by Candi Heart
Chapter 8
I HAD STRANGE DREAMS that night, even stranger than usual. This time, my fantasy guy was in the starring role, offering me plate after plate of purple food. I accepted each one, after Dick silently approved them, and that put a pleased smile on the guy’s gorgeous face.
Then, though, his girlfriend ran me over with his car.
I jerked awake, clutching my chest while simultaneously checking my legs for broken bones with my other hand. On the other side of the bed, Dick looked at me disapprovingly before rolling over and falling back to sleep.
“Sorry, boy,” I said in a pant. “False alarm.”
It was Saturday, so I had nothing on the agenda. I had no dogs to walk and nothing else in the world to do, other than wander out at some point to buy a coffee bean refill for my kitchen canister.
Perfect. Now maybe I can get to know my neighbors.
With a gleeful grin on my face, inspired by the close proximity of a sports car and the thrill of a new batch of caffeination in my house, I leapt out of bed, pulled on my robe, and hurried down the hall to unpack another disgusting diet MRE for breakfast. This one wasn’t as simple as the first, as it actually required instructions beyond “Nuke this for sixty seconds and pray it doesn’t kill you.” I muttered the directions out loud as I read them from the label: “Peel back plastic seal and add two teaspoons of skim milk. Seriously? Milk?” I complained, and then opened the fridge to do as I was asked. “Cooking for one. What a slap in the face.”
I knew most of those programs were designed to teach healthy cooking for two, as they usually assumed at least one person in the world loved dieters enough to eat color-coded food with them. Eating less than 1,000 calories three times a week was no picnic, and my misery sure would have loved some company. My program just caved in to the assumption that we were so far gone that we might as well embrace our inevitable singleness. It was bad enough having to eat alone, but that assumption made it even worse.
“Sorry again, Dick.” I repented my silent thought immediately, rubbing his multicolored fur as I poured a breakfast serving of Kibbles into his bowl. “I don’t really eat alone, do I? I’ve always got you.”
Dick nodded once, as if to let me know I was quite right about that.
The horror that was breakfast was over in seconds, just three big, beige bites of mystery nutrition that looked nothing like the culinary creation on the picture on the box. I gulped it down as fast as I could, then ran back to my bedroom to get dressed.
No one had lived in the house next door since the Huxley family moved out over a year earlier. Now it was occupied, to the best of my knowledge, by a couple who looked like they’d stepped right out of Hollywood. I had no idea why someone would leave the red carpet to move into my neighborhood, but it was time to do a little sleuthing to figure that out. Curiosity might kill the cat, but maybe it’ll help be burn off a few calories, I decided as I quickly shoved myself into the first ensemble I found.
Ten minutes later, I was dressed, my face was painted enough, and I was sashaying innocently into my backyard. Dick was thrilled beyond words to be let out so early, and he made a convenient excuse; I pretended to keep an eye on him as I discreetly peered through the slats in the fence.
Mysterious inhabitants aside, I had always loved the house next door, mostly because of its huge, floor-to-ceiling windows. That little amenity automatically upped the class of the property and simultaneously managed to snag every ray of sunlight. Those peek-throughs also happened to be perfect for neighbors like me, the occasional peeping Tom.
As Dick ran in happy little circles around the yard, I inched closer, glancing over my shoulder with a theatrical stretch of my arms so I could see inside. I knew I was in luck when I spotted someone moving about in the kitchen. Okay, so that’s how someone’s supposed to look in spandex, I thought as I took in the sight of her.
My eyes widened ever so slightly, and then my shoulders dropped as I let out a frustrated sigh. It was bad enough being assaulted by images of all those sexy, perfect women in magazines and on all the billboards that adorned our fair city, but now I had to live next door to one, one who was gorgeous even without all the airbrushing and Photoshopping. I knew I was in for some kind of complex, if I wasn’t cursed with one already.
She really was perfect, with that blonde hair, statuesque frame, and wide, blue eyes that seemed to set off little sparks when she talked. Every inch of her, from her hair to the tips of her pedicure, was perfect. Her only flaw was her temper.
