7. Pretty
ONE WEEK LATER
I pulled into the driveway, ready to take a shower after my flight.
After my weekend with Drew, I had flown to New York to spend a few days with my sister shopping, eating, and seeing a musical she’d wanted to see.
I needed time to tell her about the things that happened before I had flown to Naples.
It was difficult for me to share that with anyone, but Chloe was not only my sister, but she was my best friend.
When I suggested the impromptu vacation, Chloe immediately had a thousand questions.
I had no problem telling her everything, once we were in person.
I had to assure myself that my nosy mother wasn’t around.
Chloe was more shocked that I had sex with a man I didn’t know than she was about the details Tanika and that trunk had revealed.
I had told her that I was struggling with opening up to another man for fear I would be made a fool of and hurt again. Alternatively, I wasn’t a free-spirited girl who had random affairs. I struggled about how to move forward.
She insisted that I shouldn’t hold every man accountable for what Cassius and Tanika had done. She pointed out that plenty of women had been cheated on in the past, and if they had given up on love, the world would be scarcely populated and filled with unhappy, single women.
My sister was inspirational in helping me take the week that I needed to decompress and cleanse my conscience.
Sighing, I paused to take in the house next door.
The Johnsons had finally sold their home.
I’d seen the “For Sale” sign up a couple of weeks before I left for Naples, but I didn’t realize someone would move in so quickly.
Turning my car off, I rested my head against the headrest for a while. I was exhausted.
My thoughts returned to the weekend in Naples.
That man had made love to me with an intensity I’d never experienced.
Although more than a week had gone by since I saw him, I still felt every impression of his fingers, tongue, and dick on and in my body.
We agreed not to link up again, at my request, and I regretted it.
Although we’d just met, I felt like I knew him.
The sex was amazing, and the conversation was heartwarming and deep.
My soul connected with his, and I could tell that he was a good person; that had scared me. It seemed strange, but I missed him.
From the time I linked up with him on Friday night to our departure Sunday morning, we made love a few times. I was thankful for the respite I received when we went out to see the damage the city incurred, and he decided to take me out to dinner Saturday night.
With one final sigh, I pushed up from my reclined position and opened the door. After I removed my luggage from the trunk, I glanced at the house next door again.
I wondered who the Johnsons sold their home to. Was it another family, or was it an elderly or young couple?
A couple of glances across the yard told me nothing. I slammed the trunk closed and headed toward the sidewalk leading to the front porch of my house.
“Excuse me, Miss.”
I froze halfway up the sidewalk at the sound of the voice that sent shivers up and down my spine.
Was I missing that man so much that now I was going crazy and imagining his voice?
I had to be. The fact that he’d been the only other man I had been with and the only person I allowed myself to open up to since losing Cassius had to be the reason for the connection, right?
To appease my sanity, I turned to look back.
I took in the muscular build of a running back that I had come to know well last weekend.
That sexy man whose body I was intimately familiar with was now wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt as he jogged in my direction.
He paused with his hands on his hips and then chuckled.
He tilted his head, and then he shook it as in disbelief. “Pretty?”
A warm smile tilted my lips. “Drew. What are you doing here?” I shifted my luggage.
“Uhm, I was coming to ask my neighbor if they had a screwdriver that I could borrow, but now I’m more inclined to figure out what you’re doing here,” he answered, wiping sweat from his brow.
“I live here.”
“I just moved in next door.”
“If I weren’t crazy, I would say that you’re stalking me.”
“Except, I’m not. I had no idea where you lived.” His chuckle sent heat down my body.
“So you just purchased the old Johnson family home?”
“I did. I was looking to downsize.”
I looked at the large home next door and wondered if this was downsizing, what did his old house look like, but I didn’t ask.
“I don’t know what to say. We left each other with the understanding that we would let that weekend be that weekend, and we wouldn’t contact each other again. Now you’re my neighbor—who’s asking to borrow a screwdriver?”
