As I sat at my bench, pen in hand and a client’s request printed out, Reagan dropped by.
“They’re just poking fun at you,” he said softly. Engrossed in my work, I nodded, but he must have taken my silence as stress. “If you’re not okay—”
But he didn’t get it. I’d already worked out the plan with the neighbor. He’d just be a hot neighbor, end of story. I didn’t get that happy ending, so I wasn’t going to worry about it.
Putting my pen down, I swiveled my chair to face Reagan and signed, “I don’t mind the teasing. They can poke fun at me.”
He thought their teasing was punishment, but Reagan had never understood that I already do a thorough job of punishing myself. Take, for example, how I spent the night agonizing over how I failed to be a good neighbor, how I’d been punishing a baby with my selfishness, and how I’d completely fucked up any chance at being, well, anything to my too-sexy neighbor.
So I could let them tease me. It didn’t hurt me any more than I’d already hurt myself.
Reagan needed me to be okay, and I needed to remember not to piss in my cereal before eating. Which was a gross way of reminding myself to try to stay positive. Make lemonade from lemons and all that shit. I’d screwed up things with the neighbor, but that would spare me the letdown of hoping I could ever have a chance with him.
“I just want you to know I have your back, kid,” Reagan said, his forehead still creased with concern.
“It’s okay, b...b...b-boss,” I say out loud, trying to ignore how awkward the stutter made me feel. “Today’s a good day.”
3
Gordo
Giuliana had been crying for the entire drive home from her one-month appointment, and I wasn’t far behind her. She’d not been a fan of the shots, and after seeing her red-faced screams of pain, I wasn’t a fan of them, either. By the time I’d pulled into the driveway, my nerves felt as if they’d been run over with a cheese grater. She needed a nap, and I needed a break in a bad way.
When I turned off the car, though, a movement on my porch caught my attention. My neighbor from last night, the one who’d slammed the door in my face but also turned off the music, was sitting on the front steps. The sunlight caught in his black curls and shone a spotlight on his intricate tattoos.
…Was he waiting for me?
It was next to impossible to ignore my beating heart, since it seemed to threaten to burst from my chest and run down the street, but I managed. I slipped from my car, making sure to avoid looking at the man waiting for me. If he was going to confront me, I wanted to be prepared.
Giuliana’s cries softened after I lifted her from her car seat. I’d been strapping her in and out of it for three weeks, but I still worried each time that I would do something wrong. Her body was so tiny, so fragile, and it seemed like one wrong move could end in disaster. But everything went fine this time, just like it had every time before, and I tucked her to my chest, loving the way she fit so perfectly in my arms. Her whimpering settled, and I knew it would be naptime soon.
Steeling myself, I turned to my neighbor, unsure of what to prepare for. Why was he here? What could we possibly talk about? And fuck, why did he have to be so damn attractive? My stomach hadn’t been full of butterflies like this for years. I made for the front steps but stopped at the bottom, waiting.
To my surprise, the man seemed nervous. His foot was tapping, and he had his hands shoved in the front pockets of his very tight jeans. A t-shirt featuring tattoo-like flash art and the name “Get Ink’d” clung to a slim body that rippled with muscular potential. He was built like a flyweight boxer, lean and cut. Next to him, there was a small potted plant on the stoop that hadn’t been there when I left.
I forced myself to meet the eyes that had been, admittedly, haunting me since the night before. They were as gorgeous as I remembered. Better, even, in the full light of day. Hazel that leaned green and gold, sparkling and wary at the same time. A contradiction caught in irises, and I couldn’t look away.
As if ruffled by my staring, my neighbor took some deep breaths—multiple, his eyes shutting occasionally as if he were preparing a speech for the foreign press instead of addressing his neighbor. Finally, he said, “I’m Javi.”
His voice was deeper than I expected, and it hit me like a fist, causing my stomach to knot up and my chest to squeeze. It was a rumble of a voice, like water over gravel, and my body wanted nothing more than to sway toward it. It was only due to years of keeping my emotions in check around Kyle, with all of his volatile and passionate ways, that I managed to keep a straight face.
“I’m Gordon, but no one calls me that. I go by Gordo.”
Javi gave me a half smile, and it was enough to make my cock twitch, interested in a way it hasn’t been in… too long. Or not long enough. Be careful, I thought to myself.
“I w-wanted...to...say…,” he paused. He was speaking so slowly I felt my own nerves jangle for him. Was I making him that nervous? Because he definitely had me feeling shaky with things I couldn’t allow myself to feel. “S-sorry.”
The stutter barely registered, but something inside of me lurched with the need to reassure him, which seemed a little ridiculous. I wanted to reassure a tall, tattooed, sexy man while wearing a wrinkled tee that smelled like baby barf? But when he didn’t say anything else, I knew I had to jump in.
“About the parties?” I ventured a guess.
He nodded vigorously.
“You turned the music down when I asked, which is all I could hope for. Thanks for that. I’m sorry if I came off as a psycho. Too many days with basically no sleep will do that.”
Javi’s brief smile was like a ray of sun parting storm clouds. “S...s-sure.” As soon as he spoke, the smile turned into a frown that spoke of frustration. “I d...d-didn’t know. Ab-bout her.”
He looked pointedly at Giuliana, who was learning to chew on her fist.
“I stayed with my brother and his wife for the first few weeks after my daughter was born. I’m a first-time dad and needed all the help I could get.” It felt as if I was offering too much, but the chronic fatigue of the past few weeks had caught up with me. There wasn’t a fully functioning filter between my brain and my mouth. “We’ve been home for about a week, if that. The days kind of blend together right now.”
Javi’s thick brows knitted together, and I wondered if he was putting two and two together. Except my equation was three minus one, leaving me and my daughter.
“No more parties, then,” he said. “S-sorry.”
I wanted to cry from relief. That was one worry I could scratch off an ever-increasing list. “Thank you. That means a lot, Javi.”
I said his name as though we were friends, just to taste it on my tongue. I did it without thinking, but now it was too late. I liked saying his name and how it flowed in my mouth like honey. For that matter, I liked looking at him.
He was standing so straight, coiled tight, that I wondered if he ever relaxed. Which led to an immediate and improper vision of all the things I could do to him to make him relax. It made all of me tense, from my shoulders to my balls, heat zinging through me.
Jesus, what was wrong with me? How could my brain even make these types of connections when it was so frazzled and short-circuiting due to sleeplessness? My daughter was a work of art and already a hot mess. Giuliana had managed to poop out of her diaper the minute after I’d gotten her ready for her check-up. Instead of being able to clean myself up and try to appear like I had it together, I’d rushed to get her washed and changed again, and had barely made it out the door in time.