Chapter 3
Clara
I t’s been another long day and I’m dying to get a good night’s sleep. After setting my house alarm, I fall into bed, exhausted but happy. I’ve always been a light sleeper but tonight sleep proves to be an elusive bedfellow. I toss and turn, unable to get comfortable. I know what’s causing my anxiety, but I don’t allow myself to ruminate over it. Instead, I punch my pillow to soften it up and force myself to close my eyes.
When sleep finally takes me, I just know that tonight is going to be alright. Nothing is going to disturb my sleep, not blaring horns, terrible nightmares, or any damn thing else. I deserve a peaceful night’s sleep and tonight I’m going to get it. My dreams are usually much better than my real life.
Tonight’s dream is pretty amazing. I’m walking down a long winding path with beautiful flowers all around. Everything is all rainbows and butterflies until my knees give out for no apparent reason. Just when I’m in danger of falling face first onto the stone sidewalk, big, strong, warm arms come out of nowhere to break my fall. Suddenly my face is smashed against a muscular chest. I have no idea who this man is, but he smells fantastic. Just when I’m about to look up into my hero’s face, a loud blaring sound forces me awake.
I slowly realize it’s my car alarm going off again. A quick glance at the clock on my nightstand tells me it’s two in the morning, right in the middle of my sleep cycle. I can’t believe this is happening again. My car alarm has been going off so often at night for the past few weeks, that I sleep with my key fob on the nightstand.
The incessant beeping is making my head hurt. My neighbors have already been complaining about it happening so often, so, I grope for key fob, swing my arm around and point it towards the window. The second I hit the button the noise stops. With a groan, I turn over and pull the blankets up over my head. I want that dream back more than I want air to breathe. Slamming my eyes closed doesn’t help. My tall, dark, handsome stranger that smelled so great is gone.
Ten minutes later it happens again. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I say out loud even though I’m the only person in the house. This is the first time it’s happened twice in one night.
What in the world is going on?
I throw back the covers, climb out of bed in my pajamas and slide my feet into my slippers and shuffle over to the window to have a look for myself. I see a light come on in the house opposite. Damn it. I raise the fob and hit the button to turn off the alarm for the second time tonight. I stand there for a good five minutes and don’t see anything unusual going on. Maybe it was the wind blowing hard enough to set off the alarm, I reason to myself. I’d taken the car to the garage last week, but the mechanic said everything looked in order.
I turn around to go back to bed and the damn thing goes off again. Huffing in exasperation and muttering under my breath, I head for the front door. Enough is enough. I let the alarm blare away, wrapping my hand around the small canister of mace dangling off the keychain.
At this point, I’m reasonably certain it must be neighborhood kids messing around with my vehicle. I’ve seen a few of them out at all hours and wondered if they slipped away or if their parents worked nights and couldn’t supervise them properly. I guess this is the modern-day equivalent of knocking and then running away. At least they’re not leaving flaming bags of dog poop on my porch, I remind myself. It could be a lot worse. It didn’t matter who or why, because tonight I’m determined to catch them.
I rush out the front door with my mace held up and run around my car, ready to catch the culprit in the act, only to find no one crouched down behind the vehicle.
This when a deep voice calls out to me from the side, “Turn that damn alarm off, woman. Some of us are tryin’ to get some shut eye here.”
It’s my grouchy neighbor with the unruly teen son. I quickly turn off the alarm and walk over to talk to him from across the short hedgerow that separates my front yard from his.
Before I can speak, he asks in a grumpy tone of voice. “Is this what y’all do to get attention or something?”
Shocked by his ridiculous question, I stammer, “What? No. Of course not. What kind of question is that?”
The hot bastard is standing there wearing only his pajama pants, which are hung low on his hips, showing off every delicious tattoo on his muscular body. I try not to stare as he brings out one beefy arm to gesture towards my car.
“That alarm sure as fuck goes off a lot and I don’t ever see anyone messing with your car. It makes me think that you’re setting it off yourself for some nefarious reason.”
I give him the evilest glare imaginable. “That’s got to be the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard a grown man say out loud.”
“Don’t be getting uppity with me for speaking my mind.”
Frowning at him more deeply, I add, “Just so you know I have to be at work by seven-thirty every morning, it’s not exactly fun for me either.”
“Yeah, I don’t have to be a fucking detective to know that you’re a schoolteacher. Everybody’s seen your teacher of the year bumper sticker.” The sexy biker asshole is smirking all over the place, while his big chromed out Harley gleams in the driveway behind him.
I give him an indignant huff. “I have a right to be proud of that achievement.” Bringing up one hand I point to him and squiggle my finger around in the air, I tell him, “You’d have to be stupid to think that I’m the one waking myself up all the time.”
He just shrugs his beefy shoulders. “For all I know, you’re an insomniac and this is what y’all do for shits and giggles.” He even has the audacity to make my little squiggle gesture back at me. “Maybe you’re up at all hours and think if y’all can’t sleep, you’re not gonna let any of us sleep either. Misery loves company.” The last line was said with dark glee, like he’d finally figured me out.