Once again, that lovely face was contorted with absolute rage, and she was shouting at the top of her lungs about something, uttering words that I couldn’t hear but knew had to be full of poison and venom, most of them consisting of four letters.
I leaned forward in fascination, baffled that I had actually stumbled upon such drama so early in the morning. Part of me felt instantly guilty, and I was ready to run back inside and vow that I would forever mind my own business. The other part, though, couldn’t help but stare in morbid fascination.
“This is not what you said it would be like! This is a lot smaller!”
With the grace and skill of someone who had spent a large portion of her life watching TV crime shows, I crept closer to the fence and peered through with wide, unblinking eyes. I’d be shouting, too, if I was drinking that slop, I thought, wrinkling my nose up at her green smoothie, which looked even less appetizing than the colorless goop I’d slurped down earlier. I had never gotten onboard with the green smoothie trend; I didn’t see why anyone would want to drink something that looked like a blend of crayon and random bits of the front yard. What the heck is wheatgrass anyway... and should people be eating it? Isn’t that just for giraffes? I stifled my gag reflex the best I could and craned my neck even closer, sinking into a knee-cracking crouch as I strained to listen.
The girl didn’t make that very difficult, as she seemed to have no volume button on her rants. Her ice-blue eyes were fixed on someone just beyond my line of sight, and the glass of green slop shook in her hand—spilling bits of swampy sludge every time her voice rose above a certain decibel.
“...didn’t even ask me! You didn’t say one word! And I’m pissed!”
Wow! What a shrill banshee shriek she’s got. At this rate, I coulda done my eavesdropping from inside. Maybe in the future, I will, I thought, almost chuckling at the thought of me spying on the neighbors in my PJs, with Dick looking at me in bewildered sarcasm.
A lower voice then wafted into the mix, a much deeper, quieter, calmer voice than the raging scream queen’s. In fact, it was so soft, so quiet that I couldn’t even make out the words he said. He was also still out of sight, standing far enough away and at an angle that prevented me from seeing him.
Whatever he said, she didn’t want to hear it. Her face screwed up in defiance, somehow converting from a thing of beauty to a wrinkled, decaying jack-o-lantern as she gestured blindly outside. “And just how am I supposed to do that?!” she demanded. “Precisely how do you expect me to do anything from here, the middle of nowhere? Why did you bring me to this awful place?”
Finally, his patience wore thin. His voice rose, and his unfiltered words floated out the open window, right into my ears. “For goodness sake, Steph, give the place a chance. We’ve only been here two days, and you—”
“Two days is right! Two days in this hellish Mayberry, and already, you’ve brought a disgusting creature into our house! He smells!”
Disgusting creature? But why—
“No, it’s your attitude that smells,” he said, then strode forward. He stood right in front of the window, framed in perfection, like some piece of precious artwork that even Da Vinci or Picasso couldn’t rival. “For goodness sake, Stephanie. I’m not going to keep having this same argument with you again and again.” He ran his hands back through his hair and let out a loud, tired sigh.
He continued talking, a fact I knew because his mouth was moving, but I really couldn’t tell what he was saying. A
t that very moment, standing there like a Greek god, with no shirt to hide his glory from me, I could only think one thing: I’m sorry, but did the world just stop? Rotate the wrong way on its axis? How is it possible that a guy who looks like that now lives next door to me?
Before I knew what I was doing, I heard the snap of my phone camera. I was unknowingly holding the gadget up to the slat in the fence with all the shameless transparency of a 13-year-old fangirl at a Bieber concert. Not for me. It’s to show my bestie, Nathaniel, I tried to tell myself, conjuring up a practical and pathetic excuse. I have to prove I didn’t make the whole thing up, right? I have to have photographic evidence that such a man really does exist... and that he’s now my next-door neighbor! Talk about a beautiful day in the neighborhood!
