The Voyeur Next Door (5 page)

“Hi!” Jen said. “I’m Jen.” She produced leather bound menus from beneath her arm and set them down on the table. “I’m going to be your waitress. Can I start you guys off with drinks?”

I ordered a beer. I needed a beer. Earl got coffee and Ali ordered an iced tea.

Jen jotted it all down quickly. “Great. I’ll be right back with those. You guys go ahead and look over the menu.”

She hurried off and we just sat in silence that felt extra heavy thanks to the heat. All I could think about was crawling on top of the table and napping.

The shriek of Earl’s chair legs against the slabs of concrete making up the patio jolted me partially awake.

“Going to hit the head,” he declared. “First thing to go when you get old, your bladder.”

Ali chuckled, but no one said anything as he ambled away, leaving me alone with Ali.

We didn’t speak. She seemed not to notice. Her focus had clung to the couple a few tables over. The light was reflecting off her glasses, so I couldn’t make out her eyes, but her head was tilted a notch to the left and she seemed utterly focused. After a moment, she huh’d in interest and cocked her head right.

“What?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

She gave an inconspicuous jerk of her chin towards the couple. “They’re having an affair.”

That was not something I had been expecting. My own interest perked out of sheer curiosity and I turned my head an inch or so over my shoulder to study the pair through the restaurant window.

The girl was in her early twenties with shiny blonde hair that fell in a sleek sheet down her back. The man was older, but not so old to draw attention. Possibly in his mid to late thirties. He wore a dark gray suit and his brown hair was combed back from an attractive face. He had an arm around the back of the girl’s chair and was leaning close to murmur into her ear. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. They appeared to be a normal couple out to dinner.

“How can you tell?” I wondered.

“He’s wearing a ring,” Ali murmured. “She’s not. He’s trying to convince her to stay, but she’s not sure that’s a good idea, although I’m not sure if she’s unsure because he’s married, or because he has kids.”

The married assumption made sense—I saw the gold band around his finger—but…

“How do you know he has kids?”

“Baby spit on his shoulder.”

Sure enough, there was a faint patch on his right shoulder that was darker than the rest of the suit, like the spot had been scrubbed at with a wet cloth.

Now I huh’d, genuinely impressed. I wasn’t in the habit of watching other people on a normal, day to day basis. Maybe because I wasn’t normally a fan of people. People had a way of bringing out the homicidal psychopath in me. There were days I marveled at my own willpower not to snap. But it did make me curious about my companion. So much about her just didn’t add up and I wasn’t a man who liked unresolved ends.

“What’s your story?” I asked, fixing her with the full force of my attention.

Her head tipped in my direction and I wanted to snatch those godforsaken glasses off her face so I could see her eyes. It was impossible to read a person when you couldn’t see what they were thinking. I hated that she hid behind them and the frizzy mess of hair drifting around her face. Everything about her felt like a mask she was trying to put between herself and the world and I couldn’t figure out why.

“My story?”

I nodded and leaned back in my chair. “Yeah, who are you?”

Her head tipped to the side and she peered into me, studying me the way she had been studying that couple, like she was trying to pick me apart, or maybe she was picking apart my question. Although, I couldn’t fathom why. It was a rational question. Normal even.

“Are you asking as a man, or as someone who could potentially be my boss?”

Her response intrigued me. I hadn’t thought of that and it left me trying to decide how to respond.

“Does it matter?” I finally asked.

“Yes,” she said simply. “There are things I could tell a man I was interested in taking to bed that I wouldn’t tell my boss.”

Her blunt, honest answer sent a hot sizzle through me, igniting all the places that had been dormant for a damn long time. It reminded me that I hadn’t had a woman in more years than was probably considered healthy, or normal. It reminded me that she was a woman behind her mask. But above all that, it illuminated things, small, subtle things that I wouldn’t normally allow myself to notice. Like how soft her mouth looked and how the color reminded me of a warm, freshly spanked ass. She had nice lips, a little thin on top, but the bottom made up for it. The curve was slightly off, a barely noticeable notch too high on the right, but that only seemed to add to its appeal. Her chin was tapered to a subtle point, not sharp, but not square and her nose turned up ever so slightly, giving the line an almost regal flare. Everything else was strategically tucked away and it filled me with an urgency I wasn’t accustomed to feeling.

“Boss,” I said at last.

I wasn’t sure I could handle the answer to the latter. I wasn’t willing to brand those answers into my head. She already had the ability to make my mind drift to things it shouldn’t. I didn’t want images of other men in her bed.

“I’m observant,” she stated evenly. “Sometimes that gets me into trouble. I’m sarcastic and I lack the discipline to keep my thoughts to myself.” Her head tilted to the side and she continued to study me. “But apart from those things, I’m smart, I learn fast and I will never lie to you.”

It was all said with the professionalism one would expect of an interviewee vying for the position, but the truth beneath each word hummed around us long after she stopped speaking.

“That doesn’t tell me who you are,” I murmured. “My grandfather is sold on you and I want to know why.”

She was saved from having to answer by Jen with our drinks. My beer was set in front of me and Ali got her iced tea.

“Your meals will be out shortly,” she told Ali.

Ali frowned. “We haven’t ordered yet.”

“Oh, your friend did,” Jen said happily. “He paid for everything and told me to tell you to enjoy and he’d see you back at the shop tomorrow.”

Ali’s head shot in my direction, but I must not have given her the reaction she was expecting, because her shock turned into suspicion.

“Did you know?”

I rubbed a hand back through my hair. “I suspected.”

It was amusing, watching her try and piece that together.

“Why would he leave?”

“Because he wants us to work it out and bond.”

“Bond?” she mimicked like the notion was foreign and a little offensive. “I don’t want to
bond
with you.”