I snort a laugh, “I don’t know anything of the sort. You’re the most miserable man I know, and I’ve noticed you never seem to have any company.” I fold my arms over my chest and glare at the asshole. If looks could kill, he’d drop dead right where he stands.
“This is apeshit crazy, woman. You seriously need a mental health eval, you know that, Teach?”
“My name is Clara Collins. Don’t call me woman, like I’m some generic person of the female gender.”
He squints his eyes at me. “Is this the part where we start talking about pronoun preferences and gender equality, because it is, you can count me the fuck out, I ain’t got time for that shit.”
“What in the world are you even talking about? You just accused me of setting off my own car alarm on purpose. I’m telling you I didn’t and now you’re talking about irrelevant stuff.”
A short silence spins out between us. With each second that ticks by, my suspicions grow. “So where’s that delinquent son of yours? Maybe he’s the one messing with my car and you’re trying to throw me off his scent by going off on a tangent about gender equality.”
Suddenly, the upstairs window slides open with a bang and his son sticks his head out. “I’m not a delinquent. I do, however, love to sleep, probably more than any human being on earth. So, if the two of you could shut the fuck up, I think the entire neighborhood would appreciate it.”
Damn, despite his foul mouth the kid was articulate, I’d give him that. I knew his son didn’t go to Las Salinas High School. If he did, I’d have at least seen him around. His dad didn’t look like the average private school parent either. It made me wonder if the kid was even in school.
My neighbor opens his mouth to yell at his son, but the teen slams the window shut so hard, I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter the glass.
I quickly apologize, “Sorry I called your son a delinquent. I didn’t mean it.” Rubbing my free hand over my face, I say, “It’s just hard getting woken up all the time.”
My neighbor huffs out an exasperated breath and grumbles, “For me and everybody else in this damn neighborhood as well.” Closing his mouth, he studies me for a few seconds before adding, “I’d put my money on that two-timing husband of yours. Does he have a second key fob perchance?”
My mouth drops open. How does he even know my business? Ah yes. Everyone on the damn street saw my naked sister. “Ex-husband,” I say indignantly. “Well. Almost ex. I never even thought of that. I was under the impression only one key fob came with my vehicle.”
“You usually get two,” he says before turning to go back inside his house.
“Sorry, again,” I call out right before he steps into his house and slams the door. He didn’t even tell me, ‘you’re welcome’, maybe they didn’t teach good manners in Texas?
I march back into my house, set the house alarm, and go straight for my cell phone. Plucking my soon-to-be ex-husband’s number from my contact list, I call him, fucked if I care that it’s two in the morning. He answers groggily on the fifth ring.
“Hello. Who is this?”
“Wake up, Chris. We need to talk,” I snap at him.
I hear my sister ask, “Who is it.”
Chris whispers, “Shut the hell up, Gina. It’s Clara.”
“Give me the phone,” my sister says excitedly.
“After I talk,” he whispers back. “Hold on, Clara. I’m going into my home office.”
I’m disappointed. Clearly this wasn’t Chris’ doing if I had to wake him to ask. I decide to see if he has an extra key fob anyway, since I have him on the line.
His voice becomes warm and sweet. “Alright, sweetheart. I’m glad you finally decided to call me back. Better late than never.”
“Look Chris, someone has been setting off my car alarm in the middle of the night. It’s driving me nuts.”
“What? When did this start?” His concerned tone might have impressed me if I wasn’t already one hundred percent sure he was a lying, cheating, snake.
“A couple of weeks ago. It just happened again. The thing is, no one is there when I go out and check.”
“You need me, sweetheart. Just call off this whole divorce and let me come home. I’ll take care of whoever’s doing this to you, and we can pretend like nothing ever happened with your sister.”
I actually have to hold back a laugh, because that would never happen in a million years. “When we bought the car, was there a second key fob?”
“Yes. I put it in the safe with our other important stuff.”
My head snaps up to look at the picture covering the wall safe.
“I’m sure you don’t remember the combination, but I could open it for you,” he suggests helpfully.
“No thanks. I remember it.”
I start to take the phone from my ear, but he hastily asks, “So, is it okay for me to come home? Look, I don’t even care that you can’t get pregnant anymore. I still want you. Are we good?”
“Of course we aren’t fucking good,” I tell him tersely. “You have a new girlfriend now. Remember, she’s waiting for you in bed?”
“Now Clara, don’t be that way. You know I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
I walk over to the safe. Before I disconnect the call, I tell him, “Three months and our divorce will be final. I’m counting down the days. Hope you are too.”
After ending the call, I toss my phone onto the bed and open the safe. He used my birthday as the combination. How he thought I could forget my own birthday is beyond my ability to reason. When I pull the door to the safe open, I see the extra key fob, laying right there on top of my birth certificate and deeds to the house. I pull it out and look it over, sorely tempted to use it to turn on my car alarm just to annoy my neighbor. I don’t though because I’d have to annoy everyone else as well. I replace the fob and shut the safe before heading back to bed in the hope of getting a few more hours of sleep before I have to get up for work.