Neighbor Dearest (3 page)

“Damien? Like from
The Omen
?”

“That’s what I said to him! I mentioned that when he told me his name. He didn’t seem too happy.”

“When does he seem happy about anything?”

Snickering, I said, “True.”

“That’s hot, though. Shit…they’re calling me. I have to go.”

“Break a leg!”

“Fuck a landlord!”

“You’re nuts.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Conversations with my sister always put me in a good mood.

With an hour to go before my phone therapy session, I decided to go grab some takeout. On my way downstairs, I ran into Murray, the building super. He was sweeping the stairs and whistling while the metal from the dozens of keys he carried attached to his belt clanked together.

“Hey, Murray!”

“Well, hello there, gorgeous lady.”

“You don’t normally work on Tuesdays.”

“Going through a bit of a rough patch. Boss let me pick up some extra hours.”

“By boss…you mean D.H. Hennessey?”

“Yeah…Damien.”

“You know, I just met him. I had no clue that my anti-social, next-door neighbor with the barking dogs was actually the landlord.”

Murray chuckled. “Yeah, he doesn’t really advertise that fact.”

“What’s his deal?”

“You mean how does a young guy like that own this place?”

“Well, yeah, that, but also why is he so mean?”

“His bark is way bigger than his bite.”

“No pun intended there?”

“Right.” He laughed. “Deep down, Damien’s good people. Lets me work extra whenever I need to and real generous at Christmas time…even if he does seem to have a stick up his ass sometimes.”

“A stick? It’s more like a pole.” I snorted.

“Some days, yeah. But hey, he puts meals on my table, so you won’t hear that from me.” Murray winked.

“He’s pretty talented, though,” I said. “I’ll give him that.”

“Smart, too. Believe me. Rumor has it, he graduated from MIT.”

“MIT? Are you kidding?”

“Nope. Can’t judge a book by its cover. Invented something. Sold the rights to the patent apparently then used the money to invest in real estate. Now he just collects the rent and does what he wants…makes art.”

“Wow. That’s…pretty darn impressive.”

“You didn’t hear that from me, though.”

“Got it, Murray.”

“Fancy plans tonight?”

“Nope. Just heading to grab some dinner and bring it back to the apartment.”

“Well, enjoy.”

“I will.”

Twenty minutes later, I returned to my apartment with tostones and arroz blanco con gandules from my favorite restaurant, Casa del Sol.

After scarfing down my food, I sat in my room and meditated for a bit in preparation for my phone therapy session with
Dr. Veronica Little: Relationship Trauma Specialist.

At two hundred dollars per one-hour session, Dr. Little wasn’t cheap. It was my mother who suggested I see someone to talk about my feelings. While I wasn’t sure if it was working, I continued to go along with it every Tuesday evening at eight-thirty.

Perhaps, I should have forwarded the bills to Elec.

***

I had my therapist on speakerphone while I folded laundry in the bedroom.

“You bring that question up a lot, Chelsea. Whether or not Elec truly loved you. I think part of why we can’t seem to move forward from that can be explained by the concept of the unicorn.”

“The unicorn? What is that?”

“A unicorn is something that is mythically beautiful and unattainable, right?”

“Okay…”

“That was what Greta was to Elec. He’d ruled out a possibility of love with her because she was forbidden. He was able to fall in love with you in the meantime. That love was quite genuine. However, when the unicorn suddenly becomes attainable, that changes everything. The power of the unicorn is extremely potent.”

“So, what you’re saying is that Elec really did love me but only when he basically thought that being with Greta was an impossibility. She was his unicorn. I wasn’t a unicorn.”

“That’s exactly right…you were not his unicorn.”

“I wasn’t his unicorn,” I repeated in a whisper. “Can I just—”

“I’m sorry, Chelsea. Our time is up for today. We’ll explore this issue a little more next Tuesday.

“Okay. Thanks, Dr. Little.”

Blowing out a long breath, I plopped onto my bed and tried to make sense of what she’d just said.

Unicorn. Hmm.

