There’s no way I could ever be interested in a woman who wears boots like that.
Rachel clutches her chest. “You wound me.”
“And yet you’re still here.”
She glances at Brooke sitting across the table, her pretty—because she is very pretty—mouth twisted in a frown. “You’re on a date.”
“I’m attempting to be, yes.”
“Boen?” Brooke asks.
“That’s right,Boen, with the f—weird B name.”
“It’s unusual but I’ve never found it to upset someone before.”
“Are you implying that I’m upset about yourname?”
“You tell me.”
“Why would I be upset about something like that? I don’t even know you.”
“Then why are you still standing here?”
Rachel sniffs, looking offended, but those green eyes gleam. “Well, aren’t we rude tonight,” she says.
“I only learned from the best.”
Rachel looks surprised and then she laughs, loud and proud and ringing through the bar. “At least you’re learning something,” she says, knocking her fist on the table before she walks away.
“Who is that?” Brooke hisses before Rachel is out of earshot. “So rude.”
“I’m his new favourite neighbour,” Rachel tosses over her shoulder. “And you can bite me.”
Even without Rachel’s interruption, the date wouldn’t have been salvageable.
When I escort Brooke out of the bar, Rachel’s laughter—loud enough for the whole place to hear—seems to be directed straight at me. I say goodnight to Brooke, without the awkward wondering about another date. I’m fairly certain we’re both on the same page that nothing will come of this night.
When I get home, the house is still, the creaks of the floorboards the only indication someone is in the house. On the other side of the shared wall, all is silent at Mrs. Gretchen’s. I often hear her talking to someone, or calling obscenities at a sporting event on TV. For a ninety-year-old woman, she can be quite vocal.
Tonight, I turn on the television just for background noise. I’m used to the quiet. I like the quiet. But as I finish up grading assignments, it’s almost too quiet.
I wonder what made Rachel laugh so loudly in the bar. And I wonder why it made me feel like laughing, like the sound was as contagious as a virus.
When I turn off the lights a few hours later, I hear music from outside. At first, I think it’s a too-loud car stereo driving by until I realize it’s not any music I’d want to listen to.
Not music. Singing.
“… Never, ever, ever,ever,”—I jerk around as the lasteveris screamed— “Getting back together. Ever. Not ever.”
I click my tongue with dismay. Angry female singing Taylor Swift on the sidewalk.
Actually, the angry female is in front of my house. Actually—I stiffen as I peek out from the behind my curtain—it’s Rachel.
It sounds like she might be drunk.
“Ever, never, never gonna love you again. Love sucks,” she cries.
Interesting.
