The Voyeur Next Door

by Airicka Phoenix

  “Why?” I turned back to Tamara. “I mean, are they helping with your costume?”

  “No…” Tamara said slowly. “But they’re like experts, or something. I thought you’d like to get pointers.”

  I eyed the women again and determined just how willing I was to risk my life. I decided not very.

  “You know what?” I turned away from them. “I think I would rather sit over here and figure out how to make your dress without distraction.”

  Tamara stared at me. “It’s okay,” she said at last. “They’re all bitches.”

  “Tam!” Gabriel snapped, head coming up from the phone he’d been dutifully watching.

  Tamara rolled her eyes at me before twisting around to face her brother. “Why are you still here? Go do something manly like build a stage for your adorable sister.”

  Gabriel didn’t seem to be listening anymore. He checked the screen on his phone again. Whatever he was waiting for must not have been there, because he cursed—worse than Tamara—and stuffed the phone into his pocket.

  “What do you want?” he snapped at his sister when she just kept staring at him expectantly.

  “Stage!” she snapped back, waving a thin arm towards the men.

  “This is ridiculous, Tammy!” he growled. “Shouldn’t you guys be doing this? It’s your play!”

  “I am doing something. I’m supervising.”

  Even I couldn’t blame Gabriel when the muscle in his jaw twitched. But I was distracted by the arms he lifted to cross over his chest. The stance was all manly and hot. I was especially thrilled by the hard bulges straining the soft material of his sleeves. He had the type of torso every woman needed as a pillow, an edible one.

  “I’m not doing all the work so you can get the credit,” Gabriel told her. “I’ll help, but you sure as hell are going to pull your weight.”

  “I’m too delicate to build things!” Tamara shot back, looking genuinely horrified.

  “You’re full of shit,” Gabriel said without batting an eyelash. “You’re just lazy.”

  Tamara huffed, but didn’t disagree.

  “Now, you can either help me, or you can help Ali.”

  Was it wrong that I kind of tingled all over when he said my name?

  “Ali,” Tamara muttered.

  “Fine.” Gabriel said. Then he rounded on me. “Make sure she actually does the work and that she doesn’t con you into doing everything.”

  “I don’t know how to sew!” Tamara protested.

  “We’ll be fine,” I assured them both.

  “Well, you have to do something,” Gabriel said. “This is your play and your credit.”

  “I have the hardest job already!” Tamara said. “I have to memorize an entire play and I have to sum up the courage to kiss Tyson Walsha. Do you have any idea how traumatic that is going to be for me?”

  “I’m sure you’ll survive,” Gabriel said without a hint of remorse.

  With all the rage only a teenager could muster, Tamara stomped her foot viciously into the worn linoleum with a snarl.

  “You’re the worst brother ever!”

  She stormed off, shoving several people out of her way in her rush to get to the doors.

  “Well, that was interesting,” I decided.

  Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb. “I don’t have time for this,” he muttered.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, sincerely concerned.

  His response was to fish out his phone and check the screen again.

  “Girlfriend problems?” I guessed, not sure why that was my initial thought.

  “I have a crew coming into the shop in the next week, or so. The guy was supposed to call me with the available dates and I want to grab the soonest one before it’s gone.”

  “What kind of crew?”

  He turned those intense eyes my way. “I’m going to find Tammy,” was his response.

  I watched him leave and stayed where they left me, surrounded by a crowd of people and no desire to watch. So I stood there, seemingly lost without my model to measure.

  “You seem to be having about as much fun as I am,” came a voice from my right.

  I turned to the man smiling down at me from a remarkably charming face. Fine, gold strands gleamed in the dim, dingy basement lighting and reflected in the cobalt blue of his eyes. He was all teeth, straight, blinding teeth that glistened brighter than search and rescue lights at night. He reminded me of a TV anchorman on his day off in jeans and a navy blue polo shirt. He extended a large hand to me.

  “Carl Doray,” he said.

