and my transportation worked just fine.