My body stilled at the sound of laughing.

At first I thought I was imagining it.

It was coming from behind my headboard.

I jumped up.

“Unicorn. What the fuck!” he said in his deep voice before cackling some more.

Damien.

He’d been listening to my therapy session!

My stomach dropped.

How could he hear all that through the wall?

“You’ve been eavesdropping on me?” I asked.

“No. You’ve been interrupting my work.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s a hole in the wall. I can’t help but hear your hot mess phone conversations when I’m working.”

“A…hole in the wall? You’ve known about this hole?”

“Yes. I haven’t gotten around to fixing it. Must have been there before I bought the building. Probably used to be a glory hole or some shit.”

“You’ve been listening to me…through a glory hole?”

“No. You’ve been subjecting me to asinine conversations with people who are ripping you off…through a glory hole.”

“You are such a…”

“A-hole?”

CHAPTER FOUR

YOU BACON ME CRAZY

The following day in work, I couldn’t help but obsess over the fact that Damien had been listening to my private conversations. Was that even legal?

The night before, I’d stopped our communication through the wall pretty quickly after his revelation, retreating to the living room and polishing off a bottle of Zinfandel with a side of cookie dough.

Thankfully, I was too busy at the youth center today to let it totally consume me, since it was the evening of the center’s annual breakfast-for-dinner function. Once a year, the staff cooked a giant breakfast in the industrial-sized kitchen for all of the kids. My responsibility was frying pounds of bacon.

On the walk home, literally reeking of bacon grease, I resumed my obsessing over the hole in the wall. I’d noticed that the opening was actually right behind my bed. My only saving grace was that if my room was adjacent to his office, maybe he wasn’t typically in there as much at night as he would have been if it were another room. Maybe he hadn’t heard all of my sessions. Or maybe I was just kidding myself.

Exactly how much did Damien know? I got into some really private stuff with Dr. Little. Backtracking through it all during the walk home, I nearly knocked into a fruit stand.

Feeling fired up, when I arrived at my building, I impulsively passed my door and charged over to Damien’s apartment. The dogs, who were normally quiet in the evenings, were barking up a storm for some reason.

Knocking frantically, I planned to demand that Damien tell me exactly what he’d heard through my wall. When he didn’t open, I knocked harder. The barking intensified, but still no answer. Just as I was about to turn around and leave, the door flew open.

Damien’s dark hair was drenched, and beads of water were dripping from his forehead down to his chest. He was completely wet. The carved V at the bottom of his abs was proof that all of that working out downstairs was paying off. A small towel wrapped around his waist was the only piece of fabric on his otherwise naked body.

Rippled muscular body.

Holy shit.

He was obscenely hot.

I pried my eyes upward. “What are you doing answering the door like that?”

“What am
I
doing? What are
you
doing, knocking on my door like a lunatic? I tried to avoid having to get out of the shower, but I thought there was something seriously wrong. And what the hell is that smell? That’s not bacon, is it?”

“Yes. I was cooking bacon at work. I—”

“Fuck!” he growled through his teeth.

“I came to talk to you about fixing the hole in my wall, but clearly—”

Before I could finish my sentence, the two black rottweilers had charged toward where I was standing, pouncing on me as their weight knocked me onto my ass. They frantically licked my face, neck, and chest as I lay on the hallway floor. They were also biting at the material of my shirt.

Terrified, I managed to cry out, “Get them off of me!”

Damien struggled with the massive animals to finally remove them off my body. My face was sticky from slobber.

He forced them back into his apartment as their paws scratched and slipped against the hardwood floor. Damien then returned to the hallway and slammed the door behind him to lock the dogs inside.

He reached out his hand, and I took it as he slowly but forcefully lifted me off of the ground as if my body were light as a feather.

Speechless, I looked down at myself. A huge chunk of material was missing from the front of my shirt, exposing my bra.

He looked liked he was struggling with what to say. “Chelsea, I—”

“Are you happy now? Look what they did to me.”

