Neighbor Dearest (2 page)

“Blueberry are my favorite,” he said.

“What?”

“Muffins.”

“Oh.”

Jade snorted but stayed silent, letting me take the brunt of this humiliation.

“And I’m not anti-social or a savant. I’m just a good old-fashioned prick…with supersonic hearing.”

He smirked and walked away before I could say anything.

When he was safely out of earshot—for real this time—Jade sighed. “Angry guys are the best in bed.”

“You just can’t stop yourself, can you? Haven’t you done enough damage? I’ve always told you that you’re loud when you think you’re whispering. Now there’s proof…at my expense.”

“You’ll be thanking me later when you’re screaming out in orgasm as the angry artist is Van Goh-ing down on you.”

“You’re crazy.”

“That’s why you love me.”

“It is.”

CHAPTER TWO

BARKING ORGASM

A week later, and Jade was gone back to New York. I already missed her like crazy. The only reason I hadn’t gone to visit her was that Elec lived there now with Greta. While it was extremely unlikely that I’d run into him, I wasn’t ready to visit their territory just yet.

Angry Artist and I had not crossed paths since the incident when Jade was visiting. Even though I hadn’t seen him around, his dogs woke me up almost every morning barking their heads off. Since I worked the afternoon program at the youth center, my mornings were free. I often had trouble sleeping at night and needed the mornings to catch up on some shut-eye.

It was seriously to the point where I couldn’t handle the barking anymore. If one dog wasn’t barking, the other one was. Most of the time, it was a chorus of yelping in unison. I didn’t care how intimidatingly good-looking he was; I needed to address it with my neighbor.

Tuesday morning, I pulled myself out of bed and threw on some sweats. I dabbed on a little bit of under eye concealer before walking over to his door and knocking.

He opened, wearing a fitted white t-shirt. His hair was disheveled from sleep. “Can I help you?”

“I need to talk to you about your dogs.”

“What? No basket of muffins?”

“No. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have the energy to bake, given that I can’t sleep because of your animals’ incessant barking.”

“There’s nothing I can do about the barking. I’ve tried everything. They won’t shut up.”

“What are the rest of us supposed to do in the meantime?”

“I don’t know. Get some earplugs?”

“Seriously. There must be something you can do.”

“Aside from putting a muzzle on them—which I won’t do—no, there isn’t. Anyway, do you hear them barking now?”

For some reason, they’d stopped.

“No. But it’s rare that they’re ever quiet like this in the morning, and you know it.”

“Look, if you want to complain to the landlord, go right ahead. I can’t stop you. But there’s nothing I can do to keep them from barking that I haven’t already tried. They have minds of their own.”

“Well, then that’s what I’ll have to do. Thank you for making me resort to that. Thanks for nothing.” I walked away and heard his door slam behind me soon after.

Almost the second I returned to my apartment, the barking started up again.

Lying back in my bed, I knew there was only one thing I could possibly do that would help me relax enough to sleep amidst the barking. Despite not wanting to resort to it, I grabbed my Bose noise-reducing headphones and placed them on my ears to block out some of the sound. Even though there wasn’t any music playing, they did help. But I slept on my side. They were only a solution if I was lying on my back. The only time I ever lay in that horizontal position was when I masturbated. And why was I suddenly thinking about the angry artist? Sadly, the thought of touching myself immediately brought on unwanted images of him. I didn’t want to think of him that way. He was a jerk; he didn’t deserve to be the object of my lust. But he’d smelled so fucking good, like spice and musk and man. We don’t have control over what we fantasize about. The fact that he was mean and unattainable made him that much more likely to be an object of my forbidden thoughts. Just like I learned in psychology class back in college, thought suppression often leads to obsession. If you tell yourself not to think about something, then you’ll think about it even more.