  I accepted his surprisingly soft palm in a brisk handshake. “Ali Eckrich.”

  He let me go after a friendly squeeze. His gaze swept over the room, narrowed with concentration.

  “No idea what we’re supposed to do,” he stated, planting his hands on his hips.

  “Well…” I started cautiously. “It seems to be every feminist’s worst nightmare with women doing the domestic work and the men the hard, manly work.”

  Carl huh’d and nodded his head slowly like that made perfect sense.

  “I guess I should go sit with the women then,” he mused. “I can’t build if my life depended on it.”

  “Can you sew?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Nope, but!” He turned those shimmering blue eyes on me. “I make a mean steak.”

  I chuckled. “So are you a parent?”

  I didn’t want to assume, especially since me and Gabriel weren’t Tamara’s parents and yet we were there.

  “Yeah.” He pointed to a group of teenage girls clustered together by the doors. “My daughter Alyssa dragged me here on my only day off. But since I only get to see her one day a week, I figured why not.”

  “Divorced?” I asked, looking him over again.

  No wedding band, nor was there a faint tan line that there had ever been one. So, either he’d been separated a long time, or he was never married, but had a daughter.

  “Yeah, four years now.” He glanced at me again. “You?”

  “Oh!” I laughed. “No, not married and no kids.”

  He arched a brow. “Sister?”

  “Nope.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Teacher?”

  I shook my head. “But you’re getting close.”

  He ran the tip of his tongue over his upper lip and continued scrutinizing me. “Okay, I like a challenge.” He scratched his chin. “You’re part of an underground smuggling ring.”

  It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “Would I pick teenagers? I mean, have you seen how annoying they are?”

  Carl laughed. “Good point. Okay, so what brings you to a high school musical?”

  “I was asked by my … boss,” I finished lamely, realizing how weird that sounded even to my own ears.

  “Ah! Dating?”

  “Oh God, no!” I blurted a little too loudly. “The guy’s an asshole.” Even if he was smoking hot when he smiled.

  “So, overtime?”

  I squinted. “That is a good question.” I would have to talk to Gabriel about my end of this bargain.

  “You hate the guy. You’re not getting paid. But you’re here…”

  When said like that, I could see how he would be confused.

  “I’m a very giving person,” I decided.

  “Did he at least say please?” Carl wondered.

  I had to really think back on my conversation with Gabriel, and Tamara.

  “No,” I realized. “Or thank you.”

  Carl chuckled. “You really are a nice person.”

  We were still talking when Gabriel returned, a sullen Tamara sulking behind him. He stopped at the sight of Carl and his eyes narrowed.

  “How’s that dress coming along?” he asked me, after casting wary glances at my new companion.

  “Practically finished,” I said with a broad smile.

  Carl made a sound that could have been a laugh, but he was a smart man and kept it locked behind a cough.
>
  “Hi,” he said, getting himself under control. “Carl Doray. You must be the boss.”

  Gabriel gave a stiff nod, like if he flexed his neck muscles too much, his head might snap off.

  “Gabriel.”

  The comfortable atmosphere Carl and I had created with our easy conversation thickened to a tense silence that was made immensely awkward by Gabriel’s accusing glower. I loved that we were back to that. I had almost missed it.

  “So…” Carl cleared his throat. “I should go see where Alyssa wants me.” He turned his head to me. “It was nice to meet you, Ali. We should get together later and compare notes of our day, if you’re up for it?”

  “Oh, possibly, if you promise to bail me out of jail first.”

  Carl laughed and dug into the back pocket of his jeans. He produced a card and passed it to me.

  “Only if you promise to let me take you for coffee afterwards.”

  I accepted the card, amused by his adorableness. “You got it.”

  With a grin to Gabriel, a nod to Tamara, he walked away, leaving me alone with the pair staring at me like I was personally responsible for the internet’s fascination with cat memes.

  “If you’re done picking up guys,” Gabriel began. “We have work to do.”