“Fuck. Really? No. I’m not happy. The dogs are obsessed with bacon, okay? It’s like their catnip. That’s why they jumped on you. Why the hell did you have to come in here reeking of it?”

“I need to go,” I said, headed back toward my door.

He tried to stop me. “Wait.”

“No. Please. I just want to forget this ever happened.”

I retreated back to my apartment, leaving Damien standing there with his hands on his waist.

***

After a hot shower, I’d calmed down a bit, starting to think that maybe I had overreacted in blaming Damien for the dogs’ freak-out. He’d done his best to get them off of me quickly, not an easy feat considering he was also gripping his towel to keep from revealing his junk.

I was also pretty sure he was trying to apologize before I’d cut him off. Still, I had a bone to pick with him about the eavesdropping. But nothing was going to get addressed tonight. I was way too tired and feeling defeated.

Grabbing my purse, I decided to walk to the bodega and pick up something simple to make for dinner. Nearly tripping over a small bag on my way out, I bent down to pick it up and recognized that it was from Casper’s, the funny t-shirt store in town.

Inside was a rust-colored shirt in size small with white writing. It said
You Bacon Me Crazy
and had a smiley face with lips made out of bacon strips.

There was no note inside, but I knew it had to be from Damien.

On the return trip home with my groceries, I kept thinking about how he’d gone out of his way to buy the t-shirt as a peace offering. Was I being a bitch and overreacting about everything from the hole in the wall to the bacon attack? I honestly didn’t know. All I knew was that I didn’t really like the overly sensitive person I’d become over the past year.

After making myself a quick dinner of spaghetti and marinara sauce, I went back to my room to read. Every time I sat up in bed, I couldn’t help but wonder if Damien was on the other side of the wall.

When I thought I heard a noise behind me, I asked, “Are you there?”

After a brief pause, came the deep sound of his voice. “Yes. I’m working in my office. I’m not eavesdropping on you.”

Not really expecting an answer, my heart started to pound.

After a minute passed, I broke the ice. “Thank you for the shirt.”

“Well, I owed you a shirt…and an apology.”

“I know I really didn’t give you a chance to apologize. I’m sorry.”

He didn’t say anything, so I continued, “What are their names? The dogs.”

“Dudley and Drewfus.”

“Cute. Where did you come up with those?”

“I didn’t.”

“Who did?”

“My ex.”

Interesting.

“I see.”

“Why are they so quiet at night…like right now…but so noisy in the morning?”

“They’re not here.”

“Where are they?”

“They’re with her. We share custody. She drops them off here on the way to work in the morning, and I return them at night.”

“Wow. I was wondering why I never hear them in the evenings. Now, it makes sense.” I had to know. “So, you used to be married?”

“No. Ex-girlfriend.”

“She used to live here with you and the dogs?”

“You know, for someone who didn’t want me knowing her business, you sure are nosey as fuck.”

“Sorry. But it’s only fair, don’t you think, after you’ve heard so much about me?”

He sighed. “Yes. She used to live here.”

“What happened?”

“What do you think happened? We broke up.”

“I know that. But I mean…why didn’t it work out?”

“There’s not always a clear answer to that question. It’s not always as simple as…” He hesitated. “Someone fucking their stepsister.”

Oh. My. God.

He’s such an asshole!

He’d definitely been listening to more than just the last session. Feeling ashamed, I’d never told anyone except Jade and Dr. Little that the woman Elec left me for was actually his stepsister, whom he’d apparently been in love with for years—since he was a teenager.

When I didn’t say anything, he chuckled. “I’m sorry. That was bad. I’m going to hell.”

I remained silent, shaking my head in disbelief.

He continued, “That really happened? Sounds like something out of a bad book.”

“Yes, it really happened. What else did you hear?”

“Christ, I’m not judging you, Chelsea. I could care less about all of it. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to
me.”

“That therapist is ripping you off.”

“Why do you say that?”

“She’s pulling unicorns out of her ass just to get you to keep questioning everything so you keep paying her money. Tell me this. After all these weeks, are you any closer to feeling better, figuring it all out?”