The Voyeur Next Door

by Airicka Phoenix

  “Hi again!” Carl Doray smiled brightly at me around the twin black eyes and busted nose wrapped in thick, white tape. “This place isn’t easy to find.”

  It clearly hadn’t been hard enough, I thought to myself.

  “Is there something I can do for you?” I asked, unable to keep my contempt at bay.

  “I’m actually here to see Ali, if that’s all right?”

  No, I wanted to tell him. It wasn’t all right.

  “Ali!” I called up, never taking my eyes off the asshole.

  Carl just kept on grinning. It made me want to hit him again.

  Ali appeared at the top of the stairs.

  “Yes?” She spotted Carl and gave a visible start of surprise. It made me feel a little better that she hadn’t actually invited the douchebag. “Carl?”

  “Hello!” he said, moving towards the stairs.

  Ali started down towards him. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

  Carl chuckled. “Trust me, it wasn’t easy. But Alyssa knows your sister,” he said with a glance at Gabriel. “I did a Google search after that.”

  “You Googled me?” I said, annoyed.

  The man shrugged. “Well, Ali mentioned she worked for you and Alyssa may have mentioned you owned an auto body shop. The rest wasn’t very hard.”

  I wasn’t sure why, but I had an overpowering urge to punch him in the mouth. Maybe it was the smug little grin on his face whenever he looked at Ali, like he was expecting her to pat him on the head and tell him what a good boy he was.

  “Was there something you needed?” Ali asked, before I could follow through on my urges.

  “Actually…” Carl edged a step too close to Ali and lowered his voice. “I was hoping you’d have lunch with me. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  Ali frowned. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes! Yes, of course, I just want to discuss something. It will be very quick.”

  Ali checked her watch. “The shop closes at one for lunch. That’s in ten minutes.”

  Carl gave an enthusiastic bob of his head. “Great. I know just the place. I’ll wait outside.”

  He walked out and silence descended on the shop. I watched Ali, who watched Carl walk away, and wondered if it was murder if they never found a body.

  “Are you really going to have lunch with that tool?” I demanded.

  Ali turned her head towards me and pursed her lips. “Are you going to hit him again if I say yes?”

  “Possibly,” I muttered.

  “It’s only lunch,” she said. “I promise not to elope with him, although, if he gets me a donut, I might consider it.”

  With that, she left me glowering at her back as she hurried upstairs.

  “Was that your handiwork?” Lloyd cut into my frustration with his amused question.

  “He walked into it,” I mumbled, stomping back to the drill bits I’d been cleaning.

  Ten minute later, Ali jogged down again, purse in tow and hurried out of the shop without a word to anyone.

  Lloyd closed the doors and put up the signing telling people we’d open again in an hour. Then he left me alone to stare at the door and wonder what the hell was so important Doray had to take her to lunch to discuss. The bastard was probably going to try and weasel a date out of her.

  Realistically, it really shouldn’t have bothered me half as much as it did. But it infuriated me, which surprised me since I wasn’t the jealous type. Regina had slept with other men while we were in the club scene, a fact I hadn’t been aware of until she left. What had bothered me most was the fact that I hadn’t been surprised. I had known from the moment I met Regina that she wouldn’t be satisfied with only me. She was just too wild, too unpredictable. Nothing anyone ever did was ever enough. It hadn’t mattered to her that we had been together for ten years.

  But maybe a lot of that was my fault. I wasn’t the right person to Master her. Not because I wasn’t strong enough, but because I hadn’t cared. I had used her for my own personal needs as much as she had used me and at the time, that had been enough. At the time, it had all been about fucking. Lots of fucking, fun and exploration. It was why when Regina started sleeping with Lloyd and Mac, it hadn’t fazed me. It had just been another fucked up aspect of our relationship. But with Ali, I knew without a doubt that I would knock my friends out cold if they went after her.

  That feeling alone was enough reason to keep Ali at arm’s length.

