“Hey, you never told me about your new neighbors,” she said, obviously catching on to my silence.
“There’s not much to tell. I haven’t met them yet. But I plan to—soon.”
“That sounds ominous.”
I huffed out a frustrated breath. “They destroyed Mrs. Reid’s flower garden between our houses.”
“The one you’ve been maintaining for her?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“That’s awful. Who would be so careless? What are you going to do?”
“Put my groceries away. Have a relaxing nice dinner, and then I’m going to march over there and introduce myself to the smoldering asshole.”
“Smoldering?” she questioned.
“Never mind.”
~Jackson~
I was never going to move again—ever.
I’d die old and fat in this little old house with that creepy toilet themed wallpaper, and shag carpet. My ass was never leaving.
How did two people accumulate so much shit?
Just when I’d thought I cleared through a decent amount of boxes, I’d turn around to find more waiting for me. Were they multiplying?
“Hey, Noah! You want to offer a hand here, kid?” I hollered up the stairs as I arched and stretched my sore, stiff back.
There was no answer.
“Noah!”
“What?” he yelled back.
This was what life had become in our house—screaming between floors.
“Come down and help unpack some of these boxes!”
He miraculously appeared at the top of the stairs with his phone in hand. “Do I have to?”
“No, it was just a suggestion. Carry on,” I remarked sarcastically.
He rolled his eyes and trotted down the stairs.
“Do me a favor, and put the phone away for ten minutes. Do you think you could manage that?”
“Yeah, okay,” he answered as he swung his dark blond hair out of his eyes.
“So, how was your meeting with Miss Prescott?” I asked as I cut open another box labeled Living Room.
“It was okay.” He sat down next to me and started shuffling through a box.
Kids are so descriptive.
“Okay? Just okay? You nearly bounced out of there like you’d just visited an Xbox convention.”
“She’s just fun to hang out with. She’s easy to talk to I guess.”
“Well, what kinds of things did she talk to you about?” I pressed, pulling a few knickknacks out of tissue paper and placing them on the mantel.
“I don’t know. Stuff.”
“Like?”
“Like, just stuff, Dad, okay?” He popped up to a standing position, shoving his palms in his pockets.
I held my hands up, waving my white flag, as I tried to calm him. “Okay, no more questions. Sorry.”
“I’m gonna go back upstairs,” he mumbled.
I nodded, feeling defeated, as I watched his lanky frame flee from my presence.
Taking a deep breath, I tried to remind myself of what Miss Prescott had said earlier that day. Everyone handled stress differently—even kids. I had to believe he’d come around, and I’d eventually see a glimpse of the carefree boy I once knew.
I began to break down the box I’d just unloaded when the doorbell echoed throughout the house.
That was something else to add to the list of things that needed to be fixed.
My grandmother couldn’t have gone with a standard buzzer or even one of those normal ding-dong chimes. No, she had gone all out and bought the most annoying doorbell ever created. Every time the little button was pressed, a classical symphony would play through the tiny electrical speaker. If Mozart knew his music would one day sound that horrid, he probably would have burned every last sheet of paper he owned.
“Coming,” I called, putting the blade back into the X-Acto knife. I set it down on the couch and jogged over to the door just as silence finally filled the house once again.
Grabbing the ornate handle, I pulled the door open and found myself face-to-face with an armful of flowers—and legs that went on for days.
“Do you have any idea how much time I spent on these?” a shrill yet somewhat familiar voice shouted from behind the flowers.
“Um…”
“Don’t you have any respect for the former owner of this house?” she asked.
That piqued my interest. “What do you mean?” I reached out my hand and slowly lowered the flowers to try to find the face that matched the long legs I’d been admiring.
I got about halfway when recognition blossomed across the mystery woman’s face.
Flowers and soil crashed to the entryway, and I found myself gazing down at the raven-haired beauty I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about.
“Miss Prescott? I didn’t realize you made house calls…and brought flowers,” I joked, looking down at the mess she’d made on my doorstep.
This further cemented my beliefs that I needed to stick with my plan of finding a nice, normal girl-next-door type. This was what happened when I sought out something different and exotic. I ended up a single father with a pile of dead flowers at my front door.
“You!” she exclaimed. “You’re my new neighbor?”
Confusion suddenly spiraled through me, and I looked around the neighborhood like it would spring forth some clue I hadn’t noticed. “You live…here?” I asked.
She turned slightly and pointed to the house directly next door. “Right there.”
Our eyes met, and I felt the blood draining from my face. “We’re next-door neighbors?”
“It appears so.”
“Fuck me,” I whispered.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “Why don’t you come inside? We obviously have some things to discuss.”
She glanced down at the flowers strewed all over my front stoop and proceeded to step over the mess with her head held high. I couldn’t help the slight chuckle that escaped my parted lips.
“Oh, shut up,” she said. A tiny grin appeared as she passed me.
“Sorry about the mess. I’m starting to think I might never unpack everything.” We passed through the entryway into the living room and I watched her eyes take everything in.
Swimming in their depths were genuine emotions I had yet to understand. Her fingers trailed over the wood trim of the furniture and ornate fireplace mantel lovingly as if they had memories and tenderness. “Why does it all need to be unpacked at once?” she finally asked. “Is there any reason it all needs to be put away right this minute?”