One
“Can I borrow a cup of sugar?”
The voice came from right behind Jared. A woman. Normally Jared would have heard anyone sneaking up on him, but he’d been so preoccupied with his bike that he hadn’t heard someone coming toward him where he was crouched on his driveway.
Hands still in the engine, without turning around, Jared asked, “What’re you making?”
“Apple pie.”
He nodded his approval and turned to look at the woman whose voice was sweet as pie. His eyebrows went up in surprise as he got a good look at his next-door neighbor. Little Amy Funk, all grown up.
He straightened from his crouch to get a better look at her. She was short, her head barely higher than his own, and he was still kneeling on the cement. Her shiny black hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun and her eyes were hidden behind a pair of giant plastic framed sunglasses. Her curves were stuffed into a pair of jean shorts that were so small and tight they should’ve been illegal. Her T-shirt wasn’t much better, baring her middle and showing off a tiny tattoo of what he thought was Tweety Bird disappearing beneath her shorts.
Jared pushed himself off the ground, standing to his full height and glaring down at her.
“Your parents know you run around dressed like that?”
It was almost a shame to see a frown of annoyance mar her perfect features, but he got over it when she pulled her sunglasses off, revealing a pair of perfect hazel eyes. He nearly groaned out loud. When the hell had Amy gotten hot? She was always the awkward pudgy kid next door who barely acknowledged his existence when their paths happened to cross. Which occurred so infrequently Jared hadn’t noticed Amy turning a corner in her teenage development.
She still had a decent amount of flesh on her, but it had settled into some stunning curves that made his mouth water. He shook his head, trying to shoo away the lascivious thoughts. Amy was young – too young.
“How old are you?” he demanded.
Her frown deepened. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m twenty. As for my parents, you clearly weren’t around much during our epic summer fail of 2017, or you would’ve noticed they aren’t around anymore.”
Her words were spoken with sarcasm, but Jared took them to heart, attempting to remember what happened in the summer two years ago. He and Vince had their hands full maintaining a legitimate construction business, setting up a decent side hustle in local organized crime circles, and systematically taking out the biker gang that’d double-crossed them.
When he didn’t speak, she continued, “My dad killed my mom, then Dad went to prison.”
“What the fuck?” Jared really had been busy to not notice any of that. “What…” he trailed off. It probably wasn’t nice to ask her what’d happened.
She volunteered the information, no inflection to her voice as she spoke. “Dad thought mom cheated on him with a guy she worked with. Dad “found out” and drowned her in the tub.”
“Were you home when it happened?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I called the police when it sounded like the fight was getting physical. They didn’t get here in time.”
“I’m sorry.” Jared didn’t know what else to say.
She scuffed her shoe on the driveway. “Yeah, me too.”
Jared couldn’t imagine living through the experience she described. It was the sort of thing a person would see on the news, but then move on, never giving a second thought to the people involved.
“Don’t you have siblings?” He vaguely remembered children running around in the neighbor’s back yard on the rare occasions Jared decided to relax and have a beer on his patio.
“Yeah, three.”
“Where are they?” Jared asked, thinking they probably went to a relative or into foster care.
She gave him a tight smile. “At school.” She glanced down at her phone. “They should be home any minute.”
“They live with you?” Jared asked incredulously.
She lifted her chin defiantly. “I was eighteen when everything went down, perfectly capable of taking care of my siblings.”
Jared doubted that. A woman her age couldn’t possibly take care of the hooligans he saw tumbling around next door all by herself. She must be exhausted. Or negligent. Fuck, he was starting to realize that there was a damsel in distress with three distressed children living next to him. A situation he absolutely shouldn’t get involved in.
“Never mind,” she said and turned to walk away, showing him exactly how inappropriately short her shorts were from the back.
“Huh?” Never mind what?
“I’ll get sugar from the other neighbor,” she said breezily, waving at him as she walked away.
Jared leapt after her, wrapping his hand around her arm and stopping her. Her skin felt like warm silk and he had to stop himself from rubbing his thumb over her. She tipped her head up to look at him with mild curiosity. His heart pounded in his chest as the delicate scent of strawberry shampoo wrapped him in a lust-filled haze.
“I’ll get the sugar.” His voice came out harsher than he’d intended, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Thanks,” she said.
He was forced to drop his hand so he could stride into the house and grab some sugar for her. He frowned at the inside of his cupboard as his entire focus was still on the woman standing in his driveway. She was like a punch to the gut. Unexpected, off-putting and painful in a way he couldn’t put his finger on.
He grabbed the plastic container where he kept his sugar, peeled the lid off and sniffed. It smelled like plastic. Did sugar go bad? He wasn’t sure how long it’d been in his cupboard. Jared baked exactly never and had bought the package in case he ever had a guest that wanted sugar in their coffee. Since he never had guests, the sugar thing hadn’t come up.
“Here,” Jared said, walking rapidly toward Amy and thrusting the sugar container at her.
She looked startled at first, then amused. “Thanks, I’ll bring back the container when I’m finished.”
When he didn’t say anything, she gave him a small wave and turned to leave, showing him the perfectly rounded globes of the bottom half of her plump rear end. She was nearly at her own front door when he finally managed to find his tongue.
He called out, “Don’t worry about the sugar, just bring me a slice of pie and we’ll call it even.”
Amy looked at him over her shoulder, her beautiful hazel eyes sparkling and a semi-smile curving her lips. She winked at him and disappeared through the door.
Two
Try as he might, Jared could no longer concentrate on his bike. He cleaned his tools and put them away, then moved his bike back to its spot inside the garage.
He strode back into the house, grabbed a beer and his laptop and sat in his favourite reclining chair. He crossed his ankle over his knee and opened the laptop, entering his password.
He opened a search engine and typed in the words "Funk family." He wasn't sure exactly what to search. Funk drowning? Funk dad goes to prison? Hell, he couldn't even remember the dad's name. He didn't remember anyone's names except for Amy. Which was weird to contemplate now. Why had he bothered to memorize the name of a teenage girl who’d barely made an impression on him?