“...only thing that could explain our sudden exodus to the city!” the girl continued shouting, making no effort whatsoever to even attempt to lower her voice. While the temper was clearly hers, all the tempering seemed to fall squarely on his gloriously defined shoulders, but he seemed to have a hard time dealing with it, and I really couldn’t blame him. I didn’t even know her, but I wanted to throw her smoothie blender at her or shove her into it face first just to shut her up.
“You know what, Matt? This is it. I’m not staying here a second longer than I—”
Finally, he reached his breaking point. With a lot more patience than I would have displayed in the throes of such a childish tirade, he crossed the kitchen and took her by the hands. “Please?” he said in a breathy, throaty moan, lifting his eyebrow seductively.
It was one single word, but it packed quite a punch. Whether she wanted it to or not, it changed the entire tone of the argument, calming and cooling her down, like cold water on a hot flame. Ironically, it somehow also melted my heart.
“Please give this a chance.” He stared deeply into her eyes, his brimming with sincerity even as she did her very best to glare back. “I’m not asking you to make this permanent. I just... I need a little time.”
She said nothing.
“Steph, please?” he tried again.
“Yes,” I whispered, even though my name had never been Stephanie.
She stared at him for another second before setting her smoothie down in disgust, spilling a nasty green splotch out on their counter. A second later, she knocked past him on her way out to the door. “I’m going for a run.”
A run? Great. Spandex, power-walking, and green smoothies. I bet she eats tofu and hummus and only buys organic bananas in recycled paper bags too. Gosh, if I’m not careful, she and Nathaniel are going to become best friends.
My hot neighbor flinched slightly as she brushed past him, but he did his best to retain his smile. “That’s great. You’ll see a little more of our new neighborhood,” he said, then took a step closer to her with the smallest bit of hope flickering in his eyes. “Mind if I come along? We can—”
“Your new neighborhood, not mine,” she snapped before she slammed the door in his face, putting an end to their conversation.
A new, stronger wave of guilt swelled in me, and I took a step away from the fence. Spying on the neighbors was a longstanding Riverwood tradition, but I didn’t expect to witness anything so personal, so angry, and they were still strangers at that. If I had known beforehand what I was going to see, I wouldn’t have come out here, I tried to tell myself, as much of a fib as it was. Even Dick yawned and shook his head when I thought that, as if he knew I was lying to myself. The fact that I’d stayed there to hear the whole argument made me feel worse, and the judgmental look on my dog’s face didn’t help.
“Come on, Dick,” I said quietly. “Let’s go back inside.”
I snapped my fingers and turned around to beckon my loyal cocker spaniel, but at that moment, everything went very, very wrong, courtesy of another Riverwood resident. When that bushy-tailed squirrel scurried into our yard to capture a stray walnut from a nearby tree, Richard Masterson Woodrow III remembered that he was a dog after all.
Chapter 9
GREAT. SEE DICK RUN, I mused, recalling those silly books I read as a little girl, though there was nothing at all funny about my current pre-Dick-ament. “Dick, no!” I shouted.
Unfortunately, it was too late. Hundreds of years of predator instinct kicked in, and in just three powerful bounds, my trusted business associate had leapt straight through a hole in the fence.
For a second, all I could do was stand there, utterly stunned. I couldn’t believe how quickly it all happened.
The next instinct to kick in was my survival one. I couldn’t just stand idly by and watch my pet get hit by a car or anything, like that unlucky pup I’d seen get hit a few days before. In a blur, I scrambled to follow him. “Dick, get back here!” I hissed as I dragged over a giant flower pot, stood on it, and used it to hoist my leg over the top of the fence, which wasn’t the easiest task. “I’m not gonna ask you again, boy! Dick! You know I can’t fit through that hole in the fence!”
Perched on top of the fence like an ungainly house cat, I simultaneously screamed and whispered in desperation. I looked just like one of those naughty stray animals, the kind who managed to get into unlikely places but couldn’t manage to get down.
My eyes flickered toward the kitchen next door, but there was no sign of the mystery man, and the loudmouth was already out running off her nasty slime smoothie somewhere. I knew that any second, he was going to walk out to see what was going on, and I didn’t want him to find me like that, precariously bobbling atop the fence that divided our properties.
