Hope Entangles: A New Adult Romantic Comedy (Book 2 of 3) (6 page)

Well fuck me all to hell! He was her
new neighbor.

That wasn’t good…

That wasn’t good at all.

Chapter 6: Hope

Clive was lying on my head when my
alarm went off.

Eight a.m. Plenty of time to shower,
get dressed, and set up for the shoot.

I already had decided to use the bed in
the guest room again. It had worked out so much better than the
couch in my studio had. I’d probably have them use the couch for a
few shots anyways.

I had a red hooded cloak too. I thought
it would be interesting to have her wear it in at least a couple
shots.

As he said, Billy showed ten minutes
early, wearing a t-shirt that read “Tequila Makes My Clothes Fall
Off.” I fed him powdered donuts and hot coffee. After Georgia was
twenty minutes late, Billy called her on his cell phone. He smiled
and told me she was running late.

“
Girls…” he said in a put
out yet eager voice.

He still looked too damn happy for his
own good. I took it that Georgia hadn’t told him she didn’t want to
go any further with him.

When she did, I had a feeling Billy
wasn’t just going to shake it off with his usual cocky
jauntiness.

So I decided to take a few solo shots
of Billy, up on the couch.

I needed to keep him busy and engaged
until Georgia got here. Otherwise his sugar/caffeine high would
peter out, and then I’d have a yawning, sleepy Big Bad Wolf on my
hands.

Billy, shirtless and beguiling as all
hell, his long, strong body sprawled across the couch, was any
woman’s wet dream come true. And that look he had on his face; like
he wanted to eat you up, and he just knew you’d like it.

That you’d beg him to do it, and to do
it again…

I had to wipe the sweat from
my brow more than a couple times. Even with my air conditioning
cranked up on high.
Central air my
ass
. I felt like I was trying to take
pictures in a pizza oven.

Okay, either I was having sexy hot
flashes over AAA tow-truck guy Billy, or I was suffering from low
blood sugar. Because I couldn’t figure out if my mouth was watering
because of the well-built wolf-in-smoking-hot men’s clothing… or
because I was starving?

I’d eaten with Billy, hadn’t
I?

I excused myself, used my downstairs
restroom and then snagged a powdered donut on my way back up
stairs.

The world had changed in that short
span of time.

Georgia had arrived, and stood before
Billy with her head down. Billy’s swagger and cockiness were gone,
and in their place was this sad, lost little boy.

His eyes were glistening, and his
breathing was rapid. A thin sheen of sweat shone on his skin, and
his arms were slowly dropping to his sides, defeated.

Georgia raised her hand and touched the
side of his face. “I’m really sorry, Billy. I truly am.”

She turned and started toward me and
the door. She stopped and gave me a long, beseeching
look.

Oh, hell...

I hadn’t even thought she’d wait and
spring this on him here. She’d hoodwinked me, and crushed him. And
now I was stuck with what could be a pretty messy young-man-in-love
breakdown.

Shit…

That’ll teach me to give any more “good
advice.”

That’s what you get for sticking your
nose in other people’s problems.

Georgia left, and Billy stood there,
looking down at what was in his hands: the red hooded cloak Georgia
was supposed to wear.

He looked down upon it like it was his
own torn out, broken heart. Or possibly what was left of a dead
loved one.

It was one of the most poignant images
I’d ever seen, and part of me wanted to grab my camera and capture
it on film.

But I couldn’t.

It was too personal; too real; too damn
painful.

And hadn’t I caused enough pain by
taking portraits that were too intimate already?

I grabbed Billy’s button down cotton
shirt and helped him on with it. I took the red cloak out of his
hands and led him downstairs to the kitchen. There I made him a
cold-cut sandwich—thinly sliced ham, turkey, and Swiss cheese on
wheat bread with Hellman’s, and poured him a
sarsaparilla.

It had looked good last night at the
Piggly Wiggly, the sarsaparilla, and when Billy absently took a
drink, and then smiled with surprise, it had been worth the trip to
the store.

“
I haven’t had one of these
since I was a kid.”

I smiled and touched his hand. “I’m so
sorry.”

He coughed uncomfortably and blinked
away the shine from his eyes. Then he shrugged and gave me a pale
impersonation of one of his old, devil-may-care smiles.

“
I’ll find another
girl—probably prettier, with better teeth and bigger
implants.”

A roar of laughter erupted from
me.

The handsome letch would be just fine…
eventually.

But God help the female population as
he did his rebound thing. He’d set them up and knock ’em down like
bowling pins.

***

Bette invited herself over that night,
and we ordered in pizza. My half had extra cheese and pepperoni;
hers had ham and pineapple. I cringed at the thought.

I was beginning to wonder if our food
tastes would ever find a place to converge.

But we’d both loved the gyros Darla had
brought, so there was at least one place we could stand
together.

She’d brought a Meryl Streep
movie I’d missed:
It’s
Complicated
. I wasn’t a big Streep fan. I’d
liked
The Bridges of Madison
County
, and her ice queen turn in
The Devil Wears Prada
, but
mostly her movies were depressing as hell. So I just didn’t get
her.

But as I sat down and chomped on my
pizza, I just fell right into the movie. I laughed my ass off as
her ex-husband (Alec Baldwin) got her drunk, got her dancing, and
then unceremoniously got her into bed. He was irresistible… for an
old guy.

Not only did the movie have
us in stitches, but it made us unbelievably hungry—Meryl’s
character is a chef, and well… we raided my fridge and made nachos
with cheese and sour cream, and blended what was left of my secret
stash of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Ben
and Jerry’s
into two large
milkshakes.

