ThisTimeNextDoor (3 page)

His neighbor.

Chapter 2

CALM DOWN,
HE TOLD HIMSELF. His heart was beating too hard.
It’s the other one
.
Her roommate.

“Sorry to bother you,” she said. “I live next door. I’m on a mission to find some jumper cables.”

He tried to fix his gaze above her neck, but there was a lot to look at below it. She was a big woman, not tall, but easily two hundred pounds. Young, twenty-something. She wore a black tank top that didn’t quite cover the expanse of her chest, a pair of men’s shiny basketball shorts with a white stripe down the side, and black high-tops. Her hair was pulled back under a backwards-facing, rainbow-emblazoned baseball cap, exposing a round face that was shiny with sweat and devoid of makeup. Hands propped on her hips, she stared at him, hurried and businesslike.

Men’s clothes, no makeup, rainbow.

Lesbian
, he thought, relaxing.

“You can borrow mine.” He reached for his keys. “They’re in my car. Need help?”

“That’s all right. I’ve already got my roommate’s hood up. Such bad luck. Bad day.”

He smiled. “At least you had one. I’ve been staring at a computer all day. Totally lost track of time.”

“You get paid to do that?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Lucky you.”

He closed the front door behind him, agreeing with her. Some of his friends, old classmates and fellow teachers, had been without a real job for months, even years. “I’ll get the cables.”

She followed him out to his car in the short driveway next to hers. The houses were perched on the steep hillside to enjoy the view, leaving little room for yards or parking. “What’s your name?” He untangled the cables from the blankets in the back of his old Jetta and handed them to her. “I’m Mark.”

“Rose.” She flashed a quick smile before sinking back into her funk. “The dome light must’ve been on all day. Didn’t close the door all the way.”

“Bad luck.”

“Yeah. Well, thanks.”

A gust of wind blew through the houses and whipped her blond ponytail off her shoulder. He took a deep breath, realizing how nice it was to suck in some fresh air. He
really
needed to get out more. “Do you play basketball?” he asked abruptly.

She had already turned to walk away. “Excuse me?”

“Sorry. You look like you were—forget it. I have a hoop, see? On the side of the house? I just wanted you to know you could use it if you wanted.”

With a glance down at her outfit, her face turned pink. “God, I forgot what I was wearing. No, I lift. Weights. I was just working out. My roommate needs to run an errand but my car is dead behind hers, blocking her in.” She smoothed her shirt over her hips.

“Sorry.” He ran his hand over his face. “I don’t get out much and I forget how to talk to people. What you just had the pleasure of witnessing was my feeble attempt at socializing.”

“It was pretty good.” She smiled briefly. “Sorry I didn’t play along.”

“No problem. I’ll warn you next time when I’m about to make another effort.”

With a smile that finally reached her eyes—quite nice, actually, almost the same blue as his car—she said, “Looking forward to it.”

 
He looked down at his bare feet. Pebbles from the cracked driveway were biting into his skin. “Let me grab my shoes and I’ll help you. It’s easier with two people.”

“You really don’t have to—”
 

“Warning—this is another attempt.”

She laughed. “Busted again. All right. That would be nice, actually. Blair, my roommate, isn’t very butch.”

He stared at her. Were they both gay? That didn’t make sense. Blair was pregnant. Then again, Mark had heard the pregnancy was unplanned and John, his ex-neighbor and future relation by marriage, was still in New York.

“Just a second.” He jogged back to the house and shoved his bare feet into his Birkenstocks. Maybe the quiet brunette was bisexual. Or hadn’t decided yet. Which was why she couldn’t agree to marry—

“Chill, dude,” he muttered to himself. Countless hours in his programming Man Cave had decimated what few social skills he’d had to begin with.

Rose already had the hoods propped up when he returned. Her car, the one in back, was a silver Corolla. Blair’s was a white Corolla, same model year.

Hers and hers cars?

More confused than ever, he joined her under the hood of the dead one to help her with the cables.

“I really appreciate this,” she said, squeezing the red clamp and bending over the battery. “Since we just moved out here, I don’t have anyone I could call.” She connected the clamp to the positive terminal.

“You came from New York, right?”

