Sneak Peek
A bearded biker with a man bun is checking out my ass.
If today wasn’t already the worst, it’d make me kind of uncomfortable.
As it is…of course, there’s a pervy old biker ogling my ass.
The way my life has been going, I’m surprised he doesn’t have his whole club sitting next to him like the ice skating judges at the Olympics, scoring my ass as I haul boxes up this rickety iron staircase.
Which I’m pretty sure is actually a fire escape?
And that has to be out of compliance with all kinds of codes.
I hope Jimmy doesn’t notice this guy—shit. Where’s Jimmy?
My eyes fly to the Corolla.
No surprise. He’s not where he’s supposed to be, guarding the open trunk. I should’ve known that ploy wouldn’t work. Not now that he’s a big six . The other day he woke up in the middle of the night and caught me crying over the checkbook. He gave me this stern look and flipped the book shut.
“Mama, go to bed,” he’d said. “I’m a big six now. You don’t have to worry anymore.”
Right.
He can’t have gotten far. I picked this place in part because it’s like a zoo for kids. Lots to look at but no real danger. We’re at the bottom of a cul-de-sac next to the shallowest, laziest stretch of the Luckahannock. The railroad runs on a trestle two stories overhead.
I do a quick scan. The swampy mud bank where the river must’ve risen during the spring thaw.
The wall of cattails thick enough that even Jimmy at his stubbornest couldn’t get through them without a scythe and more upper body strength than a big six can muster.
The squat pre-fab house with a handicap ramp and pier next door where the biker sits on the front stairs, swigging his beer and leering.
Then I check out the main reason I signed the lease: the big old patch of green behind our new place with its swingset-without-a-swing and droopy weeping willow. And there he is. Swinging from the willow branches, frowning and muttering to himself.
That’s my Jimmy. Can’t stay put. Won’t stay still. Doesn’t care to smile, not even when he was a baby. He’s the crankiest old man of a little boy you’ll ever meet. And I love him just the way he is: grumpy and perfect and mine.
And I’m taking care of him. Even if this all doesn’t really feel much like taking care of a lot of the time.
A few weeks ago, I realized we needed to downsize from our one bedroom in town with utilities.
I was two months behind on rent, and I didn’t need Dad and Victoria finding out about an eviction.
So I found this second-floor studio without utilities on the outskirts of Petty’s Mill.
Rent is three hundred less a month, but no utilities included means my electric can get cut off.
Can and will. If I don’t pay the electric on time.
Which has a good chance of happening eventually because—math. Basic addition and subtraction. I’ve only got a GED, and Petty’s Mill doesn’t even have a mill anymore. I’ve got a decent thing going as a picker at the General Goods warehouse, but that’s all contingent on the Corolla not dying on me.
And a few weeks ago, along with the rent being late and Jimmy’s teacher calling about how she caught the other kids teasing him about his dollar store backpack, the Corolla contracted a bit of a death rattle.
It shudders a little each time I turn it off now as if it’s saying, “That’s the last time, lady. Seriously. I’ve had enough.”
I know the feeling.
After all, the Corolla and I have been knocking around about the same amount of time.
It was my mom’s before she passed, and it sat around in Dad’s garage until I turned sixteen and Victoria figured it was either get it working again or keep driving me places.
Anyway, it’s almost twenty, and I’m twenty-one.
If I’ve made it this long, a Toyota should sure be able to chug along a few more years.
Right.
My arms full of a box of dishes, I swing the door open with my hip, maybe harder than strictly necessary because life kind of sucks, I’m sweating under my boobs, my thighs are rubbing, and my shorts are riding up.
And an unemployed biker is taking it all in like I’m the damn nature channel.
I bang my hipbone good on the knob, and I can’t stop the whimper.
“Oh, baby, don’t hurt it. Ain’t nobody want a bruised peach.”
Oh, good. The biker’s decided to step it up to catcalling. I drop the box and rub my hip. He’s right about one thing. That’s gonna leave a mark.
I kick-scoot the box to the far wall, the one that serves as a kitchen with a sink, a stovetop, no oven, and a yellow-green fridge from the seventies.
There’s a smell coming from the fridge, but I can’t worry about that now.
I have half a Corolla left to unload and Jimmy’s not going to be content swinging on the willow tree forever.
He’s going to get bored, and a bored Jimmy is the devil’s plaything.
I don’t think he can climb a railroad trestle, but he can start making plans. And gathering equipment.
