cole
one
2-6-5-3.Red X.
“Fuck!”
2-6-5-3. Red X.
“Shit!”
I typed my code into the keypad a third time with no success.
"Goddammit!" I kicked the wood doorframe of the hundred-year-old Harlem brownstone I'd called home for the past six years.
“Hey, asshole! Shut the fuck up!” a female voice shouted from the ground-level apartment.
I looked over the banister to see a short woman with waist-length, chestnut-colored hair staring up at me, holding a baseball bat.
"Crystal?" It was too dark to see her clearly. I was definitely more than a little buzzed, and my biological mother was the only short woman with long dark brown hair I knew. But why was she holding a baseball bat, and why was her voice different?
With a little difficulty, I walked down the stairs to get a closer look. The woman took a step back as I approached and held the bat higher, tightening her grip on the neck.
"My name is not Crystal, and I live here."
Upon closer inspection—as close as I could get without getting clocked in the head, anyway—I could tell she definitely wasn't Crystal. She was younger, way more beautiful, with pale golden brown skin and she didn't have my birth mother's bright blue eyes. Crystal also moved back to Missouri four years ago. Most importantly, tiny Babe Ruth definitely didn't live in my house. I was drunk, but not that drunk.
"You live in here?" That wasn't exactly how I meant to phrase that, but my brain and my mouth weren't cooperating. Also, I'd become aware that I was leaning against the brick wall of the stoop to support my weight.
"Yes," gorgeous, not-Crystal hissed. "I live here." She was so sincere that I was hit with a wave of confusion, and when it ebbed, realization slapped me in the face. I took a step back and looked up at the door I had been kicking a moment ago, then I looked to the right at the door I should've been kicking.
“Shit.” I did it again. I went to the wrong fucking house.
Why did these brownstones all look the same?
I turned to head to the brownstone where my code would work, and I guess I turned too fast because I stumbled and had to grab the railing to keep from crashing to the ground.
"Are you okay?" She lowered her bat, but she didn't take a step forward. I was drunk. I tried to enter the wrong house, and almost busted my ass in front of my sexy neighbor.
“I’m fine,Crystal. Mind your business.” This ordeal was embarrassing enough without Batgirl, suddenly concerned for my welfare.
Hadn’t she just called me an asshole?
I didn't need her help. I was a grown-ass man who needed to walk twenty feet to his front door.
"Excuse me?" she said. "Again, dickhead, my name is not Crystal, and you screaming in the middle of the night woke me up from my much-needed sleep, so it is my business."
I turned to face her and felt myself sway as I tried to stabilize. Her outburst was sexy as fuck and I felt an overwhelming urge to kiss her.
Nope. Nope.
That was definitely the alcohol talking.
I can’t kiss her.
I have to get home.
The wordhomefloated to my consciousness, but instead of focusing on that goal, I decided to speak.
