Chapter 2
2
M ACKENZIE
A phone rings upstairs, and Kayla notices again how thin the walls are.
It’s like we’re all in one big room.
You can hear everything through these walls.
The woman’s voice tears into the silence before engaging in a shouting match with someone.
Kayla and I stare at each other, spooked.
“Is this a normal part of their routine?”
I put the rest of the cookie down, scoop up my phone, and rise from my seat.
“No.”
“Are they arguing?”
“I doubt it.”
A sound of screeching tires and stench of burning rubber drifts from the street below.
I head to the patio glass door and peer outside.
It’s dark and beautiful, a few lampposts glowing in the clouds of falling snow.
Footfalls dart across the apartment upstairs, and something gets tossed to the floor. Is it a phone?
The voice goes quiet, but things move frantically.
“I have no idea what this is, but I see a…” I murmur.
I open the door, wrestle with an unforgiving gust of wind, and notice a car in the middle of the road in front of the building.
The car door flies open, and the driver pushes out.
“Any news?” she asks impatiently.
“Yeah…” I murmur.
The man looks up, and I jerk back, concerned that he might see me spy on him.
Yet there’s no need to worry about that.
His eyes glaze over my balcony and shoot straight to the third floor, where some commotion happens.
“I think her husband just got home.”
“ Husband?? ”
She sounds half amused.
“Yes. Or her jealous boyfriend. Although he has that feral scorned husband look on his face."
“No way.”
“Way.”
I close the door and move back to the couch before turning the TV on, and trying not to think about the drama upstairs.
“Are they quiet?” she asks.
“They are now.”
They are.
They seem that way, but who knows?
A few moments pass before my friend talks.
“Okay. All right. I need to go,” Kayla says. “My mother’s calling me. Keep me updated,” she adds, and moments later, we end the call.
I set my phone on the table, grab another cookie, and munch on it while staring blankly at the TV when something catches the corner of my eye.
At first, something tells me not to look that way.It’s a pang of fear and sick anticipation, which I can’t explain.
I glance at the balcony, and everything seems in order.
Clutching the remote, I’m about to turn up the TV when a metallic sound travels to my ears.
It’s a tiny vibration, like a bow gliding over the strings of a violin. Or something touching the railing outside.
I look in that direction and see nothing.
In the meantime, a war ensues upstairs.
People shout at the top of their lungs, and a vase shatters against the wall.
A big vase, I suspect.
Invectives fly around the room.
“You’re a slut.”
“No. You’re a dick.”
Okay.
Merry Christmas to you all.
I chew on the soft cookie, all ears. Another vase or plate meets a bad fate.
The floor must be a mess upstairs.
Honestly, I’m surprised no one has called the police.
I’m shocked I didn’t do it, but a part of me wants to learn more about this convoluted story.
I’m sure the cops are on their way.
Well, I’m not, but I’m hoping that’s the case.
Another ping.
And it’s not coming from my phone.
This time, I set the remote down, slide my feet into my frog–shaped slippers, and move quietly to the patio door.
My phone.
I should’ve brought my phone.
I almost pivot to the table when something big and red moves at the corner of my eye, quietly dangling from the upstairs balcony.
So I stay put before tilting my head to the side like a dog about to get a bone as I try to figure out what that red thing is.
It looks like pants.
Are they Santa’s red pants?
No.
Really?
I push back a chuckle.
So Miss Horny upstairs has banged Santa himself?
And now he’s trying to move from her balcony to mine?Does that mean he’ll end up on my balcony?
I don’t want to think about it as I attempt–– again ––to go to the table, pick up my phone, and record some of this.
Kayla will have a blast. Plus, I need to document it, or she won’t believe that a man dressed like Santa dangled over my balcony while hiding from an angry husband and waiting for his argument with his cheating wife to end.
What is this one thinking?
Does he really think he can climb back up after the shouting match ends, use their main door upstairs, and just get lost?
Is that their plan? The plan hatched out with my neighbor, who’s shown him to the balcony in the first place.
Who does that?
And where was her husband all this time?
Has he been traveling?
Perhaps.
Were they on a break?
That’s possible.
Or were they living separately while trying to work things out?
I doubt it.
I find it hard to believe that she has enlisted Santa’s help to resolve her matrimonial troubles.
No way that happened.
A quiet chuckle flutters up my throat as I pivot to the table, pick up my phone, go back, and slowly slide the door open before stepping out, lifting my arm, and starting to record.
MACKENZIE
I can’t see the man’s face, but his perfectly inked washboard ads make me blush.
His skin is smooth and tanned and bears some calligraphic script tattoos.
I can’t read the words because the light isn’t great, and I’d need to bend backward over the handrail to read all the letters.
And who gets a nice tan like this in the middle of winter?
Rich people do.
And vane people do.
And people who have carefully planned their vacations do.
And the Santa dangling from my neighbor’s balcony does.
He struggles to touch the balustrade with the tip of his boot while I let the camera roll and slide my gaze over his body.
The man is hot.
Hot as in, your fingers might suffer third-degree burns if you have touched him hot.
Hot as in, you can’t stop thinking about him if he has laid a finger on you hot.
