Flaunt myself? “Karen, I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
Karen crosses her arms over her surgically enhanced chest and huffs. “Honestly, Micah, you can’t think we’re that thick. She was over here this morning.And she left in your clothes.”
Oh, fuck! Karen—or one of our other snoopy neighbors—saw Iris walking home in my shirt and drew all the wrong kinds of conclusions. I scramble to fix the misunderstanding before it affects Iris. “I invited her over for breakfast. She spilled something on her blouse, so I loaned her a shirt to wear home so she could wash it before the stain set in. Nothing else happened.”
“Mm-hm.”
It’s less of a confirmation that she’s heard what I said than it is an accusatory “mm-hm.” Karen doesn’t believe a word of it.
“I promise, Mrs. Johnson, it was all completely platonic.”
She pokes me in the chest with a spindly finger. “I hope for Iris’s sake that this isn’t just the start of your parade of women, Mr. Lindley. She has her faults, but she doesn’t need you to humiliate her by having strange women traipsing through at all hours of the day and night. We’re a family neighborhood. Don’t make us regret letting you move in.”
With that, she turns on her stilettoed heel and stalks down my sidewalk, leaving me standing in the door with my jaw hanging open. What the hell was that?
“Daddy! The pants-cakes are getting cold!”
I close the door with a sigh and lock it behind me. Karen can go fuck herself. I’m here for Hailey, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some power-mad bitch drive me out of here. She’s going to be sorely disappointed when there are no women coming over except Becky, and she’ll only be over when I need a sitter.
Hailey devours her pants-cakes, and afterwards, when we’re streaming a movie together on the couch, I briefly wonder if I should hop next door and warn Iris that Karen’s on the warpath. After some thought, I decide against it. Iris is a grown woman, and if she can’t handle Karen Johnson, she shouldn’t be living in this subdivision. Besides, Iris ducked out so fast earlier that it nearly made my head spin. She probably wants nothing to do with me, warning or no.
Chapter 6
Iris
I meant to take Micah’s shirt off and bring it back to him as soon as I got home and got a fresh shirt of my own to wear. I just got busy with laundry and the litter box and trash and … well, one day turned into six, and I’m still wearing that shirt to bed every night.
It’s not my fault it’s so damned comfy! I haven’t had a boyfriend in over a year, and I’d forgotten how much I love wearing a man’s shirt to sleep in. I swear, some clothing company could earn millions if it just made “boyfriend tee” nightgowns. I make a mental note to pitch just that the next time we get a clothing designer for a client.
Thanks to my lightning-fast retreat from Micah’s house last weekend, I’ve managed to make things super awkward between us. His smile when we make eye contact across the yards is strained, and I’ve had no further invitations to breakfast.
Of course, if I stopped holding his t-shirt hostage, he might be more amenable to hanging out again. He probably thinks I’m some sort of psycho stalker. I bet he’s picturing me sitting in the middle of a salt circle lined with candles, chanting in Latin while I rub the shirt all over my naked body.
Dear God, I need to get laid! What kind of messed up vision is that? If anything, Micah’s just annoyed that I stole his shirt. For all I know, his wife bought it for him. He might just be too embarrassed to cause a fuss over it.
The more I think about it, the more guilty I feel. It’s not like four-year-old Hailey purchased the shirt for him. His wifehadto have been the one to buy it, which means it’s probably special to him. I’m a total asshole for holding onto it as long as I have. As soon as I log off Friday evening, I grab the shirt and march next door, determined to own up to my neglect in not bringing it back sooner.
I don’t even get to the hedge between our yards before Cindy, Karen’s BFF, shouts my name from across the street. She’s waving madly and running in her designer tennis shoes, her high ponytail bobbing. I wonder what could be up for her to get so excited. Cindy only runs if there’s a sale.
“Iris! Hey!” She stops at the sidewalk and waits for me to get to her, somehow making panting from the exertion look effortless. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
Dread forms a pit in the bottom of my stomach. Last time Cindy wanted to “talk,” it was to chew me out for missing the neighborhood Fourth of July barbecue. Apparently, attendance wasn’t optional, and I was the talk of the block for weeks after my “snubbing” of Cindy and Karen.
“Sure. What do you need?”
Cindy’s lips twist up in a smirk. “It’s more like whatyouneed, girl!” She reaches out and runs a finger over Micah’s shirt. “Heading next door for another little sesh, are you?”
Sesh? What the hell is she talking about? “What, this? I’m bringing him back the shirt he let me borrow last weekend. I spilled when I was over there for breakfast, so he gave me this to wear until I could get my shirt cleaned.”
“Uh huh.” Cindy rolls her eyes. “Karen saw you leaving in his shirt, you know. The whole neighborhood knows what happened.”
That pit of dread starts to churn, and a sudden bout of nausea hits me. “What do they think happened?”
She gives me the most exaggerated conspiratorial wink and nudges my ribs with her elbow. “Oh, you know. Hey, it’s okay. We’re all adults here. The kids haven’t figured it out, so there’s no worry.”
Oh, shit. “When you say that the whole neighborhood knows …”
Cindy nods. “Yep. Listen, I gotta ask: Do the tattoos go down further than his arms?”
