No fucking tonight, I thought, shifting my gaze to the other two windows.
The Ghost Girls were back in their lacy, purple dresses, white stockings and jet black hairs. They stood shoulder to shoulder with their backs to the window. Their dad was hanging up their matching red coats in the hallway closet. Mom wasn’t home yet. She was a secretary, or a lawyer. She didn’t get home until about eleven, stooped over like her briefcase was filled with bricks.
The third window gave me a start. The presence of the pale, golden glow took my brain a full minute to process and even it knew something wasn’t right.
Window two, top row: wasn’t empty. There was movement behind the curtains. There was light!
“Holy shit!”
Cereal bowl abandoned on the glass table next to the terrace doors, I stepped further onto the balcony. My fingers curled around the cool metal railing and I leaned in as far as I could without forgetting my not Cat woman notion and making the lunge over.
But as quickly as all the excitement had started, it sparked in surprise when the light flicked off and there was nothing. My gaze darted from the windows to the glass doors, waiting like an eager little puppy begging someone to throw the fucking ball already.
Nothing happened. The lights remained off. Stillness continued.
My gaze narrowed as I straightened. “All right,” I mumbled to the silence. “You win this round, but tomorrow…”
I let my promise linger into the night as I stepped back into my apartment.
Chapter Two
Gabriel
People were idiots. People on Tuesdays somehow managed to be worse. It was astounding, the number of morons that went through life every day without managing to get themselves killed. Unfortunately for me, they were the ones that always found their way into my shop at the butt crack of dawn, rambling on about things that made my eye twitch and my brain hurt. I’m a mechanic. I don’t give a shit about your rat-looking purse dog’s appointment to the vet to get his anal glands squeezed. It’s not my problem that you waited until Tuesday to get your damn car fixed, or that it overlaps with your rat’s appointment. My job is to make sure your car doesn’t explode one day and kill innocent bystanders. That’s it.
“Ma’am.” The sheer force of my restraint creaked through the clenched lines of my jaw. “Your car will be ready, when it’s ready.”
Even with dark glasses that resembled insect eyes, I could feel the wrath of her squinting. Her little purse dog yipped like a mindless little rodent against her side. I wasn’t sure who I wanted to boot physically out the door more.
“How do you not know?”
The woman had this voice that was a mix between a chirpy bird and a spoiled little girl. It was giving me a migraine.
“Simple. You don’t have an appointment, which means I have two other cars before yours. Second, I have to see what’s wrong with it. Third, I might need to order parts to fix whatever’s wrong with it. Fourth, I have to install it. All of those things take time and my crystal ball is at the shop.”
Over injected lips pursed. “You were recommended,” she stated, like that was somehow my fault. “By a very dear friend whose opinion I value, so I’m going to let your attitude slide. But maybe in the future, if you want to keep customers happy, you might not want be so rude.”
Her stupid little dog gave a yip of confirmation as its owner swirled on her neon pink pumps and flounced through the maze of machines towards the bay doors. I watched her walk away, part of me wondering if I would get karma points taken away, or added, if I killed her.
“Still nothing?”
Grandpa Earl scuffled up next to my hip, his brown eyes fixed on the bright stain of sunshine spilling through the open doors.
I knew what, or rather, whom he was waiting for and my irritation level spiked.
“She’s not coming,” I muttered. “I told you that.”
“She could have changed her mind,” Earl grumbled. “And it’s your fault if she doesn’t come.”
I didn’t have time for that. I had two cars up on their lifts and another waiting to get looked at, plus about two tons of paperwork that needed filing and an apartment that needed unpacking. My grandpa’s latest crush was the least of my concerns.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Ali,” was Earl’s response.
I walked away.
Nope. No patience at all.
Fuck Tuesdays.
“Want me to call Lloyd in?”
Across the garage, wiping the grease off a lug nut, Mac stared back at me with squinty, brown eyes.
