F I V E
- Avery -
I f my mouth weren't so full of chocolatey, caramelly goodness, I would've been swearing like a truck driver. The brownies I’d made under Grace’s watchful eye were so decadent they almost made up for the sex I wasn’t having.
"What do you think?" Grace asked, her green eyes wide with hope.
"I think I'll probably find a husband if I start serving people brownies that taste that good."
She laughed. "I'd settle for a silver star, but if you reel in a man, I'll be doubly impressed."
I reached for the carton of milk between us and topped up my glass before relaxing back into my seat across from her. Apart from the café chairs we were sitting in, the rest had been flipped up on their respective tables since closing time. "Thanks for staying late to help me get this right," I said. "I wouldn't feel right about repping the brownies if I didn't know how to make them."
"I appreciate that," she said. "And I hate to say it, but I think yours came out even better than mine."
I squinted at her. "Really? On my third try? After you've made them two hundred times? Seems pretty unlikely, but I appreciate the positive reinforcement."
"I mean it," she said, using a fork to free another bite from the pan between us. "You have a knack for doing the caramel layering, and that’s the most finicky part."
"Thanks." It seemed silly to be as proud as I was, least of all because Grace had been supervising my brownie making attempts for a week, but I really needed a win today. My new neighbor, who seemed to be a part-time asshole and full-time comedian was on a literal drumroll last night. Not that I wasn't a Led Zeppelin fan, but Tuesday night after 9pm wasn't the time to be breaking levees.
“You okay?” Grace asked, dipping her head to meet my eye as if she sensed something was wrong.
"Yeah. I’m just a little tired.”
“Something on your mind?”
“Of course. My best friend’s going to Paris without me, and she’s leaving me all alone with her baby.”
Her eyes softened. “You aren’t going to be alone. Kayleigh promised she’d be around to help out, and you’ve faced far more difficult challenges than running this place for a few days.”
“I know.” Her vote of confidence meant a lot, even if I was the only person she trusted to do the job.
“Plus, I’ve already laid out the schedule and all the recipes you need. Hopefully, you won’t have to make a single decision or solve a single problem.”
I glanced at the pan between us. Another few bites, and I’d have to call this batch dinner. “It was cool of you to do that,” I said. “Especially when you have so much on your plate between the baking festival and your miserable boyfriend whisking you off to Paris.”
“Isn’t he the worst?” she asked. “I don’t know how I got so lucky.”
I smiled. “He’s the lucky one.”
She blushed and leaned back in her chair like she was as reluctant to hurry home as I was. Only difference was that the people waiting at home to drive her crazy were people she actually loved.
“It’s not just that,” I said. “My new neighbor is driving me up the walls.”
Her brows perked up. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a new neighbor? I would’ve insisted you take home a pie.”
His imbecilic note echoed in my head. “Something tells me he’d really appreciate that, but the guy’s an ignoramus who doesn’t deserve pie.”
“Doesn’t deserve pie?!” Grace said. “What did he do?”
“Honestly, I think it’s my fault. I left a note for him when he moved in, and everything’s spiraled out of control since then.”
She turned an ear towards me. “A note?”
“It was supposed to be welcoming,” I said in my defense. “But I guess it came across as more bossy than warm.”
“Bossy?”
I shrugged. “I gently requested he respect some house rules… that I mostly made up. Nothing crazy. Just stuff like quiet hours and asking him not to clog up the recycling on our floor.”
“I usually just go with pie.”
“Yeah, but you live in a house where no one shares walls,” I said. “It’s different.”
“The shape of your home doesn’t change the fact that pie is the way to go.”
“Sucking up isn’t my style.”
“It’s not sucking up,” she said. “That’s the beauty of it.”
“How do you figure?” I asked, using my fork to free another narrow strip of gooey brownie from the pan between us.
“On the surface, it appears to be a friendly and generous gesture. But, if you read between the lines, bringing a neighbor fresh baked goods is a nice way of saying, ‘Welcome to the neighborhood. Let’s not forget who was here first.’ It basically gives you the upper hand off the bat and makes them indebted to you before they’ve had a chance to piss you off.”
