Social Neighbor (The Social Series Book 1) (14 page)

“I’ll show him! Sick asshole!” I snagged the small can of pepper spray from my purse and bolted for the door before rationality could hinder my revenge.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Flor! You can’t pepper spray someone like that!” Matt chased me in his underwear, doing his best to snatch the can from my grip.

“Watch me!” I snapped as I slung our door open without care for the small console with mail and keys against the wall. The heavy door clattered violently, and likely damaged something, but I didn’t care. I was on a mission. The neighbor’s eyes were going to burn just as much as mine did!

I used the side of my balled fist to bang on his door as hard as I could. I rapped three, four, five, six times before pausing. Little zips of pain rocketed up my arm but I hammered away.

“You’re a sick bastard! Open the door! Now! I know you’re in there! I’ve listened to your ruckus for two hours now! Open up! Sending me pictures of your
freaky
little wiener? Open up!”

The door jarred slightly. I listened closely and jerked away from Matt who kept trying to tug me back to our own door. I heard a few small thuds as I waited for him to open the door. It seemed to be taking forever but I waited, shoving at Matt’s grabby hands as he kept reaching for my weapon of choice. The door bumped against its frame as “G. Stone” unlocked his lair. The door began to crack open and everything went in slow motion for the next ten seconds. Or at least it felt like slow motion as I brought the can of pepper spray up in front of me, closed my own eyes tightly and turned my head as I depressed the button, unleashing my revenge for his dick pic stunt.

“Ah! What in the fuck? Holy shit! You pepper sprayed me!”

“Oh my god,” I whispered aghast, dropping the pepper spray from my hand. It hit the floor with a hollow sounding
clank
and rolled away. “Oh my god,” I whispered again, now feeling more shocked and confused than aghast. “Graham. Graham? My Graham. How? I… Why… What happened? I’m so confused…” I said, eyeing the condition he was in.

“Yeah! Got that!” he barked as he fumbled with his wheelchair. He wanted running water, I presumed.

I scurried after him feeling desperate to help the big ogre. Matt disappeared like a flash, probably wanting nothing to do with the police that were likely about to be called. I couldn’t blame him. I followed Graham into his apartment feeling like I was watching the whole mess unfold on a movie screen versus real life. My life!

“Let me help! I’m so sorry. I thought you were someone else!”

“So you randomly accost people at
their
door with pepper spray?” he ground out angrily as he bumped into the walls. I winced, but I deserved that. “Water. Ah! I need water!”

“No, don’t use water! I heard it makes it worse,” Matt piped up from beside me still in his underwear but now with his cell phone in hand and scrolling down his screen furiously.

“Why wouldn’t water work?”

“I don’t know. I just heard that once. Somewhere,” he muttered, obviously trying to recall when and where he heard this piece of advice. “Checking now.”

“So what works?” Graham demanded as he spluttered through the tears rolling at a constant rate down his face.

“They said pepper spray is oily and that’s why water doesn’t work.”

“What if we put a drop or two of dish soap in the water?” I offered, desperate to make it better.

“You’re not putting fucking soap in my eyes too!”

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so, sorry.”

Matt was typing on his phone with as much deftness as he used when texting a new lover. He felt bad too.

“Okay! Okay! Milk. Do you have milk?”

“Milk?” Graham and I asked in unison, his disbelief mirroring my own.

“Milk. Says the dairy fat in milk helps neutralize the burning.”

Without waiting for Graham to respond, I found my way to his kitchen and silently thanked God that he did have milk in his refrigerator because I knew for a fact we didn’t. I’d finished it off during my cookie binge fest. The cookies I had made for
him
!
Him!
My mind was reeling.

After rummaging for a large bowl, I dumped the contents of the milk carton out and brought the bowl to where Graham was sitting in his chair. And he was visibly seething.

Oh shit.

“Lean forward,” I tried to grasp the nape of his neck and direct him toward the bowl of milk but he batted my hand away with one big paw.

“I got it. Don’t touch me. What kind of lunatic knocks on their neighbor’s door just to pepper spray them?” he ground out before taking a big breath and submerging his whole handsome face in a salad bowl of milk.

“Jesus Christ,” I mumbled as tears stung against the back of my eyes. “Graham, I’m sorry. I thought you were this guy. I… He sent me a picture of his junk and I flipped.”

“Fuck me. The milk is sour,” he grumbled.

“Shit,” Matt and I said in unison. I hurried back to the kitchen and noted that the date stamped on the side of carton was a week before.

“I can go to the store and buy more!” I offered hastily. Graham bent to dip his face back into the milk and I grabbed the muscled cap of his shoulder. “It’s spoiled!”

“Don’t care,” he muttered, took a big breath and leaned forward, bathing his pepper sprayed face in spoiled milk. This couldn’t get any worse.

“Some guy sent you a picture of his cock?” he asked, bringing his milk sodden face up from the makeshift basin.

“Yes. Oh this is a long story.” I sighed nervously, not knowing where to begin or how to even remotely explain my actions. “Not that there is anything wrong with dick pics, but it’s just I thought it was my noisy neighbor. His Facebook…and his name… I was just trying to ask him to keep it down…” I trailed off and worried my bottom lip between my teeth.

Graham shook his head and took another deep breath before dipping his face back into the bowl.

“Says you should try to open your eyes in the milk if you can,” Matt added from over my shoulder. “Also says a spray bottle with water and a drop of dish soap will do the trick. The milk only helps with the pain. It doesn’t wash away the oily resin.” Matt shrugged, still looking at his screen.