I turn to make another trip, but before I take two steps, boots on the iron stairs sets the metal clanging. Big boots.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I dart my gaze around the apartment, but I’ve got nothing. The kitchen knives are in a box in the car, so are the standing lamp and Jimmy’s tee ball bat. The furniture I reassembled yesterday isn’t much help; it’s more cardboard than anything.
It’s broad daylight though, and everyone’s windows are open. Besides, it’s ten o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday. It’s fine. I’m fine.
My heart’s still in my throat, though, and my skin goes hot and clammy.
At least Jimmy’s out back.
The screen door flies open.
“Where you want these, Peaches?”
His voice is normal. Casual. He’s carrying a box on each shoulder, the heavy ones I’d marked hold from the bottom .
“There.” I nod toward the bathroom. When he saunters over, all six-feet-four-hundred inches of him, I take the opportunity to duck out the door.
The weight bearing down on my chest lifts, and I can breathe again. I wipe my hands down my slacks.
And I start to feel dumb.
Like my friend Sue always says, not everyone has nefarious intentions.
He’s probably your average guy just trying to be neighborly. It’s not like I don’t know his type. The places Jimmy and I’ve lived since I got him back…guys like him are par for the course.
But that’s not what this guy’s seeing when he comes back out and rakes his eyes down my front, making the weird, cold sweats come back big time. This guy thinks I’m something I’ve never been. A sorority girl maybe. The girl next door.
He’s eating me up with his eyes. And it’s one part creepy, and another part amazing.
Like I’m amazed this is happening. This never happens.
My body’s okay—my tits are on the big side and I’m the kind of curvy that makes a number eight when I lay on my side—but I know my face and hair are nothing much. And I’m short.
You wouldn’t know it by how long this guy is taking to give me the once-over.
And, yeah, I was totally wrong about his age.
He’s not old enough to be my dad. More like thirty or so.
And now that he’s close enough to touch, my stomach starts flipping like a dog doing tricks.
The face behind the beard…dude is gorgeous.
Movie star, chiseled jaw, freakin’ twinkling sky-blue eyes— gorgeous.
Full lips and thick, shiny hair and veiny, muscled forearms like an Italian sculpture.
Bright white teeth. He smells good, too. Kind of like molasses.
Oh, shit. He’s grinning. He noticed me staring.
Of course he did. The landing’s narrow, but several feet long, and he’s standing close, not giving me space.
He’s ducked past me, and he’s leaning against the siding, all James Dean.
He’s probably noticed the sweat above my upper lip.
And the dried milk in my hair from the mishap with the straw this morning.
This isn’t awkward. Not at all.
“Like what you see, Peaches?”
“My name’s not Peaches.”
That’s what I went with? Not thanks, but no thanks? Get lost? Hard pass?
Damn, I need to get tougher. The biker isn’t deterred. Not in the least. His grin widens.
“I know, babe. It’s a nickname. On account of your ass being shaped like a peach.”
I drag in a breath. That’s right. Dude’s definitely a drop-dead-gorgeous, Italian-marble asshole biker.
“I gathered that, pervert. Let me pass?”
I hadn’t meant it to come out as a question. A tough chick would tell him to move. Push past. She wouldn’t stare at his thick, beautiful brown hair with the caramel streaks and wonder why God always makes pretty things bad for you.
“I ain’t a pervert. I’m a—what d’you call it?—an aficionado.”
“Of fruit?”
He laughs. Oh, Lord. Even his laugh is gorgeous. Deep and raspy, but warm and easy at the same time. Like fingers tripping down a piano at the low end of the octaves.
“Yeah. Sure. Whatever you want to call it.”
“Can I get past?”
“I don’t know, Peaches. Wouldn’t you rather sit up here? Feel the breeze while I bring the rest of the boxes up? Then you can get me a beer and tell me all about where you’re from and what your interests are and—”
“Oh, yeah? You want to have a conversation with me? Get to know me?”
Why is it the hottest guys have the worst lines? Besides, dude is a grown-ass man. Aren’t grown-ass men supposed to be smoother than this?
“Nah, let me finish, woman. You can tell me all about your stressful moving day while I cup that perfect peach of an ass and work the kinks out of your achin’ back.”
He…wha—?
“Don’t look so shocked. You tellin’ me ain’t nobody ever remarked on that perfect ass before?”
Nope. Sure haven’t. Not this specifically.
God, I wish I had a comeback. I know I’ll have one at two in the morning when I wake up with this dude’s gravelly, playful voice in my head. And a picture of what he’s describing burning in my brain.
Damn, I need to get him gone before—
“Mama! Look what I found!”
Before this.