Slipping my hands down my pants, I began to massage my clit. God, I didn’t even know his name. This was sick, but at the moment it didn’t matter. I imagined him over me, pushing into me, fucking me angrily. All the while, the hint of barking was still in the background as I rocked back and forth, bringing myself to one of the most earth-shattering climaxes I’d ever experienced.

I collapsed back and managed to fall asleep for an hour.

The mid-morning sun streamed through the window. Blinking my groggy eyes open, I noticed the barking had stopped. The animals must have been out for a walk.

I had a couple of hours before I was due to report to work, so I decided to look up the phone number for the building owner. There was a management office in the building, but the woman who worked there was pretty lax. Suspecting she wouldn’t take my barking complaint seriously, I figured I’d go straight to the top. I’d only ever dealt with the woman in the rental office and had never spoken to the landlord.

An internet search pulled up the name D.H. Hennessey, LLC. There was a phone number to contact them, but it opened to a general voice mailbox with an automated greeting. I wanted to talk to someone in person, so I hung up without leaving a message. I noticed that the address listed was on the first floor of this building. Deciding to head down there, I slipped on a dress and some shoes and brushed my hair.

Knocking on the door, I took a deep breath then waited. When the door opened, the sight of him nearly made me fall over.

Angry Artist was standing there, shirtless and wearing that damn beanie again. My heart was pounding. Sweat was pouring down his chiseled chest, and I swore my mouth actually watered.

“Can I help you?” It was the same thing he’d asked me when he opened his apartment door. This felt like déjà vu, an episode of
The Twilight Zone
or a bad dream where no matter which door I opened, he would be there.

“What are you doing here?”

“This is my place
.”

“No. Your apartment is next door to mine.”

“That’s right. That’s my apartment. This is my
place
. My art studio and gym.”

“This was the address listed for the landlord.”

A wry smile spread across his face. Suddenly, I felt like the stupidest person in the world as it dawned on me: he
was
the landlord. That was why the prick had encouraged me to issue a formal complaint.

“You’re D.H. Hennessey…”

“Yes. And you’re Chelsea Jameson. Excellent credit, great references…chronic complainer.”

“Well, this explains a lot…how you’re able to get away with defacing the property and being an overall asshole to your neighbors.”

“I would hardly compare my creating
art
to defacing property. Have you not looked around this entire neighborhood? It’s an art mecca. Mine is far from the only mural. And you’re overreacting about the dogs. So, the real asshole in this situation? Debatable.”

Behind him, I could see multiple canvases of spray-painted artwork as well as a weight bench and other workout equipment.

“Where are the dogs now?”

“They’re napping.”

“Dogs nap?”

“Yes. They nap. They’re catching up on sleep because your bitching kept them up this morning.” He cracked a smile. That made me realize just how much this exchange was actually amusing him.

“Clearly the D stands for dick?”

He didn’t immediately respond, and a little staring contest ensued before he said, “The D stands for Damien.”

Damien.

Of course he had to have a hot name, too.

“Damien…like from that movie
The Omen
? Fitting.” I looked around. “Why do you list this space as your address for tenants?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want crazy people who compare me to the anti-Christ showing up at my residence at all hours.”

I couldn’t help but laugh a little. This was a lost cause. “Alright, well, clearly this visit was in vain, so enjoy your workout.”

***

That afternoon, members of the San Francisco Symphony paid a visit to the youth center. They put on a small performance just for us. Watching the smiles on the kids’ faces as they toyed around with the fancy instruments served as yet another reminder of how much I loved my job.

While everyone was focused on our guests, I noticed one of the teens, Ariel Sandoval, hiding crouched down in a corner with her phone. Wireless devices were against center rules, since this was supposed to be a place for learning. The teenagers with phones had to leave them in a bin at the front desk and retrieve them on the way out.

“Ariel, is everything alright? You should really be engaging with everyone else.”

She shook her head no. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not supposed to have my phone. But I need it. And no, I’m not okay.”

I sat down on the ground next to her. The floor was cold against my butt. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Kai. I’m stalking Facebook now to see if anyone’s tagged him.”