I shook my head. “No, it’s only three cars. We can do it. How are you coming along on that jeep?”
Mac shrugged bony shoulders. “All right. Just finished rotating the tires. Going to check the fuel and I’ll be done.”
“Then you take rat lady’s Porsche,” I decided, jerking a thumb over my shoulder to where the shiny, red convertible sat roasting in the sun. “I’ll finish the truck.”
Mac gave me the thumbs up and went back to screwing the bolts into the jeep.
The truck needed more work. It was a full day job and those were the kind I liked. Minor fixes throughout the day got exhausting. But I thrived on single minded focus. It made the day go by quicker. At one point, I was conscious of Mac pulling the Porsche onto the lift in the trench next to mine, but didn’t glance over. I couldn’t even be certain how much time had passed until the clip of hurried feet interrupted my quiet.
If it was that damn woman and her yippy dog, I was going to hit something.
Nevertheless, I hauled myself out of the hole and rose to greet the intruder.
“You!”
Ali blinked behind square, black framed glasses. “I’m pretty sure I introduced myself yesterday,” she stated brazenly. “I’m also pretty sure I didn’t say my name was you.”
What the hell was she doing back? I was certain I had successfully run her off and yet, there she was in her flowy, floral printed dress and sandals. There was a grocery bag hanging from her fingertips and an enormous purse strapped across her chest. What was worse was her hair. I couldn’t tell exactly what color it was, but it was a chaotic mess of brown, dark brown, even darker brown, some strips of possibly red and even hints of gold. I wasn’t sure if it was a dye job gone wrong, or if it was her natural color, but I would have put my money on natural, simply because it made more sense considering how unusual she was.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
She held up the bag. “I’m looking for Earl. I came to bring him these.”
I took the bag because she just kept standing there, holding it out like that was what she expected me to do.
“Eggs?”
“Yup.” She shot a glance around the shop. “Is he here?”
I lowered my arm and the bag. “You brought him eggs?”
Those unwavering eyes found mine. “That and a pet squirrel, but he’s invisible so you can’t see him.”
She said it with such a straight face that, while I knew she was bullshitting, there was a tiny moment of uncertainty.
“Why did you bring him eggs?”
I decided the sane thing to do was ignore the squirrel comment.
“Because he dropped his yesterday,” she stated with a hint of accusation that I wasn’t sure I liked. “Did you know his leg bothers him?”
I scowled at her. “I’ve known the man my entire life. Of course I know.”
“Uh huh.” She folded her arms. “And why doesn’t he have a cane? And why don’t you go to the store? Do you realize how hot it was yesterday? What’s the matter with you?”
Wow. I wasn’t even sure which of those things to address first.
“What?”
“Yesterday,” she said very slowly, like I was an absolute idiot. “Earl walked all the way to the store, with his leg hurting, in one of the hottest days we’ve had in years and you just stayed here, in a nice, air conditioned building. You’re a real asshole, y
ou know that?”
That was the second time she’d called me an asshole and I liked it even less than the first time.
“Okay, you listen here, you—”
My not so nice and colorful series of names I’d invented for her in my head was stalled by Earl’s appearance at the office door and his exclamation of absolute delight at the sight of Ali.
“I knew you would come back!”
Ali snatched the bag out of my hand, shot me a venomous sneer, and then hurried to meet Earl before he started down the steps.
“I brought you eggs,” she told him, holding out the bag. “I wasn’t sure if you still needed them.”
Earl looked absolutely delighted. “Thank you, sweetheart. That was real nice of you. Why don’t you help me make tea and you can tell me why you didn’t come in today.”
I expected her to do the decent thing, to make an apology and an excuse and leave. But if I had learned anything about the odd flurry of crazy that was Ali Eckrich, it was that she was not normal.
“Why don’t we go for dinner?” she offered instead. “I brought my car.”
“Dinner?” Earl perked. “Dinner sounds wonderful. Gabriel, go clean up.”
