Chapter 1 #2
Amy turned back to Mr. Neely. She suddenly felt dangerously close to tears.
She’d had her heart set on these two weeks.
She could never afford to do something like this on her own, and it was only Julie’s generosity that was making it possible.
“I don’t think you understand,” she said to Mr. Neely.
“My son just texted to ask me if we have milk.”
He looked at her with confusion.
“But he’s at home, where the milk is.”
“Okay,” he said uncertainly.
He didn’t get it. How could he? “No, not okay. I need space from my family, Mr. Neely. I can’t go back there.
I can’t. You don’t understand—look, I love them more than life, and I would literally kill for them.
But my forty-eight-year-old brother is sleeping on the couch because he broke up with girlfriend number eighty-two, for God’s sake, and my ex-husband is trying to get back with me for reasons that I don’t get and I don’t want, and my oldest son has no sense of what he is going to do with his life, and I think he’s smoking pot, although he denies it and says I am so extra, and my youngest son has anxiety so bad that sometimes he can hardly function but yet, he and his best friend, Connor, are building a flying machine”—and here, she used air quotes because there was no way that thing would fly—“that they intend to test off the roof of my house. Where is his anxiety when he needs it to keep him from killing himself, I ask you?”
“That does sound sort of dangerous,” Mr. Neely said.
“Right? And I haven’t even mentioned my boss, who thinks it is perfectly okay to mention a woman’s breasts to me, and I’m his HR director!
All I ever wanted was to be an artist, but nooo, I had to get married, and the years slipped by while I had babies, and life got in the way, and now I have a chance to recapture that dream, but it all boils down to two weeks at this house by myself, so you really need to leave.
” She stopped to take an enormous breath.
Mr. Neely frowned. “You seem distressed,” he said.
“Ya think?”
“Look, I could give you a litany of woes, too,” he said.
“Which is why I need a place to recover and think, and which is why I paid in advance. So nothing like this would happen. So nothing like this,” he said, gesturing between the two of them, “could interrupt. But here we are. Now, while I still believe you’re the one who needs to leave, how about this?
What if we just split it? There are two primary bedrooms. Plenty of space.
We could just agree to stay out of each other’s way. ”
Amy blinked. “Are you seriously suggesting that I live with a complete stranger for two whole weeks? That’s how Dateline episodes are made, you know. How do I know you’re not a murderer or something?”
His gray eyes widened. He glanced down at himself as if he thought maybe he was dressed like one. “Wait—how do I know you’re not? Murder is an equal-opportunity activity. Or how do I know you’re not planning a drug-fueled orgy?”
Amy snorted. “As if I know enough people for an orgy. And I’m pretty sure I can’t be bothered to murder you unless you don’t clean up after yourself. I’m on a break.”
He almost smiled. “The point is, the only thing I want to do is try and rehab my knee and think carefully about my options. I can do that on the deck. Or in the living room. Or wherever you are not. All I need is peace and quiet.”
“That’s all I need,” Amy said. Well, that and wine. And some potato chips. “I’m going to be in the studio most of the day.” Wait…was this doable? She could feel herself warming to the idea.
“There’s a studio?”
She nodded. “Separate from the house.” She pointed at the small, cabin-like structure on the lower level of the yard.
“This house is huge,” he said. “We probably wouldn’t even see each other.”
“It’s so huge.” She looked at him sidelong.
He didn’t really look like a murderer. And when he took a few steps backward to lean against the counter, she noticed his limp.
He was eying her closely, too, she noticed.
Sizing her up. Probably assessing how quickly he could take her in a fight.
“Okay, Mr. Neely, I am willing to give this a try until we can get it resolved, as long as you stay out of my way and don’t expect me to cook or do anything for you. And you can’t eat my food.”
“What food is yours?”
“All of it.”
“Fair enough. I’m down to try if you don’t expect me to lift any heavy objects or kill spiders.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Amy quickly calculated the cons of this arrangement.
Other than the completely crazy idea of sharing this house with a man she did not know, and all the attendant concerns that ought to bring up, and the fact she’d have to kill her own spiders, she didn’t see a downside.
Yet. Where the hell was Julie? “My name is Amy, and I have already taken the biggest primary room, and I’m not budging. ”
“My name is Harrison, and all I need is a bed and a bathroom.”
“Nice to meet you, Harry.”
“Nice to meet you, too, Amy. And it’s Harrison.” He smiled.
It was a very nice smile now that she was getting used to him.
“So, we’re good?” he asked.
“I mean…I think?”
“Great. I’m—”
Mr. Neely was interrupted by the sudden blaring of Mariah Carey singing “All I Want for Christmas Is You” at full volume all around them.
They both yelled with the shock, they both ducked like they thought someone would start shooting, and then just as quickly, they both popped up and began to frantically look around for the source.
“It’s the lights!” Amy shouted.
“What lights?” he shouted back.
“Look!” She pointed at Christmas lights strung across the ceiling.
They had just come on with the music. Mr. Neely looked up, his gray-eyed gaze following the cord down across the ceiling, down the side of the door, and disappearing just behind the Christmas tree.
He charged in that direction, and after several grunts and flipping of switches (one of which sent the Christmas tree lights into a color-changing spasm), he found a plug and yanked it.
The music stopped. The lights went dark. So did the Christmas tree. “What the actual hell?” he muttered, looking around him.
Amy grabbed a folder on the kitchen bar and opened it.
The first paper inside listed all the things that needed to be done when leaving.
Please take out all trash and roll trash cans to the main road.
Amy paused for a moment, thinking that had to be a quarter mile.
She turned the page. We have taken the liberty of installing automatic Christmas lights and music!
To adjust the volume…“Here,” she said, waving the paper.
“I’ve got it.” She went to the tree as the instructions said, crawled behind the massive thing, found the gizmo that operated the music and lights, found the volume button and tapped it down.
She crawled back out, tightened the sash on her robe, and wondered how much she’d flashed. “It’s automatic, programmed to come on at various intervals. I turned the volume off.”
“Thank you. That was…disturbing.”
“My heart is still pounding,” she agreed.
“You’ve got some tinsel there,” he said, pointing to her face.
Amy pulled a strand that had gotten stuck to the towel wrapped around her head and was hanging down over one eye. She yanked it free.
“I’m going to drive up the road to Whataburger and replace the sandwich I dropped. Can I bring you anything?” he asked as she disentangled another two strands of tinsel from her towel.
“So we’re really doing this?” she asked.
“We’re really doing this until one of us speaks to Julie or Sam, right?” He shrugged.
She put her hands on her hips. “I recommend the double patty. But I’m fine, thank you.
” She’d brought a supply of Lean Cuisines, and as good as a burger sounded, she was sticking with her plan for as long as she could stand it.
Her goal was to come home completely transformed into the artist she always aspired to be, just in time for Christmas and the contest. And that included losing a few pounds.
Harrison Neely grabbed keys off the counter, gave her a two-finger wave, and went down the hall to the door.
Amy plugged in the lights again and returned to her room, locking the door behind her.
Was she insane? Had she lost her mind? Maybe she had, and maybe she’d end up dead at the end of the two weeks, and her children would be orphans—well, not orphans, because there was Ryan—but practically orphans.
And she didn’t care, because she was not leaving.