Jaxson's Song (16 page)

The pen rolled onto the
paper, and she pulled out her cell phone as an idea struck. She
opened up a new webpage in the browser, typed in “Resignation
letters, family emergency,” and within minutes she’d saved a PDF
file to her phone and emailed it to herself. She could print it out
and sign it later, when she reported to work for her
shift.

That task accomplished,
she refilled her mug with fresh coffee, bravely adding a
teaspoonful of sugar this time, and sat down in front of her
heart-riddled paper. After a moment’s hesitation, she scrawled
Lindsey’s name across the top and wrote the date in the
corner.

Lindsey,

Last night, I dreamed of
her again. But this wasn’t like the other times at all. Last night,
she looked—felt—so real. It wasn’t just some nightmare…I mean, it
was, but it wasn’t like all of the other dreams, reliving that day
and what ended up being her last moments. This was different,
Linds. In this dream, one minute I was in the glass room, alone,
and the next thing I knew, the lights begin to flicker in the
hallway, and she walked into the room and stood behind me. It felt
like she was really there, and she was so angry…

A cold chill tracked
across the back of her neck, and in the next instant, her cell
phone started to ring. Kate set down the pen and shook her head
when she saw who the caller was.

“
Hey, Lindsey.” She cradled the phone between her neck and
shoulder and recapped the pen.

“
Well, it’s about time! I’ve been trying to call you since
last night,” Lindsey huffed and puffed. “You almost had me
worried.”

“
Are you running?”

“
Treadmill,” she exhaled, and Kate heard a series of beeps on
the other end of the line. “Two miles. I’m done now. So, are you
better today?”

“
You mean besides the hangover?”

“
Oh, well, yeah, I guess so. You really got wasted last night,
huh?”

“
Hmm,” Kate scooted her chair back and stretched, shivering
again as another cold chill hit; it was hard to tell whether it was
her hangover playing havoc with her body or just the house’s
natural “cold-blooded temperature,” as she was beginning to refer
of it. Aunt Viola must have shelled out a small fortune on
insulation. “It was just me, Gollum, and a cheap bottle of
wine.”

“
Gollum?”

“
Oh yeah—I almost forgot, we have a cat now.” Her lips curved
against the phone and she blew steam off of her mug before she took
a sip.

“
Great. I always wanted a pet…I think,” Lindsey retorted
dryly. “So…seriously? You’re okay? Besides the
hangover?”

Kate stared for long
moments at the letter she’d been composing before she sighed,
crumpled the sheet of paper in hands, and got up to throw it in the
trash can at the other end of the kitchen. “Yeah. I’m fine, really.
I think I’m one step closer to accepting this thing with
Lilly.”

“
And
Chad
,” Lindsey reminded her, a scowl in her voice.

“
Yes…
Chad
.” Kate’s own eyes narrowed dangerously and for several
beats, both women were silent.

“
Are you sure you’re holding your own?” Concern edged out the
anger in Lindsey’s voice.

“
Really and truly. Don’t worry. This is all going to work out.
I can feel it.” What she felt was a surge of nausea as she passed
by the kitchen window. Through the glass, a radio began to blare a
heavy rock tune. Lindsey started to speak, but static filled Kate’s
ear, obscuring most of her friend’s reply.

She stood on tip-toe,
leaned over the sink, and craned her neck in order to get a better
view of the driveway next door. Her mouth hung open as she watched
Jaxson crank up a portable radio even louder and then prance down
his porch steps toward his ancient car. A button-down crop top was
open across his chest and tied in a knot several inches north of
his navel. The fabric clung, wet and sheer, to his shoulders and
arms. A pair of low-heeled silver pumps caught the sunlight and
glistened as he turned to the side and bent down toward a red
plastic bucket.

He was wearing a
thong.

Somewhere down the street
a car honked, a dog barked, and a man yelled what sounded
suspiciously like “put some clothes on.”

“
Kate?” The line crackled again.

“
I’m fine, Lindsey, but I’m not getting any reception in here
right now, for some reason. I’ll text you later.” She hung up and
shoved the phone into the pocket of her jeans, all without taking
her eyes off of the spectacle taking place in the driveway next
door.

“
What in God’s name…” She raised a hand to her temple as her
head began to pound in time to the beat of the music. Outside, in
the vibrant—blinding—sunlight, Jaxson straightened away from the
bucket, a large blue rectangular sponge clasped in his hands. Kate
watched in fascinated horror as he raised the sponge over his chest
and squeezed the soapy water over his already soaked torso. The
ends of his long blond wig also received a good soaking.

Kate opened the window and
attempted to shout over the music. The rock tune ended, and a
pulsing techno beat was carried through the window on a gust of
warm, humid air. Two cups of coffee threatened to come back up, and
Kate gripped the edges of the kitchen sink. A second later, she
slammed the window shut, having given up on making herself heard
over all the noise.

Shoving her wallet back
into the purse that was draped over the back of a kitchen chair,
she wandered into the front parlor and attempted to lay down on the
couch. The room reeked of the red wine she had spilled on the
carpet last night and neglected to clean up—and she could still
hear her neighbor’s music. She could also feel it, vibrating
through her sofa. Kate clutched her head between her hands and
groaned. Another car horn sounded outside, and she was on her feet
and heading for the front door. Enough was enough
already.

Stopping only long enough
to snag a pair of sunglasses from the side pocket of her purse, she
stalked onto the front porch, wincing as the screen door banged
shut behind her. Kate watched as a dark blue sedan cruised slowly
to the end of the block, the vehicle’s darkly tinted windows making
it impossible to discern anything about the driver.