That explains the drama upstairs, the annoying complications, the screaming match, the angry husband or boyfriend, or whatever else the man upstairs might be.
A silky happy trail makes a beeline for the man’s crotch and belatedly disappears in his red pants.
The crimson cloth makes his bronzed skin pop, and luckily, the dim light on the patio highlights the man’s figure, giving it the perfection it deserves.
His pants sit indecently low, and as I bring my eyes up, I get a flutter in my chest from all that muscular mass encased in his V-shaped torso.
My hand shakes, and my phone camera may be slightly off when a thought spearheads through my head.
Why would a man like him fuck someone else’s wife?
My neighbor’s charm is undeniable, but is it worth the trouble?
The dangling from her balcony, and being shirtless in the middle of the winter with only a pair of baggy red Santa pants on––which, despite a crass lack of sartorial flattery, make him sexy as hell––a buckled wide belt hugging his tight hips, and black combat boots?
The tip of his left boot touches the handrail, and he struggles to maintain his fragile balance.
His chiseled arms relax a bit, and his pecs are only now getting my attention.
The man has an athlete's body, and if I am to guess, he’s not that bad looking in the below-the-waist department, either.
Freezing my butt off, I slowly raise my hand so the camera can catch every patch of skin, and every line that could easily fuel a sculptor’s wet dream.
Sheer mist billows from my lips, and snowflakes big as seagulls plunge from the jet black sky.
I should go back and let the dangling cutie find his way back if that is still his plan.
What is his plan, anyway?
My neighbors upstairs have gone quiet.
They’re probably engaged in makeup sex, the quiet variety.
Whatever lie she’s told her husband, seemingly, it has worked.
Or maybe the suspicion she had banged this beautiful stranger made him so horny that he slid between the woman’s legs without a care in the world.
Whatever it is or it was, this has become just another Brooklyn winter story.
The man I’m peering at could move down the fire escape to get out of here instead of hovering over my balcony.
Although to do that, he might need to go back or walk inside the building through a different door than the one upstairs.
Oops.
I hope that won’t be my door.
No.
I don’t think so.
He’s most likely waiting to go back and perhaps get the rest of his suit, including the Santa hat and beard.
The jacket and the mantel.
What if he just showed up at her door in his trousers and a jacket? With a clean shaven face. Or maybe not.
Perhaps with some stubble across his jawline.
Men with bodies like his sport a villain look quite often.Or so I like to believe.
I wonder how he really looks.
Trying to appease my curiosity, I lean forward and tilt my face up to catch a glimpse of the man’s face.
Unfortunately, I can’t see him.
All right.
I need to put more effort into that.
I step out of my slippers, slide my bare feet into the thick layer of freshly sifted snow lining my balcony, and move closer to the handrail.
The snow tickles my feet.
I almost touch the man’s boot with my trembling fingers when the camera and I tilt our focus up.
I still can’t see his face as he looks up as well, most likely listening to the quiet noises coming from my neighbor’s apartment.
Not much travels from up there to down here, cementing my idea that some lovemaking takes place upstairs.
Is Santa now jealous that his crush entertains the other man, who happens to be her husband?
I wish I knew more about this type of dynamic.
Perhaps he’s only interested in getting back and leaving the building.
Although I can’t imagine he’s planning to walk down the street dressed like this.
Isn’t he cold?
And did he drive here?
Curious, I peek over the balustrade.
The neighbor’s car is still double-parked, with the hazard lights on and the driver’s door cracked open.
He’s lucky that no other car rolls down the street.
They could squeeze by, but his luck would be short-lived.
My neighbors are sticklers for the law when enforcing the parking rules, and they would definitely call the cops.
However, with my neighbor’s husband's violent temper, they might sit this one out.
Leaning forward, I check the other vehicles, not seeing anything unusual.
I’m not familiar with every car parked on the street, but I can only imagine the hunk over here would drive something flashy like him. And I don’t see anything flashy.
He probably came here on foot. Or he took a cab.
Let’s not forget he and the woman upstairs hooked up before they came here.
Okay.
A sigh escapes my lips, and a shiver sweeps through my frame, making me hastily pull back.
And that’s just my luck as I skid on a patch of snow and barely catch myself so I don’t land on my butt.
“Oh…”
My voice is clipped, and I panic as I risk falling backward.
Shooting my hand to the railing, I miss his boot by an inch before gripping the cold metal and yelping at the bite of the savage cold.
His pants rustle as he moves his boot to the side.
“What the fuck…” he grumps.
His raspy voice travels like a colony of fire ants down my spine, leaving dots of burning pleasure in their wake.
He wrestles with his slippery grip while I push back and freeze in the middle of the balcony, my hand locked around my phone, the incriminating evidence lodged in its memory, about to get me in trouble with this handsome man.
He is handsome––I can attest to that.
Despite my predicament––holding my robe over my chest, my lips dark blue by now, I suspect, and pretty much getting busted––I can tell the man is easy on the eyes.
His muscular neck leads to a chiseled jawline and sculpted cheekbones, and when he looks down, his fiery dark eyes and sultry lips seal the deal.
He’s handsome and pissed.