  “I wasn’t picking up guys,” I muttered, stuffing the card into the side pocket of my purse. “We were talking.”

  Gabriel twisted his head over his shoulder and peered out in the direction Carl had gone. I followed his gaze and found Carl already looking our way. He smiled and waved. I waved back, because that was what you did when someone you knew waved.

  “Yeah, talking,” Gabriel bit out. “Looks to me like he has more on his mind than just talking.”

  “And if he did?” I retorted, feeling my own annoyance flaring. “I don’t have to explain my personal life to you, Jack.”

  Cutting gray eyes pivoted around and zeroed in on me with the force of twin laser beams. Toned arms lifted and crossed over a broad chest.

  “I brought you here to help my sister, not get a date.”

  “I am perfectly capable of doing both,” I countered. “It’s called multitasking, and if I want to go out with Carl—” Which I totally didn’t. “—I’ll go out with him.”

  It wasn’t going to happen. Carl was nice, but that was the problem. He was nice, a lot like Tony and that was a mistake I was not going to make again. Plus, he had a teenage daughter. While I had nothing against a man with children, teenagers were like a bad case of hemorrhoids—mildly amusing when they were someone else’s problem, but not something I wanted personally.

  “That’s Alyssa Doray’s dad,” Tamara stated in a slow, clearly disgusted, tone. “She’s the biggest whore in the school.”

  “That’s not nice,” I said.

  “No, it really isn’t,” Tamara agreed, but I had a feeling we weren’t talking about the same thing.

  “Language,” Gabriel said absently to his sister while still squinting at me with those judgy, disapproving eyes.

  I stared back, determined to win.

  I did. He averted his gaze first and I mentally high fived myself on the minor victory.

  “I’ll be over there,” he said in a half growl, half grumble.

  With that, he stalked off to join the men and I watched him with a building sense of frustration. I just did not understand that man.

  “He’s not really a jerk,” Tamara said, reminding me she was still there. “He just likes to act like one.”

  “Oh well, we all have dreams.”

  “He’s been through stuff,” Tamara went on, giving me that unwavering look that made me think she was trying to telepathically feed me information.

  “What kind of stuff?” I wondered, because apparently our telepathic link was broken.

  She shrugged. “I can’t tell you if he hasn’t already, but just give him time. He’ll come around.”

  I started to tell her I didn’t care if he came around, but opted against it. Truthfully, I kind of wanted to see this non-jerk Gabriel, kind of the way I wanted to see a flying unicorn.

  But I turned my attention away from the impossible and focused on the task at hand. I had never sewn an outfit, but I knew how to follow instructions and, really, how hard could it be?

  “Okay, why don’t we sit down and try to at least draw something close to what you like,” I decided. “Then we’ll—”

  I was interrupted by the sickening crunch of shattering bones and the howl of pain. The outburst seemed to be the only sound ripping through the room as all other conversation screeched to a halt and heads swiveled in the direction of the crowd clustered a mere few feet away.

  I recognized Carl in his blue polo and jeans. What took me a moment longer to understand was why he was huddled on the floor, clutching at his face.

  Blood streamed past his chin and through his fingers in a thick, crimson gush. It rained down the front of his shirt and pooled across the white floor. His face was white with pain and shock and he seemed incapable of catching his breath. Others were rushing to help him, but my gaze had moved past the blond to where Gabriel stood, barely a foot from Carl, a wide plank tucked against his side. He watched the scene with a frighteningly calm expression and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what had happened.

  Horror propelled me over to him.

  “Did you hit him?” I hissed, careful to keep my voice down.

  Calm, gray eyes rolled down to me. “He walked into it.”

  “Are you…” I couldn’t even finish that sentence. My anger and disbelief were suffocating. “What is the matter with you?”

  He adjusted the wooden beam more firmly in his grasp. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.” But as he walked away, I could have sworn I heard him mutter, “Get that coffee now, asshole.”