He narrowed his gaze in a sultry stare and pulled his fingers through his thick beard. Something inside of me quickened as I recalled me doing the same thing to him several times last weekend on a more intimate level.
“Yeah, well, maybe I’ll be borrowing some sugar. I remember it being sweet,” he teasingly suggested, wiggling his eyebrows.
I pointed a finger at him and smirked. “Not funny, sir.”
He glanced at my luggage. “So, you’re just getting back?”
“Yeah. I uhm . . . I decided to take a few days to breathe after you left. Spent some necessary time with my sister in New York.”
“Wow. Did I leave you that stressed out?”
I giggled and shook my head. “No, it’s nothing like that.”
“Good. I’d hate to think that I was the cause of any of your problems.”
I chewed my lip and then replied, “Let me go see if I can find that screwdriver for you.”
He nodded, and I could tell that he wanted to offer his assistance, but I was thankful that he didn’t. I needed a minute to gather my senses. Seeing him in a personal setting threw me for a loop.
I unlocked the door and slipped inside. After I rolled my luggage to my bedroom, I went in search of a screwdriver in the garage.
I pulled a drawer open and found the Phillips-head screwdriver.
After pulling it from its spot on the shelf, I ran my fingers over it.
The last time it had been used, Cassius had been putting my easel together.
No other fingers had touched it in all that time.
I wanted to take the damn thing and go to his grave and drive it into his chest.
I knew that it was time for me to move forward and let go of the past; clearly, my body had already moved on.
It was time for the rest of me to do the same.
Cassius didn’t deserve another moment of my thoughts, my hurt, my anger, or any of my emotions.
My emotions over my deceased husband needed to be just as dead to me as that bastard was—and I prayed that God didn’t rest his soul.
“Fuck you, Cassius.” I wiped away the straggling tears that fell from my eyes with the back of my hand. Pressing a grim smile to my lips, I headed back outside.
I took a moment to observe Drew unnoticed. He wore a frown as he studied his phone, and his lips were turned down in frustration. I wondered who had upset him, but that all changed the moment that he saw me. Drew’s lips turned up in a smile, and his eyes lit up.
“Here you go.” I handed the screwdriver to him.
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
“It’s not a problem. I hope that our being neighbors won’t be either.”
“It won’t be. Were your former neighbors a problem?”
“Not in the slightest. I’ve known the Johnsons the entire time I’ve lived in my home. When they told me they were selling, I was disappointed.”
“Why?”
“Because having new neighbors doesn’t sit well with me. Not because I don’t like people, but because I have a difficult time with change.”
The Johnsons had always checked on me after losing Cassius. The elderly couple had three adult children, seven grandchildren, and they were like a second set of parents to Cassius and me. They had been the first to welcome us to the neighborhood when we purchased our home.
“I guess that depends on whose perspective you’re looking from. Some might say your new neighbor is cool.”
“And others?”
“I don’t know. What about you? What might people say about you?”
“Uhm, why?”
“Well, it’s just if you’re going to ask questions about the neighbor, the neighbor might expect reciprocity.”
“I’m so sorry. This is all just catching me off guard. The family that lived here before you, the Johnsons, they were like family, and it’s just that losing them is rather personal. Then there’s you. I didn’t expect you, Drew.”
“I can be an unexpected blessing if you open up your life and make space for me.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”
“Something tells me you are. Something tells me that I’m going to be exactly what you need. Obviously, we were meant to be in each other’s lives.”
“I doubt it,” I replied smartly.
“How could you? Look where we are,” he declared, pointing on his side of the yard and then mine.
“We were supposed to leave each other behind in the rearview mirror.
“I don’t know, Pretty. You’re kind of hard to leave in the rearview mirror.”
I chewed my lip and thought, You’re kind of hard to leave behind too. Instead, I replied, “Humph. We’ll have to see how this neighbor thing works out.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, narrowed his eyes, and bit down sexily on his bottom lip. I smirked and headed back to my house, but I could feel his gaze on me the entire time.