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“I see,” he murmured, and she didn’t miss the pointed look he aimed at someone standing behind her.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Mrs. Mason. You aren’t being very friendly. In fact, I’d say you’re not doing a very good job at all of welcoming me to the neighborhood.” He leaned down toward her again, voice low and soft as he mocked her.
She poked him in the chest with her finger, drilling into his sternum firmly until he relented and straightened back to his full overwhelming height.
“I’m being perfectly friendly, all things considered. And it’s Miss Mason,” she corrected.
“Oh?” He smiled at her, sudden dimples flashing in his cheeks that made him far more boyish and charming than he had any right to be. The way his eyes traveled from the top of her head and down over her body to her bare feet left little room for his meaning to be misunderstood. “Well, in that case, would you like to?—”
Considering that she was wearing baggy pajamas that hung on her slender frame, her hair was pulled hastily and messily back into a low ponytail, and she had taken her makeup off hours ago, she had the distinct feeling that it was done more as a deliberate insult than an actual expression of interest.
“No,” she said firmly. “Absolutely not. I don’t make a habit of dating men like you. Please get your car off my lawn and turn your music down.” She turned to go, glaring at the men that shuffled off the porch steps to make room for her to pass. “You owe me a new hydrangea,” she said, pinning the guilty one with a firm look.
Dylan winked at her as she passed and called out, “Think you can handle living next door to her, Ethan? Not sure the stick could get much farther up her ass.”
They all laughed again, but she ignored it, determined not to acknowledge them or give them more ammunition to use against her.
“Hey, sweetheart!”
Unable to resist, she stopped with one foot on the bottom stair of her own front porch, turning to find him leaning against his railing, lit cigarette in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. “Dating wasn’t exactly what I had in mind!”
She slammed the door behind her.
Two
The sight of her mangled hydrangea the following morning sent Eloise into another rage spiral. It was framed perfectly through her bedroom window, easily visible as soon as she opened her eyes, and it looked even worse in the creeping light of the spreading dawn. Petals and leaves were scattered haphazardly in the street, stems snapped and broken at unnatural angles that made her want to weep in frustration for the senseless loss of it.
And maybe that man—what had he said his name was? Ethan?—hadn’t personally caused its destruction, but he was behind it nonetheless, with his careless behavior and nonchalantly irresponsible attitude.
He had probably floated through life on his intimidatingly large presence and his ridiculously good-looking smile. There had probably been no one to tell him no or hold him accountable for his actions, no one to explain to him that he was recklessly endangering the peace and order that other, more sensible individuals, such as herself, had worked so hard to achieve.
He was infuriating.
Most of the night had passed with her imagining his too-handsome face with its maddening little smirk and plotting her revenge. She’d never considered herself a vengeful person, but something about Ethan left her angrier than was reasonable. After a restless night led to sleeping through her alarm, she found herself rushing to get out the door on time, bitter about the lack of time for coffee and stewing over the memory of her flowers.
She had barely made it to the end of the driveway—wearing a wrinkled skirt and with wisps of hair slipping out of her hastily scooped up ponytail—when she spotted him. The car came to a sudden stop as she pressed down hard enough on the brakes to make her head bob.
Ethan stood on his porch holding a cup of coffee like he didn’t have a care in the world. He was leaning against the railing, shirtless and wearing black pajama pants that sat low on his hips. His chest was even broader than she remembered and his right arm was covered from wrist to shoulder in the tattoos she had noticed the night before—a multicolored tapestry on a canvas of skin that was golden from the sun.
Clearly, he needed a stern lecture on the risks of sun exposure and the benefits of sunscreen, but before she could spend too much time dwelling on his chances of lasting UV damage, her attention had already wandered to take in the rest of him. Dark blond hair, rumpled from sleep and the glide of his fingers. The flat plane of his stomach. The lean, corded muscles in his forearms. The knowing tilt of his lips as he looked up and caught her staring.
Her cheeks heated, and she scowled at him, trying to school her features into an expression of disapproval as she stared him down. He lifted his coffee cup in a mock salute, and she set her teeth as she fought against the urge to respond to his taunt with a very uncharitable hand gesture.
She pulled out of the driveway without giving him the satisfaction of flipping him off or rolling down her window to complain about how his car was still parked on her grass. He was horrid and she hated him. She ran the interaction over and over in mind as she drove, trying to figure out where, exactly, he’d gotten the upper hand and how she could have prevented it.
By the time she arrived at work—hastily parking her car in the lot beside Sun Valley Financial’s five story building with its glittering glass front—she was almost late. Late. A state of being which would have surprised anyone who’d known her since she’d first toddled out of the playpen and into her daycare classroom. Everyone knew Eloise was always punctual.
Fortunately, the rest of the employees were already inside the building and there were only a few raised eyebrows from passersby on the sidewalk as she tried to jog across the parking lot and up the front walkway in heels.
She had nearly been late—for the first time ever—and it was all his fault.
There was a low, surprised whistle as Eloise pushed open the sparkling glass front door and dashed into the lobby. It was mostly empty, nothing here at this time of morning but a polished gray floor, some decorative plants, and the day’s stragglers. She was intensely grateful that this building only housed the offices for the behind-the-scenes paper pushers, and she wasn’t dashing into a functioning bank branch and past a crowd of customers as witnesses.
“No offense, Eloise, but you look like shit.”
Eloise huffed and rolled her eyes as she turned toward the sound and spotted her three best friends standing in a small group beside the elevator. They were obviously waiting for her and she felt another burst of annoyance at Ethan for disrupting her predictable morning routine. She hadn’t even had her coffee yet, something she already knew she was going to feel as the day wore on.
“Thanks, Chloe.”