  Chapter Six

  Gabriel

  “Gabe hit one of the parents at the school yesterday.”

  Sitting straight across from me at the dinner table clad in her self-expression, Tammy leered at me with a sadistic sort of pleasure, the way I suspected the Grinch would have while he stood on the mountain side and watched as the Whos woke up to find their shit gone.

  Our mother, a bird-like creature with delicate features and a panache for over exaggerating a situation, immediately went on alert. Her gray eyes widened until I was sure her eyeballs would drop into her shrimp salad.

  “Gabriel?”

  “I didn’t hit him,” I assured her.

  “He did,” Tammy insisted. “There was blood everywhere.”

  Now Mom looked simply horrified. The tacky knot of wood Jonas had given her as a ring on their wedding day contrasted against the pale skin of her fingers when she gasped behind her hand.

  “Gabriel!”

  “I didn’t hit him!” I protested, louder. “We went for the same board and I reached it first.”

  “So you hit him?” Mom cried.

  “I didn’t—”

  “He asked Ali out,” Tammy kindly assisted. “Gabe was pissed.”

  Mom blinked. “Who’s Ali?”

  “Who asked Ali out?” Earl jumped in from the seat next to Tammy.

  “Mr. Doray,” Tammy said. “He gave Ali his card and said—”

  “That wasn’t why I hit him,” I snapped, inwardly cringing at the spark of light glistening in Earl’s watery gaze.

  Mom caught on to my slip up like a shark on an injured scuba diver. “So you did hit him.”

  “Told you.” Tammy smirked.

  There were nineteen years between Tammy and I. I was already in college when Mom and Jonas found out they were expecting. Yet, despite the years between us, we had always been fairly close, except on days like when I wanted to reach across the table and strangle her.

  “It was barely a tap,” I said to Mom. “It was an accident.”

  Tammy snickered. “Oh, but you should have heard Alyssa. She was hysterical!” Her sniggering grew into spine-chilling cackles. “Daddy! Da
ddy!” she mocked, laughing harder. “It was awesome.”

  I stared at my sister in absolute astonishment. “There are days I wonder if we shouldn’t get you institutionalized.”

  Tammy snorted. “So I get pleasure from other people’s pain. Sue me.”

  “Tam, we don’t laugh at other people’s pain,” Jonas embarked in his breathy whisper. “We must respect others and their feelings. Gabriel, we should never use our fists to resolve conflict.”

  Jonas would have been a big hit in the sixties when free love and pot were rampant. He was all about feelings and embracing one’s own positive energy. In short, he was a hippie nerd with organic sweaters and a zen attitude. Yet somehow, he made my mother happy so I put up with him.

  “I used a board,” I said.

  “Come on, Dad,” Tammy cut in. “You have to admit it’s kind of funny.”

  Jonas opened his abnormally large mouth to answer, but Mom was still stewing on her earlier question.

  “Who’s Ali?”

  “Gabe’s girlfriend,” Tammy supplied helpfully.

  “What?” Mom’s head snapped around to me. “You have a girlfriend?”

  “She’s not my girlfriend. I barely like her.”

  “Which I personally don’t understand,” Earl piped in. “She is amazing. The sweetest little thing I have met in a long time.”

  “I like her,” Tammy agreed. “She’s funny.”

  “Well, you’re old and you’re crazy,” I said to the two across from me. “Neither of your opinions count.”

  “Don’t flatter me,” Tammy said with a grin.

  “I want to meet her,” Mom decided.

  “Why?” I blurted. “I told you, she’s not—”

  “Well, everyone else has met her,” Mom protested with a slight pucker in her bottom lip.

  “I’ll bring her next Sunday,” Earl said. “You will love her, Lydia,” he promised Mom. “She’s a doll.”

  My phone chirped in my pocket, sending my knee crashing into the underside of the table when I jumped. Everyone at the table jumped with me in surprise. Mom lost her fork with a resounding clang when it hit the side of her salad bowl.