So. Long.: Bad Boy Next Door (12 page)

Hey. How was your day?

I hit
send
before I second-guess myself.

We’ll see if she actually opens my email—and answers. Hope
she doesn’t fall head-over-heels, as sexy and red as they are, for the guy she’s
having dinner with tonight.

Cocksucker.

I take a long sip of my lukewarm coffee.

Ass in chair. Hands on keyboard. Ass in chair. Hands on
keyboard.

This is my mantra. Today and every day until this book gets
finished.

I’m against the wall. I either get to the halfway point by
the end of the week, three days from now. Or I’ll have to push the release date,
but that isn’t a great option. I don’t get paid until two full months after
release month ends. I’m not sure I can cover my bills with the little bit of
savings I have.

I’m going to write this book whether it sucks sweaty camel
balls or not. I’ll fix it when I edit.

I stretch and wiggle my fingers to loosen them up.

I’m twelve thousand words into it. Another forty-eight
thousand or so, and I’ll have a full-length book. That’s all.

Okay. Let’s do this.

“My lady, please, don’t spurn my attentions. Your father
has promised me your hand in marriage.”

I turn up my nose. “Then we should wait until the banns
have been read and the vows exchanged, sir.”

He comes close, his words soft in my ear. “Aye, we
should. But we won’t. My manhood swells for you, its thirst great. You must
quench it.”

My cheeks heat and my heart pounds under my breasts as he
takes me in his arms.

“I fear I’m a wanton woman.” I swallow hard and lift my
face to his, my hands clinging to his broad shoulders.

His lips brush mine and I’m carried to the heights of the
heavens. Passion sweeps me up on the wings of a white dove as he ravishes my
body and sears my soul with the heat of his own.

The chime of my doorbell peals through the house.

Great. Right as I was getting started.

When I open the door, my mom smiles and throws her arms out,
doing her version of jazz hands. “Surprise!”

Oh geez. Now I’ll never get anything accomplished.

“What’re you doing here?”

She pushes past me into the living room, dragging a couple
of shopping bags with her. “I came to visit my granddaughter, of course.
Clarissa! Come see Granna.”

“I told you, she’s at Pat’s. It’s Matt’s visitation time.”

Mom’s face falls as if I’ve told her the sun won’t rise ever
again. “Oh. I forgot.”

“I told you last week—for the third time.”

“I just can’t believe they take her for the
entire
month. It makes no sense to me.”

I smile sweetly. “He’s her father. They’re her grandparents.
Just because he’s not interested in spending time with her, doesn’t mean that
they aren’t. They love her too.”

Mom rolls her eyes. “Well, I know that. How could they
not
love her? But still.”

“Mom, let’s not go through this again. Please.”

She gives me a tired huff. “Fine. Why did you let me drive
all the way down here and not even tell me she wasn’t here?”

“I would have gladly told you…
if
you’d have called
before
you came.” I try to keep the annoyance out of my tone. It never does any good
with her anyway, she never seems to notice what tone I have. “What would you
have done if I wasn’t here?”

“I have a key, silly. I’d have let myself in and set up
these little gifts I got for my girl in her room.”

She means well. She really does. She does. She
does
.

“Hey, I’m working. And it’s been really hard lately. If you
want to set up something in Clarissa’s room, go ahead, but I really need to go
dive into my writing cave. Okay?”

She cocks her head and looks at me like she used to do when
I was a kid. “I didn’t come to bother you. You go on and get done whatever you
need to do. Don’t mind me at all. You won’t even know I’m here.”

I have my doubts about that, but I smile and sidestep her
offer for a hug. “Okay. Sounds good.”

I return to my office.

Oh no.

No. No. No.

Chloe lounges on the laptop keyboard. She flips to her back
when I rush to her, as though she expects a tummy scratch.

I wave my hands at her. “Shoo! Get off my computer, you
crazy cat.”

She stretches out, kneading the air with her upside down
paws, looking at me with her cocked head. She meows.

I pick her up, and she goes limp.

I clench my jaw as I let her slide to the floor. “Go. Get
out of here, you terrorist.”

She runs to the door, but stops and drops to lie down half
in and half out of the room.

I plop down into my desk chair, cringing as I check the
screen.

It’s covered in a block of jumbled characters, nonsense
strings of letters, symbols, and numbers typed by a relaxing kitten’s body. I
scroll up to see how far I’ll have to backtrack to get to where I was.

I scroll.

And scroll.

And scroll.

I finally get to actual text that at least makes nominal
sense.

I read and re-read.

Holy fucking—oh shit. No.

I grip the hair at my temples, growling.

I turn and glare at Chloe, looking all innocent and shit,
lying in the doorway. “I should make a hat out of you, you little turd.”

Several pages of the blood, sweat, and tears that I’ve wrung
out of my blocked-up creative center are gone. Simply gone. Covered over by
Chloe the Terrorist.

I take a deep breath. And another. And a third, trying to
calm myself.

It’s okay. It has to be okay. I’ll
SAVE AS
a new
document, and then recover the other one. Surely, it auto-saved at some point.

“
Please, God
, let it have auto-saved. Please!”

Mom pokes her head around the doorframe. “Everything all
right in here?”

I fight the bitter words I want to spit at the universe.

