Chapter 5
chapter five
Angelo
Mia sent me a new listing in a link from her iPhone.
No pleasantries, no signoff, just a single permalink that, for all I knew, could have been a phishing email that would infect my entire computer with a virus.
I wouldn't have put it past her either. Something to make my day as inconvenient as hers had been without a car.
I didn't open it. I wasn't going to be the sorry chud that fell for something as simple as an indistinguishable link.
I was taking classes at the local college for moments exactly like this one.
For Mateo to ever trust me as a worker, he would have to know I was smart enough not to open the clear, obvious, credit card skimming scam.
That, or Mia just didn't want to speak to me even more so than normal after she took the bumper clean off her Beamer a few days ago. The radio silence was fine with me. Less to spike my stress levels. Every conversation with her was its own battle in a long war. Instead of satisfyingly telling her I wasn’t suckered by her hoax, I sent a thumbs-up and got a scheduled showing time and date for the next afternoon in return.
Which she was late to—again.
I got to the property and did my own walk around the outside, same as the first house.
This one was bigger, with seaside-blue siding and some pretty fencing for privacy from neighbors that were a bit too close, but nothing I hadn't lived with before in the Bronx.
I was used to being able to smell what the people next door were eating for dinner through open windows in the warmer months.
I appreciated a neighborhood, a gated community, real grass that I could cut myself and feel somewhat grounded to homeowning.
This backyard had a pool, which I'd only dreamed of as a kid, but it also dropped off into a canal.
A lazy-river-esque body of water that ran like a snake through the entire neighborhood grid.
Some people had put out a small dock, presumably for fishing, and a canoe or two roped against wood stakes that kept them in place.
I took one look at that and returned to my truck in the driveway.
Five minutes past two o'clock now. "C'mon, Mia," I grumbled, shaking my watch back down to my side and reaching for a cigarette. I burned the tips of my fingers trying to flare a dying lighter as a car I didn't recognize pulled up and idled on the street for a moment.
Mia finally popped out of the backseat with her bag, flung her long hair over her shoulder, and the car drove away without a second look.
"Butler?" I chimed.
Her soft brown eyes rolled and she stopped a foot away from me, giving me a sardonic once-over.
I wore a branded TechOps black polo and some tan chino slacks, just the way Mateo liked his business to be—forward facing.
I was in the middle of a busy afternoon shadowing my brother on a security camera installation and using my lunch break to meet with Mia.
Luckily, Ma had packed a sandwich that I scarfed down on the drive over.
"The car is in the shop," Mia said. Then snatched my cigarette midway to my mouth and tossed it into the road. "Gross."
I clicked my tongue. "That was brand new."
"You're welcome."
"Everyone has their vices, Mia."
"Not on my watch.” She smiled in that evil, and somehow unnervingly charismatic, way that made me not as angry as I should have been.
“You could have asked me for a ride, you know? We’re going to the same place. It doesn't make sense to get a cab,” I offered. Like an olive branch.
“I’d rather die.” Branch snapped.
She skirted past me to the front door, a warm, entirely Mia scent left in her wake.
Instead of heels today she was in flats, a knee-length fitted dress, and a sweater tied over her shoulders like a shawl.
She looked like a country club debutante.
Simply oozing status. I admit, I watched for longer than I wanted to; it was only natural.
It even crossed my mind that, perhaps in a different world, she could be worth my time.
But in this one, being the bane of her existence like she was to me felt better.
"You look cute today, Mia," I said, knowing it would get under her skin in a way she couldn't combat. Kill her with kindness.
She turned around almost immediately, probably unsure she heard me right, her sharp brow pushed toward her hairline and my lips pulling upward into a sly smile. She glanced me up and down, and I might have pulled in a deep breath, puffing my chest a bit more than my posture was used to.
"You look like you're about to solicit my porch and try to sell me solar energy panels."
An unfortunate huff of amusement came from my mouth before I could tamp it down.
I tried, though, clearing my throat so Mia wouldn’t get the idea that she made me laugh at anything other than her sad attempts to ruin the next month of my life.
