Chapter 3
Three
Louise
“Iswear to God, Liv, I’ve never been so embarrassed in my entire life. Just full on—” I cup my hand, pantomiming how I’d assaulted my ridiculously hot new neighbor, “—fondled everything.”
Alivia, one of my best friends, cackles from beside me.
I closed Bliss Garden half an hour ago and now it’s just the two of us sitting around one of the table-top firepits in handcrafted Adirondack chairs, glasses of wine balanced on the armrests.
The early September evening is just chilly enough to warrant a thick, warm sweatshirt that I have my hands curled up into the long sleeves.
I’d sent out an SOS and she’d come out to sit with me through my shame, but she can’t stay long, since she’d left her kids with a babysitter because her ex is in jail…
again. Willow, our other best friend, is on her way, too.
Liv’s blonde hair falls in crazy, haphazard ringlets around her head, over her shoulders and down her back as she shakes her head at me. “I’m dead,” she wheezes through her laughter. “And you swore in front of his kids?”
Burying my face in my hands that are covered in the long sleeve cuffs, I groan miserably. “Yes,” I mumble into my hands, the sound muffled. “Full on F bombed in front of three little girls.”
“Just how hot is this guy?” she asks, pulling her legs up so she’s sitting cross legged in the wide chair. I drop my hands. Her petite frame makes the chair look oversized.
“I should probably not even bother unpacking and just find a new place to live, because I can’t ever look that man in the face again level of hot,” I whine. “There was a lot to hold onto, Liv. Like, good lord. He has a monster in his pants. And I grabbed it.”
“Well, it’s not like it was intentional,” she counters, still chuckling, swiping under her eyes to wipe away the tears of mirth.
“But I’m supposed to live next door to this guy!”
“Yeah, so? It was an accident. Brush it off. Be the cool cucumber we all know you are and just roll with it. And, you know, just try not to grab his monster penis again—”
“Good God, what conversation did I just walk into? Whose monster penis did Lou grab?”
Willow, the third in our bestie group, walks toward us through the dark and sinks into an Adirondack chair next to me.
Her light brown hair is tied up with a length of satin ribbon in a half ponytail at the back of her head.
She’s wearing a pair of light wash jeans that hug her hips perfectly, and a cropped sweatshirt that leaves just a hint of her middle peeking out between them.
“Her hot new neighbor’s,” Liv supplies, taking a sip of her wine. Willow sits forward, pouring herself a glass from the bottle sitting on the table in front of us.
“Oooh, you finally met the last neighbor? How hot is hot?”
“You know the new music video for Worst Way? Riley Green came to life in the form of my new neighbor, with just a sprinkle of Jason Kelce for bulk,” I mumble around my wine glass, pinching my face up. “Like Brandon Sklenar in 1923.”
“Ohmygod shut up!” Willow exclaims, sitting up in her seat. “Your new neighbor is Hottie Dad from the flower shop?!”
“Wait, the one that got the roses for his girls?” I ask. She nods excitedly, a wide grin splitting her face. I slump in my seat. I remember Willow telling me about him.
Of course he’s recently divorced and grieving. All the hot ones are either completely unavailable, or emotionally unavailable.
Sounds about right, considering my track record with dating in the last year. Perfectttt.
“He’s hot, for an older dude.”
“Oh, wait, how much older are we talking?” Liv asks, her eyes lighting up.
I shrug. “His oldest daughter looks to be maybe eleven or twelve? He’s got to be close to forty, if I had to guess?”
Willow nods knowingly, grinning behind the rim of her wine glass. “Older guys are so hot.”
I roll my eyes over at her. “You have to say that because Luck is old.”
“He is not old,” Willow defends, laughing.
I roll my eyes again. Up until a couple months ago, she had hated the man with a passion.
Now, they’re inseparable and sickeningly cute together after a St. Patrick’s Day hook-up that turned into more.
“He’s younger than Hot Neighbor if you think he’s close to forty. ”
“Is that what we’re calling him now? He’s graduated from Hottie Dad to Hot Neighbor?” I laugh, shaking my head.
“Did you catch his name?” Willow asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, no—”
“No, she was too busy groping the guy,” Liv giggles, and I glare over at her from behind my glass. “You know, Lou, you really should take him out to dinner—I mean at the very least get the guy’s name—before you try to feel up his junk.”
“I hate you both so much,” I groan, tilting my head back so that it thumps against the wood slats of the chair behind me, but I can’t help but grin. “It was truly impressive.”
Liv groans and flops back into her seat. “God, I miss sex. Wils is the only one of us getting regular dick at this point. Can you just flirt with him and report back? I need to live vicariously through you since Willow won’t share details—”
Willow blushes and chokes on her wine. She’d lost her virginity to Luck during their St. Paddy’s hook up and has not been willing to share any information.
Rude, if you ask me.
“I am not telling you about mine and Reeve’s sex life—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Liv grumbles, but she winks over at us both. “Be that way.”
“Are you still on a boy hiatus?” Willow asks me, and I nod.
I’ve had a string of bad luck lately. Like, really, really bad luck. And after catching feelings too quickly again just to be ghosted a week later again, I’ve sworn off boys.
Again.
Indefinitely, this time. And I’m sticking to it.
Hot Neighbor isn’t a boy, I tell myself though, trying and failing to stifle another grin. God, he is far from a boy. He’s all man. Sexy, mature, beefcake man.
Maybe…
Ugh. Nope. Don’t even go there. Because at the end of the day, regardless of age, guys are all the same. And they all leave, eventually.