She nodded. “Upstate. Never thought I’d live in California.”

“What’d’ya think?”

“Until today, it was fine.”

He walked over to her roommate’s car, ready to help, but she strode past him and attached the other clamps to the good battery without hesitating.

She certainly was capable around an engine. Why was it most women never learned anything about cars? Then again, most men didn’t seem to know much either. He was a software guy, but at least he knew the basics. Modern humans completely relied on machines they knew nothing about, depending on the few who did to keep them working. Cars, computers, electricity.

“So, Mark, what do you do?”

With a start, he realized she’d already started up her roommate’s car and was standing right next to him. It wasn’t like him to forget a woman was nearby—one of his most limiting hang-ups.

“I’m a software engineer.” He watched her face, waiting for the knowing-but-not-knowing nod. It wasn’t like saying
brain surgeon
, which conjured up the concrete image of latex fingers holding a scalpel as it sliced through delicate white matter.
Software engineer
made people think not of the action but of confusing, opaque technicalities. Computers, code, whatever. Fascinating, wonderful stuff most people thought was as thrilling as lint.

“Right,” she said, sighing. “I forgot everyone in the Bay Area is a software engineer.”

“Hardly.”

She gave him a sour glance. “Everyone with a job.”

“Not even them.”

“Everyone under thirty.” She climbed into her car and in a moment her car started. “Yes!”

Mark gave the Toyota an encouraging pat before disconnecting the cables on both engines. When he climbed into Blair’s car to turn it off, he noticed how clean it was, with a little silk daisy on the dash. He smiled, inhaled the faint scent of perfume.

Rose tapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll tell Blair she’s been liberated.”

His heart gave a thud as he realized he was going to meet the quiet brunette face-to-face. So far he’d had to admire her from across the property line. “You’ll want to drive around for a while to keep the battery going,” he said, swallowing hard. “Thirty minutes or so.”

“Yeah, I know. Should be fun.”

“Could be worse.”

“Tell me about it. I spent a week in this car driving across the country without anyone to talk to, since Blair drove out hers, too. I wish I’d left it at my mom’s, but everyone said you can’t live in California without your own car.”

“Hey! You got it going!”

There she was, jogging over from the house. Blair. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, understated but pretty. Her hair was down, all wavy and long and soft-looking around her shoulders, and a purse bobbed on her shoulder.

“Thanks to Neighbor Guy,” Rose said as he got out of the car.

His mouth went dry. His mantra,
Don’t be a dork
, blared in his mind.

“Oh,” Blair said, freezing in place. Eyes wide, she stared at him, obviously shy. After a moment, she laughed awkwardly and waved. “Hi. I’m Blair.”

“I know,” he said, then cringed. “I mean, hi. Mark is me. I mean, I am Mark.” He closed his eyes.
Kill me now.

“You’re making another one of those efforts, aren’t you?” Rose asked him.

Teeth clenched, he turned to glare at her, then saw the warm humor in her face. “Always risky,” he said.

“Nice to meet you,” Blair said.

Silence stretched between them. How did he acknowledge the potential connection between them without being rude?
By the way, my brother is marrying the cousin of the father of your unborn baby…

“We’re practically family,” he blurted.

Smile falling, Blair glanced at Rose.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, waving the cables. “I’ll go back into my cave now.”

He got as far as his mother’s rosebushes before Blair called out after him. “Thanks for your help.”

He turned, a familiar mortification seeping into his veins, and waved again.
Way to go, Casanova.

But the nice brunette didn’t seem to hold a grudge; she smiled and waved back at him as she got into her car.

She was prettier than he’d imagined, and he’d imagined a lot. Like a little fairy. If lacy wings suddenly appeared between her shoulder blades, flapping dreamily and bearing her away, he wouldn’t be surprised.

Were her eyes brown or green? He’d been too stressed to get a good look.

His gaze drifted over to Rose, whose bright blue eyes were fixed on him, a single mocking eyebrow cocked high. She’d seen right through him, of course. If he were a cartoon, little hearts would be swirling around his head.

“Better get a move on,” Rose said, getting in the car.