  She returned promptly an hour later. I was opening the doors when she hurried up the driveway and ducked inside. She said nothing to me, nor did she make eye contact as she walked to the stairs.

  “How’d lunch go?” I called after her.

  “Fine,” she called back over her shoulder.

  “What was so important he had to cyberstalk you?”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “Nothing. He just wanted to know if I would have his baby.”

  My rolling anger propelled me after her.

  “What?”

  She stopped on the third step and pivoted around to face me.

  “I said no, clearly. I haven’t worked here long enough to qualify for maternity leave. But I assured him we could at least practice. He’s going to come by my place later.”

  She was lying. I knew she was. Her flippant tone was evidence of it. Yet the anger I felt rising up in me wasn’t aimed at her, or even that dickhead. I was pissed at myself. My behavior was one expected of some hormonal teenager trying to prove his dominance over a girl. I was too old for that shit. Aside from that, I had Aoife to think about. I hadn’t been joking when I told her there would be no one else. I wasn’t made like that. I wasn’t the type of man who needed more than one woman to satisfy him. What I had with Aoife was enough. I didn’t want anything else and Ali was the type of woman who deserved more.

  With a disgusted shake of my head, I turned away just as Lloyd ambled his way down from the loft. He mumbled something to Ali that sounded like excuse me, then he was standing next to me.

  “I’m going to cut out early today,” he said. “Got some things to take care of and since it’s a dead day…”

  I just nodded and realized too late that meant I would be alone with Ali for the next five hours. But Lloyd was already heading out the doors and there was no way to stop him.

  Ali stayed up in the office for the remainder of the evening. Because of that, I made sure I stayed in the shop, mindlessly tinkering and cleaning while counting down the minutes until six o’clock.

  At five thirty, she came down. Part of me hoped she was about to tell me she wanted to leave early and I was all prepared to let her when she stopped a distracting three feet away and peered at me levelly.

  “What does your mother like?”

  I wasn’t expecting that at all.

  “What?”

  She shrugged and folded her arms around her midsection. “For Sunday,” she stated. “I don’t want to go there empty handed and I don’t know your mother so I thought I would take something she would like.”

  I had to really think about that. After my father’s death, Mom had more or less checked out, leaving me parentless. So I didn’t know overly much about her, except that she had a flare for over dramatization, something Tammy had acquired over the years. That and the fact that neither parent gave her any real sort of boundaries and gave in quickly when they did.

  “Does she like wine?” Ali suggested.

  I thought about that a moment. Jonas wasn’t a fan of alcohol, but Mom did occasionally drink the stuff.

  “Yeah,” I said at last.

  “What kind?”

  “Red?” I thought.

  Ali nodded. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

  I had hoped she would leave once I’d answered her question. She started to turn away only to stop and turn back.

  “It wasn’t anything important,” she murmured, staring down at our feet. “Lunch with Carl, I mean. His company is looking for a marketing team an
d thought I would be interested.”

  I hated that she thought she had to explain herself. I hated it even more that I was relieved she had.

  “What did you say?”

  Her shoulders lifted with her deep inhalation. “I said thank you, but no. I had a job and I wasn’t interested.”

  I couldn’t help myself; I turned to fully face her. That single gesture brought us a full foot closer.

  “Why?”

  Her head tilted back so I could see my own reflection in her glasses, but see nothing of her eyes. It only made me hate the damn things all the more.

  “Because if I had accepted, I would have had to move to San Francisco.”

  Whatever her reasons were for wanting to stay, I couldn’t lie, I was grateful to them.

  “That’s strange,” I mused. “Him wanting to move you all the way out there when he’s here.”

  Ali wrinkled her nose. “It wouldn’t have mattered. I’m not interested.”

  “In San Francisco?” I hedged.

  “Carl,” she said with a slight chuckle. “He’s nice, but not who I want.”

  Something tightened inside me at the quiet implication that hung between us. I wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but I couldn’t help wondering—partially hoping—she meant me, while at the same time, hoping she didn’t. The complexity of our nonexistent relationship was becoming a headache.