I laughed hardest, though,
when Steve Martin’s tightly wound architect toked on some weed and
morphed into Steve Martin from the
Wild and
Crazy
days of his career.

Filled to the gills with pizza, nachos,
milkshake… and half a bag of Swedish fish I found hiding behind a
bag of brown rice in my pantry, I waved goodbye to Bette from my
couch, unable to even pull myself up to walk her out.

I sat there, snuggled up with a throw
pillow, watching a rerun of Law and Order, when I fell
asleep.

***

I woke to the sounds of hammers and
circular saws.

At first I thought it was coming from
the TV, but Rachel Ray was frying up something in a big, ugly green
pan.

My heart suddenly leapt into my
throat.

Was that asshole trying to cut my
sycamore down again?!?!

I pushed up off the couch, hit my shin
on my coffee table, slipped as I stepped on the empty pizza box
from last night, and staggered for my front door. I clawed at the
knob, wrenching the door open, and ran out onto my porch, down the
steps, and headed toward the new neighbor’s house.

But there was no one near my
tree.

I sagged in relief. That was until the
hammers and saws were overwhelmed by the sound of a meteor crashing
to earth.

Well, it was a backhoe beating its
mechanical arm into the ground, but it sounded like a meteor
strike.

There were half a dozen men in Raphael
Morales’ backyard. They had on hardhats and tool-belts, and they
were working on something at the back of the house.

I walked slowly toward my backyard,
irritated yet curious as to what they were doing.

The backhoe blocked my line of sight,
so I was creeping closer and closer, going back further on my
property to try and catch a glimpse.

I stopped when I realized there was a
barrier of opaque plastic hanging over what the contractors were
working on. I stood there for a moment, squinting to try and make
something out.

“
And here I thought the
redhead was the nosey neighbor,” a smooth, calm male voice said
from right beside me.

I jumped, made a squeak more suited to
a cartoon mouse—and about fell over my own feet.

Raphael Morales stood there in torn
jeans and a blazing white tank top, showing off his long muscles,
luscious skin, and silvery tattoos. His jet-black hair was wet and
casually spiked up into an impromptu Mohawk, and his feet were in a
pair of black plastic shower thongs.

How had he snuck up on me in freaking
shower thongs?

And he had a steaming, absolutely
delicious smelling mug of coffee in his hands.

“
Ah… I was… um…” That’s me,
master of the witty comeback.

“
So do you threaten to shoot
and spy on all your neighbors, or am I special?” He smiled
maddeningly, his eyes never looking at me, but at what his
construction crew was doing.

I bit my lip. The man was a
monster.

“
Your work crew there woke
me up with their hammering, sawing… and that backhoe pounding the
ground. I should have called the police.”

His smile became deeper, even more
infuriating. “It’s after eight in the morning, which is past the
legal time constraints of the city of San Antonio’s noise
ordinance, thus the police will do exactly nothing.”

He finally looked at me and his dark
eyes sparkled with wicked delight. “But if you’d like to call them
and confess to creatively threatening me with a shotgun, then by
all means, go ahead.”

Anger welled up in my stomach;
swirling, rising into my throat. “You think you’re so damn funny,
don’t you?”

Slyly he glanced down at me, meeting my
eyes for a heartbeat before his gaze rose perceptibly to take in my
hair. He looked back to the workers at his house, took a sip of his
coffee, and smiled with satisfaction.

“
I’d say I’m only the second
funniest thing standing out on this lawn this morning.”

That jackass…

I turned on him, my hand rising to
point a finger accusingly at him, and took a breath to yell at him
with… when it dawned on me what he’d been looking at.

My hair…

Now, I’m not a vain person… really, but
I’d fallen to sleep on my couch after a late night pizza/movie
bender. And I had taken my hair out of its usual ponytail when
Bette had come over.

I could only imagine what my hair
looked like.

Shit…

“
Stop by for coffee,”
Raphael said as he sauntered over to his house, still smiling,
“anytime.”

I clenched my hands into fists,
clenched my teeth until they were grinding, I even closed my eyes
hard enough to start seeing green clouds form in the
darkness.

That bastard!

I shook my fist in his direction in
impotent rage, but he was already back inside his house.

I stood there, wanting to start
screaming obscenities at him—I mean, I’d never had anyone tick me
off so badly so quickly—but then I remembered there were about a
dozen workmen only a few yards away. If I started yelling, then
they’d stop what they were doing to look my way…

And then they’d see what my hair looked
like too. Since I didn’t even know how bad it looked, I turned on
my heel and haughtily stalked back to my house, up the porch steps
and back in the front door.

I stopped by an old mirror in the foyer
that an even older aunt had given me when I graduated high school.
It had no frame, and had beveled edges that swooped into antique
looking, pretty lines… and it was so old the silver backing had
started to peel off in places, making dark shadows here and
there.

I loved it because of all these
things.

But even with the extra shadows it
still reflected the horrid state of my frizzed out curls just
fine.

I was a hot mess… like
a
steaming divot
on
a polo field.

Know how I said I wasn’t vain? Well, I
might have found the breaking point for that.

I had eye boogies, dried drool on my
chin, a whitehead ringed in red forming on the tip of my nose,
and…

I reached up and pulled something soft
and a little wet out of my hair. I looked down at it in my palm. It
was the severed head of one of Clive’s little stuffed, catnip laced
play toys: a little orange mouse head with green thread
whiskers.