I stuffed some brownie in my mouth and let her words sink in. It was hard to decide if I was more perplexed by her perspective or the fact that she wasn’t as innocent as she seemed. “I had no idea there was a deeper psychology to it.” I’d always assumed gifting baked goods was a way of saying, ‘I’m an unfulfilled busybody with nothing better to do than bake food I’m not even going to eat.’ Not that I’d say that to Grace who, given a final day on Earth, would probably spend it in the kitchen. Well, until recently. These days she’d probably opt for twenty-four hours of gazing into Noah’s adoring eyes. “He actually suggested I bring him pie, funnily enough.”
Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
“He answered my initial note with a note that said, ‘I think you meant to bring me pie instead of this bullshit’… or something to that effect.”
“Eww. Who does that? Pie is an extremely generous gesture. That’s what makes it such a nice surprise. If someone expects pie, it takes all the fun out of it.”
I was glad she understood that it was way too late to bring him pie. Granted, I could see that perhaps I should’ve played it that way, but it was too late. I’d fudged it. “When was this?”
“About a week ago.”
“Did you answer his note?”
I paused before nodding reluctantly.
Her expression shifted like she feared the worst. “What did you say?”
“I said he was barking up the wrong tree.”
She bit back an embarrassed smile.
“And he wrote back that he doesn’t bark, he bites. And that when he does, he leaves marks.”
She stopped blinking all together. “That’s not normal.”
“I know. I’ve obviously engaged a psychopath in a game of note-passing, and I feel like it’s time I told you in case I go missing.”
“Missing? Why? What else are you not telling me?”
“I asked if that was a threat,” I said. “About the biting? It was a knee-jerk reaction, and I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I haven’t heard anything from him since.”
Her smile pulled to one side, causing one of her dimples to deepen. “So… what? You’re afraid he’s shopping for bleach and rope and tarp and that your days are numbered?”
“Of course, I don’t think that,” I lied. “But it’s definitely keeping me awake at night when something else isn’t… like his incessant hammering and drumming and spinning.”
“You can hear him spinning?”
“No,” I admitted. “But knowing he’s on the other side of the wall collecting pools of his own sweat really interferes with my ability to sloth on my couch.”
“Maybe you should install Tinder again?”
“Why? So I can go back to being annoyed by a greater number of men?”
She waved the suggestion away. “You’re right. Forget I said anything. Wouldn’t want to do anything to annoy your new neighbor.”
“I’m not going to start dating deadbeats again just because the devil moved in next door.”
“Not all men are deadbeats, Avery.”
“I realize that, but the one who isn’t is dating you, and until I figure out why I’m such a terrible judge of character, I can’t afford to take anyone else on.” Literally, I couldn’t afford it. It was one thing when I was on the road to becoming a bigtime lawyer and could spend my student loans as I saw fit, but I couldn’t afford to foster any more bloodsucking leeches. My heart and ego were fragile. Especially after the last few guys who’d blatantly used me when I naively thought we were using each other. But like a bad habit, I kept getting dropped.
So now, despite feeling as dry as a slug in the sun, I was officially on defense. Because there were worse things than being alone, and as far as I could tell, I was a lot better at being alone than I was at dating.
“Have you met him in person?” Grace asked. “The spinning drummer with the big hammer? He sort of sounds like he might be your type?”
I recoiled. “In what way does he sound like he could be my type?”
“I don’t know,” she said, scraping the edge of the gooey brownie pan with her finger. “Fit. Intense. Kind of an asshole.”
“Don’t you know me at all?” I asked. “I’m into lazy assholes.” It was a joke, but it hurt my heart to make it.
“Oh right. Forget I mentioned it.”
“And to top it all off, he’s a cat guy.”
Her nose scrunched. “Really? He didn’t strike me as a cat guy.”
I cocked my head. Had he struck her at all?
“That should make it easier to get rid of your body, though.” She screwed the lid back on the carton of milk. “And the cat smell should help with the cover up.”
“Thanks for that,” I said. Did she not hear me say I was having trouble sleeping?
She stood and stepped over to give my shoulder a squeeze. “Try not to get killed before the competition, okay? It’s really important to me.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Maybe you could wait until after my trip to Paris, too? If you don’t mind. I’ve really been looking forward to it.”
“Sure,” I said reluctantly. “I’ll do my best to cheat death a while longer.”
She booped my nose with her finger. “Thanks, babe. I owe you one.”