  “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you decided to stay,” I murmured.

  A smile bloomed across her face that pulled all my attention to her mouth.

  “Yeah?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.” I offered her a lopsided grin. “No one else knows that filing system the way you do.”

  Her laugh made me chuckle.

  “I’m glad I could be of service.” She sobered and eyed me. “It’s almost six. I should get ready.”

  I felt my eyes narrow at how insistent she always was to leave at six.

  “What happens at six, Ali?” I asked, as I had previously in the past.

  Her grin, if I had to put a name to it, was seductive and almost playful. The tip of her tongue traced the upper curve of her lip and I nearly groaned.

  “I don’t think you could handle it, Jack,” she purred in a tone someone with glasses should never possess unless they were playing a naughty teacher in some dirty porno fantasy.

  Then she whirled on her heels and strolled away without a backwards glance.

  Damn if that right there didn’t drive me about eight more inches deeper into the mess that was my feelings for Alison Eckrich.

  She left exactly at six. She shot me a quick wave before disappearing out the doors, leaving me completely alone to close up. The process wasn’t a long one, but it was tedious, especially when all I wanted to do was go home, eat, shower, and wait for Aoife to call.

  I closed and locked all the doors before making my way to the office. The day had been unusually uneventful so the process of cashing out was fairly simple. I was tallying up the zero sales we’d had that day when my phone chirped. I fished it out of my pocket and crammed it against my ear.

  “Madoc.”

  “Yeah, this is Jeff Nelson. I emailed you about the work you wanted done? I’m just calling to confirm our appointment tomorrow.”

  I blinked. “Tomorrow?”

  “You said you wanted something right away. Tomorrow is the earliest available opening we have. Otherwise, you’re looking at some time in October.”

  “Tomorrow’s fine,” I said quickly. “I’ll have to call my crew and let them know. What time will you be here?”

  “We start at eight, take an hour lunch about around noon and leave at six.”

  I inwardly swore. That was a whole day, which meant closing the shop entirely until the job was done.

  “How long?”

  Nelson paused. I wasn’t sure if he was checking his papers, or trying to guess a timeframe, but he was quiet for nearly five minutes.

  “I’d say a week, maybe two. It all depends on how much work you want done. From what I have here in front of me, you want to convert two sets of stairs into ramps and replace a stone wall with glass, is that correct?”

  I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “Yes.”

  “I’ll have about five men with me, not including me. We don’t work weekends, but we can push to get it done in two weeks at the most.”

  Two weeks of having the shop closed would burn a fat hole in our budget, but it was a risk I was willing to take.

  “I’ll see you in the morning,” I told Nelson and hung up.

  No sooner had I set the phone down, when it sprung to life again. For a moment, I thought Nelson had more to say, but it was Tammy’s face grinning up at me from the flashing screen.

  “Tam?”

  “I need you to come over. Like now!”

  I frowned at my sister’s broken voice, my body already pushing to my feet. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t handle this anymore, Gabe. They’re driving me crazy!”

  “Who?”

  I shoved the papers into the drawer, made a mental note to finish closing in the morning, and grabbed my keys.

  “Mom and Dad!” Tammy wailed. “They’re being unreasonable and I’m ready to kill them.”

  I checked my watch. “Can you hold off on that for an hour? I promise I’ll be there, but I have something that I have to do at home first.”

  Tammy sniffled. “Okay, but hurry!”

  Normally, I didn’t get involved in fights between Tammy, Mom, and Jonas. Their arguments were legendary and never really got resolved. It was a lot of screaming and crying from Tam, anxious fretting from Mom, and pacifying garbage from Jonas. None of which ever bothered to give an inch. But Tam rarely called me in a state of tears and if there was one thing I hated, it was hearing my sister crying. I knew she was spoiled and lazy, but she was still my baby sister.