Her boyfriend, Kai, was also a regular here and played on the center’s basketball team. He was the object of more than one girl’s affections. When I discovered Ariel and Kai were dating, it worried me, not only because of their ages—they were both fifteen—but because of Kai’s popularity.

So, it came as absolutely no surprise when she said, “I think he’s seeing someone else.”

“How do you know?”

“He hasn’t been coming here after school for the past week, and my brother said he saw Kai at the mall with a girl.”

My heart sank. I wanted to tell her that she was probably right about him, but I wasn’t sure she was emotionally ready to hear that.

“Well, don’t jump to any conclusions until you confront him, but you should definitely talk to him. Better to know these things than to be blindsided later. You don’t want to waste your time with someone who isn’t honest.”

Didn’t I know that.

Even though Elec hadn’t technically cheated on me physically, he had emotionally cheated.

Ariel wiped her eyes then turned to me. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Whatever happened between you and Elec?”

My stomach dropped. I wasn’t expecting her to bring him up, and it was way too long of a story to rehash.

Elec used to be everyone’s favorite youth counselor. When he left the center, the kids were devastated. It had been common knowledge around here that we were boyfriend and girlfriend; everyone had gotten a real kick out of that.

“You mean you want to know why we broke up?”

“Yeah.”

If I was going to sum it all up in a single sentence, there was only one response. “He fell in love with someone else.”

Ariel looked confused. “How can you be in love with one person and just fall in love with someone else?”

Ah. The question of the year.

“I’m trying to figure that out myself, Ariel.”

“I remember how he acted around you. It seemed like you guys were in love.”

“I thought we were,” I whispered.

“Do you think he really didn’t love you at all…or was it just that he loved the other girl more?”

It was as if this fifteen-year-old girl had searched into my soul and picked out the one question that I’d asked myself the most. I wanted to be honest with her.

“I’m not sure if there are different levels of love, or if his leaving meant that he never loved me at all. I don’t understand if it’s possible to just stop loving someone. I’m trying to work through these very questions. But the bottom line is, if someone is cheating on you, they don’t love you.”

She stared off. “Yeah.”

Nudging her with my shoulder, I grinned. “The good news, though? You are still so young, and there is plenty of time to find the right one if it’s not Kai. You’re at a very difficult age right now, probably the most difficult stage of your life. Both you and he are hormonal and just discovering who you are.”

“What about you?”

“What
about
me?”

“Have you found someone else?”

“No.” I paused, looking down at my shoes. “I’m not sure I will.”

“Why not?”

How could I possibly shatter this young girl’s hopes? How could I admit aloud that I didn’t think I could ever trust another man again? That was my own personal issue, and I refused to taint her with my dark cloud of doubt.

“You know what? Anything is possible, Ariel.” I smiled.

If only I believed my own words.

CHAPTER THREE

HOLE IN THE WALL

“I just have a couple of minutes before I have to get my makeup done before the show, but tell me what’s going on,” Jade said.

I had texted my sister earlier:
You’re never going to believe this
.
Call me.

It was right after discovering the identity of my landlord.

“So, you remember Angry Artist?”

“You banged him?”

“No!”

“What is it, then?”

“Turns out…he owns the building.”

“No way!”

“This is not good.”

“Why not? I think it’s great!” she said.

“In what way? Now, I’ll never get those dogs to shut up.”

“No, I mean when you guys start boning, you won’t even have to pay rent.”

“I’m not going to bone him. Because he’s a jackass. And even if in some bizarre universe, I were doing that…I would
never
not pay my rent. That would make me like a whore.”

She laughed. “Mmmm.”

“What?”

“Angry sex is the best sex, you know.”

“Yeah, you’ve said that before. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced it.”

“Well, when you have it with…what’s his name?”

“Damien. That’s his name. I’m not going to be having angry sex with Damien.”