One Month Later
Who moves into a new house at nine thirty at night?
I’ll tell you who. Murderers. Fugitives. People in witness protection. Possibly vampires. I’ve seen enough films to know that after-dark relocations fall into one of these categories, and none of them end well for the woman next door in her socks and glasses who was minding her own business, eating cereal on the couch.
The beeping started two minutes ago. It cut straight through the rom-com I was watching. So here I am, two fingers parting the blinds, one eye pressed to the gap, spying.
The house next door has been empty for four months. The previous owners left behind a feral lawn and a garden gnome I’ve been making eye contact with every morning through my kitchen window. He has a fishing rod and a painted-on smile that suggests he knows things about me.
Now there’s a moving truck reversing into the driveway, massive and white and badly lit by the single streetlamp on our road, and a man is guiding it in. Standing in the glow of thegarage light with one arm raised, the other pointing, his profile intense against the dark.
He’s tall, wearing a T-shirt that’s doing nothing to disguise the shoulders underneath it, and his hair is short and dark, longer on top, catching the garage light every time he moves. His jaw is unreasonably sharp and grabs my attention.
The truck stops. Two men climb out of the cab, both thick-necked and broad. They start unloading. A couch. Boxes. A bookshelf that takes both of them to manage.
Mr. Unreasonable Jaw stands to the side, arms folded, watching. He glances at his phone, says something to one of the movers that makes the guy laugh, and then turns his head and scans the street.
His gaze sweeps across the front of my house.
I rip my fingers from the blinds so fast they clatter against the frame, and I drop to a crouch below the windowsill with my heart in my throat and my glasses sliding down my nose.
Smooth, Claire. Very subtle. If he didn’t know he was being watched before, the sound of cheap blinds being assaulted by a panicking woman has certainly clarified the situation.
I stay down for a full minute, but my knees protest. The carpet smells faintly of the lemon cleaner I used this morning. On the TV, still muted, the rom-com couple appear to be kissing in the rain, which is objectively unhygienic.
When I finally risk another peek, the blinds parting millimeter by millimeter, the driveway is busy with boxes and the jaw is nowhere in sight. Gone inside. Probably unpacking.
I return to the couch, pull the throw blanket over my legs, and unmute the TV. The golden-retriever guy is wearing a tuxedo now, so I’ve clearly missed some critical plot developments, but I’m still smiling, my thoughts drifting back to the man next door. It’ll be interesting to see who he is.
It’s been a month since the book signing, where photos of me with the ManBaker guy gave the online bullies another reason to drag up every ugly piece of that interview. I haven’t ventured out much since. My social media accounts are frozen, my sales have cratered, and the second cookbook I’m writing may be turned down by my publisher. I’ve reorganized my spice rack three times this week because it’s the only thing in my life I can control.
And now, for the first time in a while, the world outside my window contains a question I actually want the answer to.
That was Tuesday.
By Thursday, I’ve established that Mr. Unreasonable Jaw appears to live alone, drives a dark blue SUV, and has a habit of leaving his kitchen light on until well past midnight. I know this because my study faces his kitchen. I’m not spying. I’m simply a person who writes best at night and occasionally glances up from her laptop.
By Saturday, I know he owns a cat. A massive, white, absurdly fluffy cat that I spotted sitting on his kitchen windowsill at 7:00 a.m. while I was making coffee. The cat stared at me through two panes of glass with an expression of imperial disdain, and I stared back. We held eye contact for an uncomfortable amount of time before I looked away first. I’ve never won a staring contest with any animal, and I wasn’t about to start with a creature that resembled a sentient cloud.
By the following Wednesday, eight days after the truck arrived, I still hadn’t seen this man properly or introduced myself. I’ve rehearsed the words “Hi, I’m Claire. Welcome to the neighborhood” approximately forty times in my head, and each rehearsal is worse than the last because my brain keeps inserting catastrophic variables. What if he’s seen the interview clip? Or he thinks I’m the food snob from the internet?
So I stay in my study and write, when I hear a loud crash from next door.
I push my glasses up my nose and wander over to the living room window.
His kitchen is directly across from my living room, separated by a shared fence, and slightly blurred out by the curtains.
He’s shirtless, wearing jeans, slung low on his hips. Shoulders, chest, stomach, arms, all of it carved and defined and catching the overhead light. He’s got his cap on, so it’s hard to see his face.
He’s moving fast. Darting across the kitchen with a mixing bowl in one hand, the other arm gesturing at nothing, and he’s talking. Animated, expressive, a full-body conversation that involves his whole torso, and I can’t tell if he’s on the phone or talking to himself or performing for an invisible audience.
Then the white fluffball launches itself from somewhere and into his arms, and he catches it one-handed while still holding the bowl. The cat’s tail whips across his face, and he laughs.
I press closer to the glass.
He sets the cat on what appears to be a tall stool near the counter, and it sits upright with the posture of a judge presiding over a very important trial. He returns to the counter, and I lose sight of him for a moment. Clattering. More laughter. The sound of a heavy object being dropped on a hard surface. Then he’s back in frame, moving away from the counter rapidly, and there’s a substance dripping down his chest.
My breath catches.