It was a tossup who was more stunned by the command. Ali and I both exchanged semi horrified glances that went completely ignored by Earl.
“Grandpa, I have work—”
“It’s closing time anyway in half an hour,” the older man stated sharply. “And when a pretty lady asks you to dinner, you don’t say no!”
I glanced at Ali, not because I wanted to see this pretty he was talking about, but because I was more certain than ever that she was the antichrist. I’d barely known her for twenty-four hours and she had managed to push every one of my buttons, and I wasn’t the type of guy who got easily ruffled. But everything about her had my senses going on high alert. And it wasn’t because she was some unbearably beautiful creature that just radiated sexual appeal and magnetism. She was fairly ordinary and possessed the type of features that were mostly hidden behind an array of unkempt hair and bug-eye glasses. However, she did radiate something. I just wasn’t sure what the hell that was. All I knew was that she was colossal pain in the ass and I was better off keeping her away from me.
“She asked you out to dinner,” I said, already turning away.
“And I’m telling you to go clean up!” Earl barked, hobbling his way down the steps.
Grandpa had been a Master Sergeant back in the day, before friendly fire accidentally blew out his leg. The wound had healed and he’d continued on with his duties until retirement. But every year, that leg kept getting worse and worse, and he was too stubborn to use a cane. He claimed it wrecked his street cred with the ladies, but I knew it was pride. I threatened to superglue the thing to his hand while he was sleeping, but he knew I wouldn’t; my mother would kill me. Thirty-five years did not give me the confidence to piss that woman off. Besides, Earl might have been old, but I wasn’t going to intentionally put a blunt weapon in his hand to beat me over the head with.
He reached the bottom landing and straightened all six feet of himself to glower up at me with the confidence of a man who knew he could beat my ass no matter how old he was.
“Do I have to repeat myself?”
Had Earl not raised me after my dad rammed his car into a pole when I was six, I would have told him to forget it. But he was the only father figure I had and I respected the man too much to disobey.
“No,” I muttered.
“Good. Take these with you.”
The carton of eggs were shoved into my hands. My gaze shot over Earl’s head to where Ali stood, watching the exchange with about as much joy as I felt. And in that moment, I realized something; she made me feel young and not in a good way. She made me feel childish and petty. I wanted to stick my tongue out at her and that was just mortifying.
Eggs in hand, I stalked past the two and marched my way upstairs. The eggs were placed in the fridge and I went to wash up and change clothes.
The loft had been my apartment before I moved and I only moved because I got tired of sharing my space with everyone at the garage. As a control freak, I would never dream of leaving my underwear lying about, but what if I did? What if I wanted that option? I couldn’t. But aside from that, I had plans to renovate the place and that involved me not being there when it began. So I had found a place close by and started a life that didn’t involve the shop for the first time in five years. A part of me was ready to move on and start forgetting. But a very large part of me needed to return to what had once given me peace and joy. I wasn’t sure how, but one thing at a time.
Ali and Earl were standing where I’d left them when I made my way back downstairs, freshly showered and dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt. Earl was telling her something that had Ali clutching her stomach and laughing with enough force to make her entire body quiver. She wasn’t even trying to be quiet, or delicate about it. I felt a twitch in my lips as the sound rolled over the garage in waves of delirious delight. Something about her laughter was irrationally contagious and it momentarily charmed me, before I caught myself and sanity prevailed.
“Ah, Gabriel, you’re here.” Earl caught sight of me first. “I was just telling Ali about the time you let Tamara dress you up as a girl for Halloween.”
I hated that story. I hated that no one ever seemed to forget it. You try to do the brotherly thing once and no one ever let you live it down.
“I was a kid,” I muttered in self-defense.
“You were twenty-seven,” Earl corrected without missing a beat.