“Dick, it’s just a squirrel, you dumb dog. Get over here this instant!”
The threat in my voice did nothing. Dick was typically quite obedient, but for perhaps the first time since I’d made him my own, he couldn’t care less what I had to say. He had cornered the poor little rodent inside an overturned ceramic vase and was proud of his accomplishment, eagerly digging at the base while releasing a series of euphoric yips and howls, the likes of which I’d never heard from him before. None of my rules and commands were going to work. Not even the gods of Olympus could tear him away from the terrified nut-gatherer he’d trapped.
“I cannot believe you,” I muttered as I finally swung my other leg over the side of the fence but continued to teeter dangerously at the top. “This is so beneath us both.”
Dick responded by sitting back on his haunches and howling at the sky, declaring his victory to the heavens.
“Yes, I heard you before,” I snapped as I dropped silently into the neighbor’s yard. “You found it. Congratulations. Now let’s get the hell out of here!”
Hyper-aware that I was on full display, dead center in one of those remarkable floor-to-ceiling windows, I rushed across the yard and grabbed Dick by the collar. “C’mon!” I insisted, digging in my heels and pulling with all my might. “Let’s go!”
There was a pause in the deafening barking, and just for a second, I thought the dog was going to abandon the hunt after all and spare me the intense humiliation, but fate seemed to have a sense of humor that did not work out in my favor. After more than sixty miserable seconds of pulling and tugging as hard as I could, the animal glanced back at me strangely, as if it was the first time he even noticed me. A surge of excitement dilated his dark eyes, and his lips curled back in delight.
I saw what was happening, but it all registered a second too late. He leapt into the air seemingly in slow motion, with a shower of mud and grass clods raining off his thick fur. He sailed happily through the air, then came down right upon my chest.
“Darn it!” I cried as I stumbled backward onto the grass, my pet frantically pawing at my clothes to get my attention and slathering me with filth in the process. In times of great emotion, rather sadness or joy, Dick always seemed to revert back to a puppy. He was a cocker spaniel, but it felt like a kid’s playhouse had fallen on top of me as he squirmed and licked and wagged and shook in my arms. “Ugh! I would roast you alive if I was allowed the calories!”
The sound of my voice only spurred his excitement on, and his pawing increased tenfold. Huge smears of mud trailed down my arms and chest as I did my best to push him off.
“Down, Dick! Dirty Dick!” My hair fell out of its twist and cascaded haphazardly down my back as I pitted every bit of strength I had against the gleeful dog. “That’s a bad, bad Dick!”
“Ahem,” someone said after a door opened and closed behind me.
Please, for all that is good and holy in the world, don’t let that be him. Please tell me this isn’t happening, I thought as I looked down at my soiled attire and imagined the rat’s nest my hair had to resemble in that moment.
An army of goosebumps exploded all over my skin as I froze in place, and my frantic words rang out, interrupting the awkward silence. Then, with a bit of effort, considering the giant dog that was determined to stay in my arms, I rotated slowly around.
There he was, the man of my dreams, my shining knight, looking right at me in all my disheveled disarray.
To make matters worse, he had yet to put on a shirt. The morning sun painted his tan skin with a lovely, golden glow that seemed to rise off his muscular shoulders.
As he stood there in shock, staring cautiously back at me, it was all I could do to stare back. I couldn’t possibly say anything, and I struggled to remain standing and to keep my mouth from falling open. Even my wretched dog looked at the man and couldn’t help but drool, which he insisted on doing down the front of my shirt.
Oh, for goodness sake.
My eyes snapped shut, and my face twisted into a momentary grimace. I pushed Dick down, letting out a defeated sigh. As if to make matters worse, out of the corner of my eye, the provoking squirrel took that precise moment to make his prison break, and I could have sworn the thing actually winked at me before he disappeared.
“Please, Dick, get down,” I said, my voice now whiny and begging.
The hint of a smile tugged at the corners of the man’s mouth. His eyes twinkled as they caught the light, and he tilted his head curiously to the side.