Graham’s head popped up from the bowl, sour milk dripping down his face. “So now she gets to spray me in the eyes with soap and water? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He took another breath and submerged his face back into the bowl of milk.

I reached for a towel, regretting that I was going to have to spray soap in his eyes and really regretting that I’d pepper sprayed him in the first damned place. “I’m sorry,” I whispered again.

I looked over at Matt who was shaking his head and typing away on his cell phone.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“Oh, did you think this wasn’t going to end up on Facebook?” He smirked and continued shaking his head.

“What are you going to post?” I reached for his phone in vain. Matt held it high above his head and stifled a laugh. “When your roommate pepper sprays the wrong person. Hashtag oops. Hashtag it burns so bad. Hashtag I can’t make this stuff up.”

“Oh my god,” I whispered closing my eyes tightly. “Don’t post it.”

“Post it,” Graham ordered, his face hovering above the bowl of milk.

“Don’t tag me,” I warned, feeling humiliated and terribly guilty for my haste.

“…and tag her,” he added before submerging his face once more.

Hashtag FML.

His eyes were okay, if somewhat bloodshot. Splotchy red patches rimmed his eyes and descended down his cheekbones a little. I still felt horrible. I didn’t think I’d ever not feel absolutely dreadful, and thanks to Matt’s Facebook post, I was certain that I’d never live it down.

I knew my mom would see it and assume all sorts of horrible things. I ordered Matt to text her and explain that it was an accident and I hadn’t met some terrible fate at the hands of a serial killer.

“Better?” I asked without meeting Graham’s bloodshot gaze. I couldn’t. I was entirely too embarrassed and ashamed of myself.

“I’m fine.” He didn’t sound sincere and how could he? He’d just been assaulted by me with pepper spray and he was stuck in his wheelchair with some horrific device protruding from his leg. He had a bluish-purple bruise at his hair line where I could see the whiskers of dark blue stitches sticking up. He was bumped and bruised and scratched.

Jesus Christ!

“You don’t sound fine. You sound pissed. Not that I blame you,” I mumbled.

“Well pepper spray is definitely not a mood enhancer.”

“How did you get hurt?”

“Cabby tried to kill me. I was on my bike and he claimed he didn’t see me. Either way, I spent a few days in the hospital where I got this handy-dandy hardware.” He halfheartedly motioned to his leg.

“Why didn’t you text me back after that night at my club?”

“It was clear to me that I wasn’t wanted there. I left. I thought it best to steer clear of you. I saw her again, you know.”

“And what did she say? Or do I even want to know?”

“More of the same. Don’t worry. I’m a big girl and really I had it coming, didn’t I? You told me you live in upper eastside.” The accusation in my voice rang clear as a bell.

“I do.”

“Did you know I lived next door?”

“I found out when you brought the cookies.”

“You disguised your voice,” I said, shaking my head with a humorless smile on my lips. His deceptiveness had me feeling like I was involved in some sort of three-ring circus. The one where a reluctant audience member is “volun-told” to participate in some cheap trick.

“I didn’t expect… You caught me off guard. I would have told you. I guess I have a lot to explain, don’t I?”

I shrugged but looked at him expectantly. A long moment passed between us. I think we were both processing the whirlwind of new information that we had stumbled into. I waited for that string of explanations and he waited for…what? A miracle? Because that’s what he’d need if he thought I was going to change my mind about him. He was a liar. It was simple.

“So, why are you living here?” I broke the silence, looking him directly in his dark eyes.

“It’s my brother’s place. I’m not always here, Flor.”

“But you live here? You visit? You got kicked out of your other place? I mean, please clue me in here because I’m
really
puzzled right now.” Thoughts of Ms. Brunette weaseled back into my brain and I wondered if she had kicked him out of their apartment. I wouldn’t, and
couldn’t
,
blame her if she had. I would have done the same thing if I had a husband who decided to cheat on me.

“No. Not really. I spend a lot of time here but I’m not always here.”

“So your brother is the asshole that makes all the noise?”

“No.”

“Graham, I’m really confused right now, and I’d appreciate an explanation about everything but if you can’t give me that much, that’s fine. You don’t owe me anything. I’ll just leave you to it.”

“I… I can’t really explain. Not right now. I wanted to meet with you and go from there but you never messaged me back, and then I was in the accident.”

“Well you’re here now.
Explain
.”

“I… It’s not that simple.” He paused, rubbing his temple with the pad of his thumb. He wasn’t going to explain and it was no wonder why. How does one actually explain being a total liar? He had a wife. He should have told me. Hadn’t he tried to tell me something, though?

The night in the elevator he seemed conflicted. Of course he was conflicted! He was flirting with the idea of having an affair and I was the unwitting starlet of his drama. No thank you. I should have heard him out. That I will admit, even if only to myself. I should not have been so eager to interrupt him, but I was in no way going to take responsibility for his choices.

I stood up from his couch—his brother’s couch, whatever—and made my way to the door.

“Seems pretty simple to me.”

“Flor, dammit, come back,” he huffed.

“Sorry for pepper spraying you. Goodnight, Graham.” I strode right out of
whomever’s
apartment with my head held high, resolute in my decision to leave, but the moment I was alone in the hall, my shoulders slumped forward and all confidence escaped me.

Hurt and vulnerable made him impossibly handsome—more than he already was. I hated him for it, and I hated myself for wanting to brush my palm against the scruff that had grown across his jaw. He was gorgeous clean-shaven. He was devastating with facial hair. He was physically wounded and the sight of him that way made me flinch. It also made me want to play nurse.