Well, at least she hadn’t been lying about the not lying bit. But her reaction prickled something else inside me.

“Were you hoping for a romantic dinner with Earl?”

Her mouth clamped shut and she jerked back an inch like my words had physically slapped her. Something sharp and intense sparked behind her glasses and that was all the warning I got before the entire contents of her glass was dumped over my head. Cubes of ice clunked against the top of my scalp before finding their way down the back of my shirt. Sticky, cold liquid drenched my clothes and flattened my hair to my face. I would have exclaimed in horror, but all I could manage was to shove my chair back and leap to my feet in silent outrage as iced tea rained down my forehead.

“That,” she seethed, slamming her glass down, “was the third time you accused me of being a whore and it better be the last.”

She stalked off, leaving me to seethe in silence as the stunned waitress watched on with her hands over her mouth. I couldn’t even find the sense to be embarrassed that we had drawn the attention of, not only the people on the patio, but also those walking by and a few more peering out from inside the restaurant. All I wanted to do was strangle the woman responsible.

As if summoned by the mere thought of my rage, Ali stormed back. She snatched up my beer, and for one
oh you better fucking not
moment, I thought she was going to dump that on me as well, or hurl the whole bottle. Instead, she shoved it into Jen’s hands.

“No beer for him!” she snapped at the wide-eyed waitress. “I won’t be responsible for him getting hit by a car on his walk home, as much as he deserves it.”

Then she stalked off again.

I stared after her a full moment before my brain finally clicked into gear and I started moving. My single minded focus carried me across the distance, around tables and patrons alike in the direction of Ali’s swaying hips. I had no clear notion of what I would do when I got my hands on her, but I had an idea to pull her over my knee, hoist that hideous skirt up over her hips and spank her until she never did that again. I was just about to catch her too. I was so close. When a secondary sound interrupted my thrum of anger. I pulled out of the red mist just as a group of boys hurled themselves over the sidewalk on their skateboards and bikes, laughing and jeering each other on in some competition that was mindless and heedless. I knew they wouldn’t stop and Ali was walking straight into their path.

“Ali!”

I grabbed her before she could react, before she could take that last step off the patio and straight into a possible collision. My hands closed around her waist and I yanked her back, causing her to stumble into me. Her back flattening into my chest and I instinctively cradled her close. The boys hooted and hollered and rolled past without casting us a single glance. But I didn’t notice.

In my arms, Ali was rigid. Her back rose and fell quickly against my chest and I could feel the rapid patter of her heart syncing with mine. Her dress was getting soaked from my damp shirt and droplets rained from the long fringes of my hair to trace down the bare curve of her collarbone. I watched as one slid free of the hollow and vanished into the dark valley beneath the u-shaped collar of her top. I felt her gasp, felt her shudder, felt the quick flex of her stomach muscles beneath my hand and I cursed as my own body reacted. Her feminine scent rose around me like sheer drapes drifting in the warm, summer breeze. It wasn’t anything ridiculous like most women who paraded around smelling like food. Her scent was soft and subtle. It was soap, something floral and wild. It reminded me of springtime and rain and dewy grass.

Then it was gone when she jerked out of my hold and whirled around to face me. Whatever she might have been feeling only moments ago was a mask of anger behind bright, pink cheeks.

“What are you doing?”

Fuck if I know,
I wanted to tell her.

“You almost got killed,” I said instead.

Her throat muscles bobbed rapidly. “By a pack of kids on skateboards? Were they armed with hand grenades?”

When said like that, my moment of heroism died a pathetic death, taking my erection right along with it.

“Well, I’ll know better next time!” I snapped, shoving around her and starting down the sidewalk without glancing back.

I walked home. The setting sun dried my clothes, but left them clinging uncomfortably to my sticky, sweaty, sugary skin. My hair felt crusty and gross. Everything about my situation pissed me off. The whole day made me wish I hadn’t left my bed. I kept telling myself I would start taking Tuesdays off. Fuck that shit. The headache wasn’t worth the effort.

It was dark by the time I stomped up my apartment stairs and forced my way into my suite. I pitched my keys onto the cluttered table next to a mountain of dishes, clothes, and an old boombox I would one day eventually throw out. It struck the scarred wood and slid before coming up short against a mountain of books. I kicked off my boots and stripped my way through a maze of unpacked boxes to the bathroom.

The thing I hated most about the bathroom was the lack of a tub. While I didn’t like marinating in my own filth, I never realized how dependent I was on just the mere sight of the porcelain bowl until I rented the apartment and realized there was no tub, just a stand up shower in a fairly spacious cubical. The bathroom itself was abnormally large compared to the sitting room, which had all seemed much larger and normal when I had first viewed the place. I wanted to think it was because I had my shit strewn all over the place, but the reality of it had struck me during the move in that I might just need to start getting rid of some stuff.

I didn’t have a shower curtain. I kept meaning to find the box containing, well, everything, but I figured if I angled the showerhead just right, I might be able to get away with it without causing it to rain in the apartment downstairs.

It took the water about a minute to warm up. I stepped beneath the hard spray and let it rinse the crusted sugar from my hair and off my face.

Damn woman, I kept thinking as I scrubbed. What was her problem anyway? And who said anything about a whore? I knew my grandfather better than anyone. I knew how he was with women and how—oddly enough—they were with him. Earl had a way with the female race that I couldn’t for the life of me fathom. They somehow saw right past the fact that he was nearly a hundred and he seemed to forget, too. The end result was always me driving him to the hospital because something either broke, sprained, or wouldn’t go down. The latter would forever haunt my nightmares. But the fact of the matter was that Earl got women, hot, young women. What the hell was I supposed to think?