In fact, I was quite enjoying this back and forth, especially after the fire hydrant debacle.
There would be no coming back from that.
I would use it like ammo any chance I got.
If I tripped over my own feet and landed face-first in the dirt?
Hey Mia, remember that time you drove your seventy-five-thousand-dollar car into a stationary fire hydrant?
Because I do, I daydream about it. I go to bed smiling at the thought of pissing you off so much you can't even pull out of a driveway.
Perfectly normal and healthy. I'm sure tons of men went to sleep thinking about the woman who gives them heartburn and migraines just to spite her.
Though the only other woman I'd ever dreamed about was Jessica Alba, and I can promise that wasn't out of disdain.
Mia was through the entry and into the kitchen before I could catch up.
The current owners kept it coastal—maybe it was a vacation house, some place they rented out for families during the busy months of the year and were finally ready to get rid of.
For the most part, that made for a clean and relatively well-put-together house.
I stuck my head into a hallway bathroom off the kitchen: toilet, sink, seashells.
"What are your thoughts?" Mia was watching me curiously with a hip propped against the counter and her arms crossed over her chest.
"Do you actually want to know?"
"No. But it's my job, so there has to be some level of bullshitting I do."
I cracked out another laugh, reaching out to open the cabinets and inspect the metal hardware holding everything together. Flimsy.
The microwave was also built into the island, the perfect height for a kid to stick a head in there or shut a finger inside.
That also had me thinking about the wooden stairway that led up to the second floor and the banister with spokes just wide enough for someone's noggin to go in and never come out.
"I'll let you know once I see the bedroom," I said.
Mia gave me a long, unsatisfactory scowl, but pushed away from the kitchen table and ushered me through the large living room on the way, pointing out the faux fireplace—which, firstly, made absolutely no sense from a functionality standpoint, and, secondly, had a myriad of stone cobbled intricately around the sharp ledge.
Blunt force child head injury waiting to happen.
There was also a sunroom off the back of the home, a small outdoor kitchen I might care enough to take a second look at, and that damn moat of crocodiles visible through the windows all the way upstairs to the primary bedroom.
"Four bedrooms, all on the second floor.
There's a home office you walked past in the front of the house that technically could be a fifth bedroom…
" Mia trailed off, raising an eyebrow at me, waiting for some type of response.
"I can't imagine needing five bedrooms, but all your imaginary friends could use their own space, I guess. "
"You are on an absolute rip today, let me tell you, Mia."
Each room was relatively the same: wide-open square, walk-in closet, crown molding that needed better caulk around the edges.
That was a lazy mistake owners were often too unbothered to fix.
The main bedroom had its own full bathroom with a large tub beneath a window, looking out again onto that fucking death canal. How relaxing.
Mia stood beside the bed, holding a rounded post of the frame.
Afternoon light bathed her soft features, washing over the wooden floorboards and showing off some scratches that again, a normal person wouldn't notice, but I did.
I noticed everything, and I definitely noticed the small peaks of her nipples budding ever so slightly underneath her dress.
She wasn't wearing a bra.
Was that on purpose? Had she made the decision this morning standing in front of the mirror to slide the befitting, professional bra out from under her dress and leave it behind?
Was there some other impossible reason to forgo it, besides grabbing my attention and demanding I lock on something about her that I shouldn't?
Did she want me to?
A shallow breath slid out of my mouth, and my eyes flitted from her chest back up to her face. There was a grin there that seemed to answer my question.
"Like what you see?" she tossed at me. Like an unpinned grenade. One that, if picked up, would change this entire push-and-pull dynamic between us.
"Didn't think you would fold so easily, Mia Russo."
Her grin flattened and she waved her hands around. "I’m talking about the house."
I took a few slow steps in her direction, keeping eye contact, waiting for her to drop hers first, but she never did. "Are you sure that's what you meant?"
"Completely," she squeaked.
I deliberately let my gaze fall to the front of her dress again, pouting my lips. "I don't like it," I replied. "It's not my type."