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"Changing the oil."
Oh kay! Not something I can relate to or talk about. "You want to come over for a drink or...,"
"No."
My heart stutters to a stop before it starts kicking up so loud I can't hear over it. I curl my lips around my teeth to keep from saying anything else before I give him a quick 'see ya around' and head for my home. Something I should have just done in the first place but no. I had to make a play for it. I had to try to flirt. And that ended in a full-on plane crash into the side of a mountain - no survivors and massive property damage...to my ego.
Once I let myself in I finally let the damaging sigh out that I bottled up inside of me when he shot me down. I try to stay quiet so I don't wake Jack up. The last thing I want is for him to be up all night because I woke him up early. I tiptoe into my kitchen where my best friend in the whole world is sitting at the island, hand on the lid of the blender.
"I'm so sick of this crap." And she turns the blender on low. God bless her for knowing just what I need after a crappy date. "All the new people and the awkward first meetings and the disappointment because they never stack up. I give up. I'm not even trying anymore."
"Oh come on. Don't say that. The right man might be just around the corner."
Yeah, that would put him in his garage ironically and I am certain that’s not going to happen. Not after the disaster I just orchestrated.
As if reading my mind, Kiki speaks, "What about that hot next-door neighbor?"
I lean over the island and tilt the bottle in her hand when she starts to put the rum in. I need more rum, less pineapple for this night.
"My neighbor wants nothing to do with the likes of me. He's some kind of doctor you know." I told her about his first words to me telling me he had just stitched up a patient or something and was tired. "A military one even, which means he's not only smart but brave as hell. So there‘s literally no chance of him wanting anything to do with a romance reading/writing author who comes up with ways to screw for a living."
"Hey, those books are my salvation I'll have you know - and the only action I'm getting currently." We both laugh before Kiki continues, "So he's not boyfriend material but he's writing material?"
"Oh yeah. Oh yeah, I already have half a book done."
I spend the rest of my night getting drunk on Pina Coladas with my best friend and suffering one mother of a hangover the next morning. So when my neighbor starts banging away in his garage at seven in the morning I try to remind myself why I don't want to be the woman who hangs her head out the window and yells for peace and quiet like an old crazy lady. I go to my office and sit staring at the screen.
I'm in the middle of a love scene. A particularly steamy one. I don't write Amish romances for God's sake. My hero and heroine are going to be getting it on hardcore with one another. So...what’s another word for an asshole. Not asshole as in a boar of a person but as in the little circle that is the actual hole of the ass.
Sometimes coming up with a sexy way of saying something is the hardest part of my job. I open a tab for it and start rolling through the words that pop up to describe the actual hole. I need to make it sound sexy but also romantic and not really filthy. Chocolate starfish, cinnamon ring, and fudge knot just make me hungry...not horny. Texas chili bowl and Carolina mudflap just sound too derogatory and kind of...well, mean.
Damn it. I sit and think about how to write this scene when a knock on my door has me finally looking up from my computer. It's probably just a package or something but it's also a good way to give my mind a rest, which sometimes is the only way to get things to come to me. I absent-mindedly open the door without bothering to look out.
Standing on my welcome mat is my next-door neighbor. I wonder what he wants. I wonder what he calls an asshole - from a man's perspective. "What do you call an asshole when you want to be sexy about it?"
The man looks like he might have rung the doorbell of a mad woman. He stutters around until finally settling on one word...then another. "Strawberry? Rosebud?"
"Oh, those are good ones! Thanks!" I slam the door and head back to my computer just as absent-minded as before and completely oblivious to my neighbor standing on the other side of the door. Now that I have the right wording things will start flowing a lot faster and I can crank this sex scene out before I have to stop and worry about finding something for dinner.
I knew the guy next door would be smart. Smart enough to come up with just the right words.
4
____________
Ezra
What in the hell just happened? I turn back around and head to my house still a little bit stunned. I've been on battlefields, had enemy fire coming at me, and seen friends take bullets right in front of my eyes. And yet, I don't recall ever being this...floored.
Did my little neighbor, the sweet little thing that comes off so bubbly, just ask me what I call an asshole when I'm trying to be...romantic? I make my way back to the room I use as an office and drop heavily in my chair. I watch as she comes back into the room she works in and starts clacking away at her keyboard again.
I went over there to tell her I was sorry for being an ass when she came home the other night and asked me over. I was a little pissy because it looked a lot like she had come home from a date which rubbed me all the wrong way. And instead of getting to apologize to her, I'm asked to use a descriptive word for an asshole.
That's it!
I reach for my laptop, the one I don't use very often because of all the confidential shit on it. This isn't my run-of-the-mill computer. I don't use it to pay my fucking electric bill online. I've put it off and put it off. It can't be left any longer. I need to know everything I can about the woman living next to me.
After several hours, and a couple of phone calls, I've given up and now stand outside her bedroom. Nothing about this woman makes any sense. I slowly push her door open and get a shock when I see a tiny head pop up among the blankets and pillows. Then a full body comes to all four feet.