  Closing shop, I headed home to shower and wait for Aoife to call. I didn’t bother eating. I knew my mom would force me to eat there and she’d get upset if I didn’t. Instead, I nibbled on a couple of slices of cheese and watched the phone.

  It rang at exactly seven.

  “Hey,” I said, picking up on the first ring.

  “Hi!” She sounded surprised, but amused. “I’m all ready.”

  I grimaced and inwardly swore. “I can’t tonight,” I told her softly. “I have a family thing that needs my attention, but I promise we will tomorrow.”

  “Oh, is everything okay?”

  I exhaled. “Yeah, it’s nothing serious, but I promised I would be there.”

  “Oh, well, that’s okay. We’ll talk tomorrow. I hope everything turns out tonight.”

  “Aoife…” I broke off, having no idea what I wanted to say. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, Q.”

  She hung up.

  I dropped the phone down on the sofa, grabbed my keys and stalked out of the apartment.

  My mom’s house sat between two enormous oak trees that had been there since before man populated the earth—I was assuming. They loomed over the squat little two story structure with their gnarled branches and shivering leaves. As a kid, I would try to climb as high as I possibly could before Earl would hurry out and tell me to get my ass back on the ground. After falling out when I was eight and breaking my arm, I never did it again.

  The front door was unlocked and I walked in, not that I needed to be inside to hear the chaos.

  Mom and Tammy seemed to be competing to see who could reason with the other loudest. Occasionally, I could hear Jonas trying to intervene with ridiculous things like, okay, let’s calm down a minute. But it was clearly not working.

  I stalked into the kitchen and without missing a beat, I cleared my throat.

  Everyone in the room immediately ceased fire. All eyes snapped in my direction and I crossed my arms.

  “What the hell is going on here?” I demanded. “I can hear you guys from down the block.” I put my hand up when both Mom and Tammy
opened their mouths. “Stop. Tam, sit down. Mom, what happened?”

  “Why does she get to go first?” Tammy retorted, but dropped her butt into a chair at the table.

  “Because I said so!” I said back, shooting her a look that said clearly not to push it.

  “Your sister wants to go camping with a bunch of boys that don’t even go to her school,” Mom said.

  “They’re not a…” Tammy broke off when I narrowed my eyes at her.

  “I said no. You’re only sixteen years old and I’m not letting you go traipsing through the wilderness with people I don’t know.”

  Tammy opened her mouth, caught my eye, and quickly snapped it shut.

  “I agree with Mom,” I said.

  Tammy’s jaw dropped and her eyes bulged. “What? You haven’t even heard the whole story!”

  “Okay, who are these guys?”

  “They’re not guys,” Tammy said. “I’ve known them forever, and it won’t be just them. Chelsea, Diane, and Casey will be going, too. So I won’t be alone and it’s only for like the one weekend.”

  “No,” I said evenly. “You’re not going.”

  “What the fuck!” Tammy raged, leaping to her feet. “You’re supposed to be on my side!”

  “Language!” I snapped back. “And I’m on the side of your safety. I don’t care how long you’ve supposedly known these guys, you’re not going out to the middle of nowhere with them.”

  “That’s bullshit!” Cheeks flushed, eyes shining, Tammy glared at everyone in the room once before storming to the door. “I hate all of you!”

  No one spoke as we listened to the thundering of Tammy’s boots on the stairs. Then the deafening bang of her door slamming shut.

  “Thank you, Gabriel,” Mom said softly, slumping wearily into her chair. “It doesn’t seem to matter what I do, I am always the bad guy.”

  Jonas rose out of his seat and went over to her. Only to stand behind her and settle his hands on her shoulders.

  “It will get better,” he assured her. “We just need to show a united front.”

  I wanted to ask where his united front was before I arrived, but I decided not to. Mom had enough on her plate.

  “I’m sorry you were brought into this,” Mom said to me. “But I’m glad you’re here.” She shoved out of her chair. “Supper will be ready in a moment.”