18. 18
18
L et me know the next time you’re feeling feisty. I can work with it much better when I have the chance to get you into bed with me.
It’s embarrassing how much the note turns me on.
I pound on her door, and she answers within a couple seconds with a winning smile on her face. I’ve never seen her look so pleased to see me, I almost wonder if that suspected twin is here standing in her place.
“I–You–” I exhale, trying to let go of this frazzled state she already has me in. She doesn’t even need to try. “I need you to be careful with the notes you leave on my door. My daughter can read.”
Albeit, slowly, but there’s likely to be a day where I don’t beat her to it in time.
“Okay,” she says.
I freeze.
“Okay? That’s it? You don’t want to argue?”
“Oh, I always want to argue. Give me something worth arguing over,” she insists.
“Perfect, I’m in the mood today!” I say, raising my voice. “Cut the shit with the music. I have been way too nice about it, but I’m done.”
She pretends to look behind me, like someone should be there.
“What do you think you can do about it?”
“I have a running list of ideas,” I tell her.
“And you’ve waited this long to act because…”
It’s a great question, one I’ve been asking myself this entire time and still can’t really answer. My mouth opens to give her some explanation before I’ve even realized what’s going to come out of it.
“Because you’re some sort of siren or something, that opens your mouth and makes me forget how much I really don’t like you,” I spit out.
Again, admitting more than I should to her about how much power she has over me.
Saying it outright makes me all worked up. I think the only other person I’ve been this rude to would be Caleb, but my anger towards this woman right now is overriding every feeling I’ve ever had towards him.
It’s impressive.
“There you go again,” she sighs with impatience.
“What?”
“Pretending I’m luring you in against your will or something. You could always say no to me.”
I could. The pros outweigh the cons of cutting this off.
“Fine. I’m saying no,” I decide. “No more.”
“What a shame,” she says.
And then she slams her front door in my face before I can think twice about any part of this conversation.
I hate her. I really truly do, and I wish on every star in the sky that she had never moved in here and messed up my life.
The next time I see her at the top of those stairs, I put a hand up.
“Not a word.”
She snickers, but listens to me and moves along.
I brace myself to go inside and grab my sleeping daughter so we can head to my parent’s house.
When Dahlia is at her dad’s, I take to keeping track of every minute of sleep I get. I mark the last known time before passing out, and whatever it is when I wake up. Then I do some quick math, and jot them down on sticky notes. I bought them just for this reason.
1 hour, 27 minutes.
2 hours, 52 minutes.
2 hours, 43 minutes.
3 hours, 57 minutes. That was nice of you.
Dahlia and I are playing with dolls, pretending to bake a cake— go figure— when someone starts pounding at my door. No one ever really knocks on our door, so we’re startled at first.
I slowly and quietly get up, in case we need to pretend we’re not home. I put a finger over my lips for extra measure, and she motions zipping hers.
I walk out of her bedroom, and through the living room to the door. It’s a great thing peepholes exist, because I utilize mine. The small circular window shows me a hot redhead with her arms crossed. She looks mad.
I press my forehead to the door, deciding on my next move. She knocks again, and it rattles through my skull. Not my smartest move, considering the immediate headache.
Against my better judgment, I open the door.
And I’m attacked by pieces of paper flying at my face. When I look down at their remains on the floor, I realize they’re my notes.
I smile wide.
“Problem?” I ask in my sweetest voice.
“What the hell are all these?”
I immediately shush her, and watch as it lights a fire in her. Her eyes seem ablaze with it, but as soon as she opens her mouth to fight with me, I physically shut it. I pinch her lips together.
I don’t know what fuels me to do such a thing, but I pull away quickly and try to contain a laugh. That was the funniest image I’ve seen in a long time.
“Quiet,” I scold. “My daughter is here.”
“What are these?” she asks through gritted teeth. She’s still pissed, but at least she respected that one wish of mine by whispering.
“Those are how many hours I’ve been sleeping at night,” I explain, smile still in place.
“I don’t care about your sleep schedule. Stop leaving things on my door.”
“See… the last time you said that, you yourself continued to leave some things on my door so…” I pretend to think about it. “No, I’m good.”
“I bet Jim would love to hear all about how you’re harassing the poor girl who just moved in,” she threatens.
“First of all, his name is Tim , have some respect. He’s the only good landlord that’s ever existed on this earth,” I explain. “And I happen to have hours worth of video proof that you’re the one harassing me every night. Want to take a bet on which one of us he’ll believe? I’ve lived here a long time.”
And he already knows the situation I’m in, I’ve just failed to follow up the way I should have. I imagine he’s still waiting for the day I do hand over my evidence.
Hopefully by now he’s heard some semblance of a complaint from the building's other occupants. If they were ignoring it before, surely they can’t have ignored it this entire time now.
If looks could kill, I’d be done for.
“If you—“
“Want to make a truce?” she asks, breaking the moment of silence.
“A truce?” I ask in disbelief.
“Yeah. A compromise, a deal, a solution. Ever heard of any of those?”
I look her up and down as if that will help me discover what game she’s playing.
Surprise, surprise: it does not.
“What did you have in mind?” I’m not giving in that easy, this has the word suspicious written all over it. “But watch what you say. There are some words I’m not ready to define to her.”
She nods in agreement.
“You know I don’t play my music only for the sake of torturing you, right? It just so happened to become a fun little bonus.”
“That makes me feel better,” I say with all the sarcasm I can muster.
“It’s about distraction. Something to get me out of my head,” she explains. “Which… you can do.”
Who’s admitting someone has power over them now? Wow.
“Except when I was distracting you, nothing changed.” I point out.
“Keep up, I just said it was fun to torture you.” She rolls her eyes. “If you’d like to continue things, I’ll play nice.”
I can’t help it, I smirk. Then I look around to where my daughter is sitting, making sure she isn’t going to sneak up on me again.
“You want to keep hooking up that bad?” I whisper.
“Don’t make me take it back.”
“No more music at all?” I ask. “You’ll completely stop?”
She thinks about this, toying with a strand of her hair as she does.
“No, but I’ll limit it, for sure. And I could start giving you a heads up.”
Not that it wouldn’t be helpful, but…
“You’re not making it very worth my while.”
“Liar,” she chides.
“You just said—“
“You can’t exactly distract me every night, can you?”
I sigh, getting her point.
I tell her my custody schedule, not seeing a way around it. She tells me she’s often gone on Thursdays or Fridays, but it varies. I don’t get an explanation, because that would be too easy.
If I’m correct in the pattern I’ve noticed, then we’ll end up staying with my parents on Fridays or Saturdays. That could be so much worse. Having a set schedule could really be helpful here, it would take so much stress off of our plates.
And it’s not like it’s a hardship to be one of her distractions. It’s downright fun when I’m not overthinking everything I know and don’t know about her.
“Deal,” I say. I even put my hand out to shake on it, and she takes it.
“See you Sunday,” she purrs.