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“At my wedding, I will.” She stands a little taller. “Maybe I’ll marry your arch nemesis and live happily ever after,” she teases.
Her words sit funny in my chest. I can’t quite place the feeling they give me, but I don’t like it.
Her smile falters just a hair. “It was only a joke. I’d never marry him.”
I shake my head at the strange feeling and smile. “It’s not a bad idea. That’s one way for me to get inside information.”
“Marriage to get inside info on your Christmas light war.” She wrinkles her nose. “Also a hard limit.” Strolling to the back door, she gives me a wave and grabs an apple from my fruit bowl. “Later.”
The door closes, and I settle back on the sofa and stare at the glow of his lights that I can still see even though my blinds are closed.
He’s going down. Hard. He may have won this battle, but the war? The war will end with his unconditional surrender.
3
BRENDAN
My work is done for the time being, so I lock down my server, then engage my security protocol before powering my system off.
Charlie lounges in the narrow shafts of sunlight that make it past the oak tree that looms over my house.
“You think she’s out there?” I reach down and pet his extra-soft tummy as he stretches, his sharp claws curling all the way out.
He doesn’t answer, probably because he wants to get back to his dreams of chipmunks or the cute little black kitty who’s been stopping by my porch for the past couple of weeks.
I brew another cup of coffee, goof around on my regular laptop for a minute, then head to my comfortable side chair to begin my watch.
She’s outside, all right. I see her flitting around her front porch as she wraps the supports in lights, stands back to make sure they match the placement on the other posts, then goes back to make changes.
I entertain the idea of just walking out there and talking to her, but that won’t go well. In addition to the hot chocolate attempt, I’ve opened my front door intending to speak to her, but the moment she sees me heading her way, she dives back inside her house and slams the door.
Is she afraid of me? I don’t think so. At least, not in the danger sense. I think she’s afraid of talking to me, but I think that goes for everyone. It hasn’t escaped my notice that she rarely leaves her house. Though I’ve forced myself to stay off her wifi, cleverly entitled “Sleigh Queen,” I’ve poked around just a little. What I’ve learned is that Ariadne is a recluse who works as a travel writer.
She never leaves her house, but she writes for several well-known magazines with articles on destinations from the Bahamas to Greece, from the Azores to Tokyo. How does she do it? Her imagination. She may lock herself away inside her cottage, but her mind is like a firecracker. It pops and jumps and sparkles, an information network infused with some sort of fairy dust. I say this because when I read her work, Ibelieveshe’s been to these places. She can describe the flowers of Mauna Loa with breathtaking detail or explain the habitat of snow leopards and the difficulties of safely finding a guide to locate them in the mountains of Afghanistan.
None of the magazines are any the wiser, because who could detail these sorts of travels without actually going there? No one. No one except Ariadne Morton. I’ve accessed her Dropbox, sorted through her files, discovered some amazing pieces that she’s never published.
So, yeah, about that—I’m a hacker by trade, but with her, I don’t think of it as breaking and entering. It’s more like exploring. She’s my neighbor, after all; no harm in getting to know her.
I sip my coffee as she fusses over the lights. The angle on the middle post is slightly off, so she climbs up to adjust it, giving me a nice view of her round peach of an ass. Her breath escapes in white puffs.
Though I’ve looked through her computer, I still don’t have a true window into her life. She has no social media, no real footprint. Keeping to herself seems to be her number one rule. Even the people in this small New England town who know everything about everyone don’t seem to have any idea about her. That’s a feat in and of itself when you’re surrounded by the naturally nosy at all times.
What I do know is that when I see her—even if it’s through my blinds—I get a little tingly. Okay, a lot tingly. And when I read her words, I love them. Every single one of them is crafted, worried over, perfected. Believe me, I’ve seen her drafts. Sheagonizesover word choices. And when she’s done, she’s created a work of art. Does it matter that it’s fiction? No. Not to me. After all, my life is fiction just as much as hers. On paper, I’m a computer programmer with a degree from MIT who lives a nice, quiet life. In truth, I hack world leaders and governments, selling my services to the highest bidder.
Ariadne, though, she’s far more of a mystery. One I’m going to unravel bit by bit. But first, I have to get her out of her comfort zone. If I can catch her on her back foot, I can find a way to get closer to her. And, lucky for me, Carl at the hardware owes me more than a few favors after I showed up to help him out after last year’s ice storm.
Charlie pads in and takes his spot in my lap.
“Any minute now, buddy. She’s almost to that box.” I pet him as she climbs down and reaches for the box labeled ‘roof lights’ in her neat hand. “Here we go.” I grab my binoculars and focus on her face.
At first, she’s confused. I can almost see the comic bubble over her head with the words “what happened here?” in it. Then she sits back on her haunches. Now she’s probably thinking “I was wondering why this box was on the floor of the garage instead of on the shelf where I put it. It must’ve fallen. Crap.” She stands and puts her hands on her hips as she scowls at the box full of broken LED icicle lights.
Charlie looks up at me accusatorily.
“What?” I shrug. “Accidents happen. Boxes fall.” I mumble the last part. “Especially if someone pushes them.”
He licks his paw, totally aware of how to flush out prey.