Her mouth settled into a
grim line as she clomped down her own sagging porch steps and
advanced on her neighbor. Was it any wonder that people were
inching down the street? They were probably rubber-necking at the
sight of a grown man in…whatever you called what Jaxson was
wearing.

Jaxson went momentarily
still when he finally looked up and saw Kate striding across the
lawn. The look in his eyes became shuttered, unreadable, as she
halted a few feet away from him. Looking him in the eyes—and
only
in the
eyes—was difficult, but somehow she managed it. The fact that
moving her head made her want to vomit, helped, she was
sure.

“
Can you please turn the music down?” she raised her voice to
be heard over the noise.

Jaxson lowered the sponge
and frowned. “What?” he shouted.

“
Can you please turn the—”

“
I can’t hear you!” He shook his head and leaned in closer
until droplets of cold, soapy water plopped onto Kate’s feet,
dripping through the narrow slits in her Crocs and sliding between
her toes to form a small, wet pool in her shoes.

“
Turn the music down!”

“
Oh.” Comprehension dawned in Jaxson’s cool, green eyes. “No.”
He turned back toward the car and raised the sponge.

“
No…? No…?” Kate sputtered, glaring at her neighbor’s back. Of
all the rude, un-neighborly crap!

She spun on her heel,
prepared to stomp back to her own house and hole up in a back
bedroom with a pillow over her head. The techno song ended, and a
radio announcer’s voice screeched through the speakers. The shrill
sound speared through her head, and slowly she turned around.
Jaxson was leaning over, drenching the hood of his car in sudsy
water as the DJ rattled on at ear-splitting volume about free
tickets and caller number five. She could go back home. Do her best
to ignore Jaxson. It was the sensible thing to do, the reasonable
thing to do—the
Kate
thing to do. Her gaze moved over her mercurial
neighbor, then past him, to the porch, and she glared at the
offending radio as she kicked off her wet, slippery
shoes.

Screw reasonable. She was
tired of being nice.

Chapter
Fifteen

Punish Thy
Neighbor

J
axson
bent over and retrieved the
sponge from the brightly colored plastic bucket at his feet as a
dark blue sedan turned the corner at the end of their street. Kate
rolled her eyes heavenward—was that the same car she had seen a
moment ago, when she’d stepped outside?

Granted, Jaxson stuck out
on their quiet, ordinary middle class street like a sore thumb, but
didn’t people have anything better to do? The dark, four-door sedan
slowed to a crawl as the driver passed by them. Jaxson thrust his
wet chest out even further, and Kate folder her arms over her chest
and snorted as she watched him bend over to dunk the sponge in the
bucket again. Unbelievable.

The silver-toned handle of
the bucket warred with the sparkles on his heels; both were
blinding in the vivid morning sunlight that beat down upon their
heads, and Kate was suddenly grateful that she’d thought to put on
the dark glasses before storming out her front door. She was pretty
sure the shine on her neighbors shoes would have speared straight
through her skull, like a vampire whose Kryptonite just happened to
be cheap, tacky rhinestones.

Jaxson shot her a look
over his shoulder as the blue car disappeared around the corner at
the opposite end of the block. Kate watched as the sponge cleared
the lid of the bucket and slapped wetly at the hood of the car,
water and bubbles flying in all directions. She sucked in an
outraged breath as the cold, soapy water splashed a wet trail
across the front of her t-shirt. Her eyes zeroed in on him,
narrowed. Oh yeah, she was done with being nice.

One minute, she was
glaring at Jaxson’s profile, and the next she was marching behind
him, past him, across the yard. The grass slid wet and slick
between her toes, and the heat soaked into her skin; the vibrant
mix of sensation all but obliterated the headache, was stronger—for
the moment, at least—than the sick churning in her stomach. She
forgot about her hangover, and her sister, wasn’t thinking about
old houses, and realtors, sacrifices, jobs, Reno…Chad. She scowled;
right then, all she saw was the radio.

The DJ rattled off the
next fifteen-minute set of music, and Kate glared at the small
black boombox, pretending the annoying, grating voice pouring from
the speakers belonged to Chad. Her bare feet thumped the lacquered
paint of Jaxson’s front porch steps, leaving faint wet patches on
the smooth white surface, burning a trail across the porch to the
table. She skirted the matching wicker furniture, so unlike the
faded, peeling wood and rusted chains of her own single porch
swing. Everything here was so perfect, so shiny…she threw a quick,
backward glance over her shoulder at Jaxson, who stood unmoving in
the yard, his sponge dripping in mid-air as he watched her
warily…so strange.

She spun around and
located the radio’s thick, black cord and followed it to the end of
the porch—and into the Jaxson’s house. The screen door banged shut
behind her as she stomped across his dining room and yanked the
cord free of its outlet. Kate jumped as the door hit her in the
rear end on her way out, adding fuel to her already smoldering
temper.

Jaxson met her at the base
of the porch steps. As far as irate expressions went, she’d seen
thunderclouds that were less ominous than the clear, dark anger
burning in Jaxson’s eyes. Her scowl rivaled his as she made to move
past him. Behind her, the radio crashed to the floor; Kate glanced
back, and then down. She still had a hold of the cord. In front of
her, Jaxson cleared his throat. The cord clattered to the porch at
his feet when she released it and stared defiantly up at
him.

“
Thanks for turning the radio off,” she snapped, shoving
forward to go around him. His arms, the muscles contracting, shot
out to grip the slanted handrails at either side of Kate, trapping
them where they were—him planted firmly at bottom step, glowering
down at her, while she lingered a step above him, staring up into
his equally tense face.

“
Not so fast.”

“
Move it,” she bit out, raising both hands to the wet fabric
at his chest. Her fingers flexed against the sheer cloth, and she
shoved at him. He didn’t move. One dark brow raised, and his lip
curved at one corner.