“That’s a barrage of questions.”
She makes a rolling gesture with her hands, telling me to move it along, stat. “Answer them.”
As I pour the wine, I take her questions one by one. “Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Also, yes, they have bedtime stories, but they are extra. Yes, you can order a biscuit, but there’s no turn-down service. Next question.”
Her smile spreads across the city block. “Can I stay there?”
I laugh harder. “Sure. I’ll book a shared suite for you and Zamboni next time I travel. Sound good?”
“Simon too?”
Zamboni’s ears prick, right on cue.
“See? She likes that idea,” Skylar says.
I scoff as I hand Skylar a glass. “Pretty sure that look sayskeep the mad humper away.”
“Excuse me. Simon prefershappy humper. Also, he likes peanut butter biscuits.”
“Good choice.” I lower my voice to a confessional whisper. “Sometimes when I get peanut butter biscuits, I eat them too. Well, I take a bite.”
“Me too!”
“Speaking of, where is the happy humper?” I ask, looking around as if he might be hiding behind a bush.
Skylar lifts a finger. “He is not happily humping, you’ll be relieved to know. He’s sound asleep. Like I said, we went running earlier, and I’m pretty sure he’s still recovering.”
“Understandable,” I say as I pour my glass, then set the bottle on the bench.
She lifts her glass, anticipation in her eyes. “Should we drink to…” She looks around at the small spread next to me.
“Late-night snacks,” I say.
“They’re always a good idea.”
“They are.”
“To late-night snacks…with your next-door neighbor then,” she says, with the slightest bit of resignation over those last words. Is being neighbors an issue for her? I’ve got enough concerns of my own that it hadn’t crossed my mind. But now that it has, it’s probably a good idea to avoid entanglements with a neighbor. If things go south—and experience says they will—you’ll risk seeing that person every time you turn around.
With that thought lingering, we clink glasses.
As she sips, I try not to stare too long at her glossy lips on the glass, at the column of her throat, at the way the porch lights cast a soft, silvery glow across her face. And at the freckles on her collarbone, exposed tonight in one of those T-shirts with the neckline cut out. A slouchy shirt that makes me want to dip my face and nibble on her flesh, then soothe the sting with my tongue.
A rumble threatens to work its way up my throat. I knock back some wine to hide the sound, then set the glass on the bench. Reaching for a fork, I dig into the mac and cheese and groan at the first taste.
After I swallow, I use the fork to point at the dish. “This is really good.”
She blows on her fingernails. “I have some skills.”
“Besides handling my overbearing, opinionated, tough-as-nails mom and making killer cauliflower mac and cheese, what else have you got?”
She waggles her mostly full glass. “I can make this glass disappear in about, oh, thirty minutes.”
I laugh again. Come to think of it, I’ve laughed more with Skylar than I have in a long time.
Don’t get used to it.She’s your neighbor and she’s a business associate. This is not the start of something else.
I eat some more and make small talk between bites as she nurses her wine. When I’m done, I say, “Thank you. This was way more fun than making or reheating something.”