I refused to be drawn into one of Earl’s little games where he tried to get me to socialize by coaxing me into conversation with people I really didn’t want to talk to. He’d been doing that since I was a kid, inviting random kids over off the street to play with me because I liked being alone. Thankfully, that was during a time when neighbors trusted each other and no police were phoned. By the time I was a teenager, I learned not to tell my grandfather about not having friends. I lied mostly. It wasn’t until high school when I met Mac and Lloyd and the lie became a fact. As a grown man, he was no longer interested in finding friends to keep me company. His job now was to find me a woman, because I refused to. Women were a complication I wasn’t mentally, or emotionally equipped to handle. Ali was definitely the sort I needed to stay away from. Everything about her screamed dangerous, which was ironic considering she looked like a librarian.
I glanced towards the woman in question and caught her already watching me with a look of contemplation that made my apprehension prickle.
“What?”
One corner of her mouth twisted downward in what I could only assume was grudging acceptance.
“Nothing,” she grumbled in a manner that suggested I was just too stupid to understand.
Truth be told, I probably wouldn’t have. The woman made no sense and I was pretty sure half the stuff that came out of her mouth were things that didn’t get filtered properly through her brain, like she blurted out the first thing to pop into her head and be damned the consequences. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. While I appreciated and respected honesty, she always seemed to be laughing at me, not with me.
“Is that all you can say?” she suddenly blurted.
I faltered mid stride. “What?”
She sighed heavily. “Thought so.”
Then she walked away, leaving me staring after her with absolutely no idea of what just happened.
“Do you see why I like her?” Earl stepped up next to me.
“No,” I replied honestly. “She’s insane.”
Earl patted me on the arm. “It’s the crazy ones that are the best to have around. Your grandmother drove me insane and I was married to her for fifty years.”
“Crazy also sets your clothes on fire,” I muttered. “And you better get that insane notion out of your head.”
Earl’s white eyebrows migrated together. “What notion?”
; “The one where you set me up with her. I know what you’re up to.”
“Set up? What? I don’t understand this new age talk.”
“I can find my own women.”
He blinked those big, brown eyes at me. “Are you building one from scratch?” He put his hand up when I started opening my mouth. “I get it. What happened to Regina—?”
The contents of my stomach soured and I felt it working up my chest to pool at the back of my throat.
“Gramps…”
“I know!” He closed a hand around my arm. “It was horrible, but you can’t go on in life like this. What happened to her wasn’t your fault. It’s time, Gabe.” He gave a meaningful squeeze and let go. “Besides, let me let you in on a little secret.” He leaned in close and lowered his voice. “Your stick doesn’t magically get waxed on its own and eventually, you’ll give yourself blisters.”
With those sage words of wisdom, my grandfather hobbled his way out of the shop, leaving me standing there watching after him, torn between wanting to face palm and laugh.
“Hey, you leaving?” Mac poked his head out of the trench, his face smeared with grease.
I sighed. “Yeah, you okay closing up?”
Mac shrugged. He did that a lot. It was his thing, like breathing, or picking his nose. He was a shrugger and it drove Lloyd insane.
“Yeah, no problem.”
I thanked him and stepped out into what felt like a thousand degrees of raw heat. The rubber soles of my work boots sucked at the hot asphalt the entire way to where Ali and Earl stood, like the ground was made of chewing gum. Sweat collected along the back of my neck and slithered down the length of my spine before soaking into my t-shirt. My jeans chaffed parts of me I did not appreciate and the longer I had to squint at the happy, unruffled couple waiting for me, the more certain I was that they weren’t human.
Ali’s car was a late model Camaro in gun metal gray. Just by looking at it, I knew someone had put a great deal of time, money, and trouble into souping her up. Every inch of it was detailed to perfection. The hubcaps were top of the line titanium with a unique sunburst design and the chrome frame gleamed in the harsh light. Her treatment of her car made me like Ali Eckrich just a little bit more.
The Voyeur Next Door Page 3