He flinched. He was willing to embarrass himself, but he hated to offend anybody. Especially a neighbor. Still clutching the jumper cables, he strode back over the creeping rosemary between the two driveways to Rose’s car and pulled open the passenger door just as she was revving the engine into reverse.

“Hey,” he said quickly, “Want me to ride shotgun?”

* * *

Rose frowned at her tall neighbor, surprised. Did he think Blair was going to be coming with them? “You don’t have to do that. I’m fine.”

He climbed in anyway and grabbed the seat belt. “You’d be doing me a favor. I’ll just spend the next half hour worrying about you getting stranded.”

She put the car in park and gave the car more gas as it idled. “No, really, I’m fine.”

“Please. You never know what might happen. Lots of steep hills up here. Bad spot to get stuck.”

Biting her lip, she stared at him. Blair was obviously in her own car waiting to drive somewhere else. “Is this another one of your efforts?”

“Is it that obvious?”

She glanced at the other car. “I’m not going where Blair is going, you know.”

“I didn’t think you were,” he said. And then, “Why would you say that?”

She just laughed and backed up into the street. “So, Mark, where should we go?”

“Do you get carsick easily?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, good. Me too. That rules out the scenic drive through Tilden,” he said. “You could get on 580, drive for fifteen minutes, turn around.”

“Get on the freeway during rush hour? Kind of risky, don’t you think? Stop-and-go traffic with a dead battery?”

“Right. Well, where do you want to go?”

“I don’t want to go anywhere. That’s why I’m annoyed,” she said. “Think of something else.”

“Why should I think of something else?”

“You’re the one who jumped in.”

“Well, where would you have gone if I hadn’t jumped in?”

“I have no idea, but you did, so make yourself useful and tell me where to go.” They pulled up to a stop sign at a steeply angled intersection.

“Turn left.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“No way. If you’re going to make me navigate, you can’t ask so many questions.”

Her face broke into a grin. “Fair enough,” she said, gunning the engine and turning left. “Should I close my eyes, too? Make it a little more exciting?”

He gripped the dash. “That won’t be necessary,” he said. “Turn right.”

“What, here?”

“Are you going to listen to me or not?”

“Fine!” She braked and turned, screeching the tires.

“Will you slow down? Little kids live around here.”

“Little kids can’t afford to live around here, from what I’ve seen. The average age in this neighborhood seems to be about eighty-nine.”

“There are kids, believe me, so slow down.”

“Man, what a baby,” she said, but she did as he asked. The windy road came to an empty six-way intersection. She braked, but the car was on an incline and the idle sounded a bit weak. Paranoid about the battery, she hit the gas.
 

A large male hand grabbed her thigh. “Wait! Uphill traffic doesn’t stop.”

She braked abruptly just as a Prius popped over the hill and flew past her front bumper with only a foot to spare.

After a long second, her heart pounding in her ears, Rose looked at him. “Thanks.”

He opened his eyes. “That car was going at least twenty over the limit.”

“Hybrids are way too quiet.” Paranoid now, with her eyes fixed on the downhill road, she puttered across the intersection.
 

Mark’s hand was still on her thigh. Her sweaty, exposed thigh, barely covered by the sleek polyester fabric of her shorts.

Not that he looked like he was getting turned on by the experience. Probably because of the trauma of a near-collision, he seemed to have forgotten where his hand was. From the way his fingers pressed into her flesh, mapping tiny circles with his thumb, she wondered if he was finding some comfort in the contact, like a kid with a blankie.

“Mark?”

Then he realized. With a start, he jerked his hand away. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I scared you.”

He shook his head, looking angry. “I’m fine. I really need to get out more. It’s making me jumpy.”

“Well, that was pretty close. It made me jump, too.” She put a hand on her chest. Sure enough, her heart was still racing. The last thing she needed was car repair, let alone a trip to the hospital without health insurance.

His eyes followed her hand and lingered there. If he hadn’t been so obviously smitten with Blair, she would’ve thought he was checking out her breasts.

Looking back at the road, he said, “I recognized the guy, too. Lives around here. Smug prick. Always speeding.”

She drove on, winding past modern homes hanging on the steep hillsides. “Now where, Captain?”