Mom doesn’t deserve that. This isn’t her fault. “The cat got
on my laptop. She erased some of my latest book. I’ll have to recover the
document. But it’s okay. I’ll deal with it.”

Mom leans against the wall, just inside the room. “You
should think about locking her out. She’s a kitten. She doesn’t know any better.”

I let out a sigh. “I usually do lock her out of my office,
but the doorbell rang, and I—I forgot.”

Mom picks up Chloe and kisses the top of her head. “Poor
kitty, you didn’t mean to mess up anything, did you?”

The woman is a traitor. “You hate me, don’t you?”

“Of course I don’t hate you.” Mom gives a little smile. “I love
you. You know that.”

I rub the ache developing between my eyebrows.

She takes a step further into my office. “You’ll have to be
more careful—”

I hold up one hand to stop her from sitting. “Mom, I need to
get busy.”

“Oh, of course. I’ll go make us some lunch. I brought greens
and black-eyed peas.” She sing-songs that last part—the part that makes my
insides wither like a tree doused in diesel.

“None for me, thanks.”

Mom purses her lips. “You need to eat. I’ll fix you a
plate.”

“Really, I’m not hungry.” I’m ravenous, but I’m not eating
greens
or
peas. Years of being force fed rabbit food and legumes ruined
me for anything not drenched in ranch dressing.

“Your body needs sustenance. All day, you sit in here typing
on that computer. You’re going to waste away.”

She turns toward the kitchen.

“But, Mom, you know I don’t like”—I slump in my chair, my
voice trailing off—“black-eyed peas or greens.”

She’s humming her way down the hall and doesn’t even care
that she wants to feed me my most despised foods.

After only three more interruptions from Mom, for the death lunch,
to show her where I keep the laundry soap, and to help her carry in the other
six bags of clothes and toys she brought for Clarissa, plus two and a half
hours of searches and opening and closing documents, I admit defeat.

I’m woefully under-educated in all things technical and
clerical.

I can’t find it. It’s not here. The only thing I have left
of the first quarter of my novel is what’s left after the Chloe-tastrophe and a
copy of it the way I saved it before she decided my keyboard looked like a hammock.

I drop my forehead to my desk.

God, don’t you love me anymore?

How am I ever going to make rent? Those words took so much
to get onto the screen.

Chloe weaves between my feet as I trip my way into the
living room.

Mom looks up from her magazine. “Oh, good. You’re done. I
didn’t want to bother you.”

Like she’s not bothered me at all today?

Finally, I manage to talk her into heading home before the
traffic gets too heavy.

She loads her dishes of left over dirt beads and weeds—I mean,
beans and greens—into the car. “All right then, I guess I’ll be on my way. You’ll
call when Clarissa is home, right?”

I give a non-committal grunt and try to sidestep Mom’s hug.

“Oh, stop it. Give your mother a hug. You might never see me
again.”

If only…

I suck in a deep breath as she takes hold of me like a polar
bear hugs a seal it particularly hates.

I wheeze one word. “Mom?”

She doesn’t loosen her death grip. Instead, she squeezes
tighter. “Oh, I just love you.”

I clamp my cheeks together, but there’s no helping it. A fog
horn rips out of my ass. It bounces off the houses as it echoes down the
street. It’s surprising a blinding light doesn’t shoot out of my forehead.

Mom lets go of me and covers her face. “Kelsey Marie!”

“Well, it’s
your
fault. You’re the one who thinks a
hug is a test of strength and endurance.”

Mom purses her lips.

“Stop giving me the stink-eye, or I’ll have to fart on you
again.”

She rolls her eyes.

I shrug. “I have gas. Sue me.”

“Guess I don’t know my own strength.” Mom giggles as she
waves her hand in front of her face. “But whew,
you
sure are strong!”

I let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re the one who
insisted
I eat those nasty beans.”

She ducks into her car. “Peas, dearest. Black-eyed peas. And
don’t worry, you’re Grandma Radcliffe had the worst gas of any woman I’ve ever
known. She’d walk across the room, farts slipping out with each step she took.
Did it so much, she eventually quit excusing herself. Of course, there really
was no excuse for her anyway—”

I step back and cross my arms. “Bye, Mom. Drive safely.”

“You’ll let me know when she’s home. Don’t forget,” Mom
calls as she backs out of my driveway.

“Of course I’ll call.” When I recover from that last hug and
after finish my book.

She stops when she’s pointed in the right direction. “And,
Kelsey, dear?”

“Yes, Mom?”

“Do tell that good-looking neighbor of yours that I said
hello.”

My eyes go wide. My heart stutters.

I may die here and now.

Please, God, don’t let Adam be over there. Let her have seen
him when she got here. I’m begging.

With a knot of embarrassed dread, I turn. Heat rushes to my
cheeks.

Adam waves and grins. “Your mom?”

I close my eyes and nod.

Why can’t a person swallow their tongue on command? Death
would be preferable to this moment.

“She sure loves you hard. Doesn’t she?”

I drag in a deep breath. “Yes. She does. And I
love
her. Damn it. I. Love. Her. I do. Really. I
freaking
love her.”

I will say these words until they’re true again.

In the meantime, since I can’t melt into a bubbling gassy
puddle, I’ll slink into my house and hope I never see Adam again.

Ever.