Neighbor Dearest

After a long moment of silence, he said, “I’m headed out. Murray’s coming to patch the hole in the wall tomorrow afternoon. If you’re at work, he’ll let himself in.”

“Thank you.”

Oddly, I wasn’t sure I minded the hole anymore.CHAPTER FIVEBURNIN’ DOWN THE HOUSEMy landlord followed through with his promise. The very next day, Murray had plastered over the hole, thus killing any chance of future impromptu therapy sessions with Dr. Damien.

In fact, an entire week went by without a single altercation between D.H. Hennessey and me.

The dogs were still barking every morning, but I didn’t dare go near them long enough to complain. Now that I knew his ex dropped them off, if I happened to be up, I’d watch from the window to see if I could catch a glimpse of her.

One day, I managed to look out at just the right time, spotting a girl around my age with short brown hair racing into the apartment building with the two rottweilers. I then ran to my door, cracking it open a bit to spy as she passed down the hallway. She’d whizzed by so fast that I really didn’t get a very good look, except to see that she was curvier than me.

After five minutes, I could hear her footsteps as she left his apartment. Watching from the window as she ran through the courtyard, I wondered what type of a relationship they had now, whether it was amicable, whether they ever still had sex. I wondered who ended it. I also wondered why I was thinking about something that wasn’t any of my business—why as of late, I was constantly thinking about Damien. One thing was for certain: it was a hell of a lot better than constantly thinking about Elec.

That same afternoon on the walk to work, I noticed that Damien had added quite a bit to the mural since last check. There was now a section depicting a bunch of pyramids.

Chills ran through me as I marveled at his talent and all of the intricate details of his work, the way the colors all blended and faded into each other. I wondered if there was any significance to the scenic images. Damien Hennessey was one complex human being.

When I arrived at the youth center, Ariel was waiting in my office. She looked like she’d been crying.

Shit.

Even though I knew what had likely transpired, I asked, “What happened?”

“I was right about Kai. He was cheating on me.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that.”

After letting her vent for the better part of an hour, I finally said, “There’s a reason for the serenity prayer, Ariel. You ever hear of it?”

“The one about praying for the strength to accept the things we can’t change? Yeah, my mom taught it to me a long time ago.”

“Yes. That’s the one. I’m still working on that myself, but really, we have no choice but to accept certain things. All we can do is try our best to move on.”

I smiled to myself, realizing that I was basically giving Ariel the same advice that Damien had given me. It was so much easier dishing out that advice than adhering to it.

On the walk home that night, for some unknown reason, I felt more at peace than I had in a long time. I decided to pick up one of my favorite frozen individual lasagnas from the organic section of the market. I’d bake it and have it with some wine, maybe watch something on Netflix. I was getting excited about it.

Boy, my life was pretty pathetic.

After I arrived at the apartment, I placed the lasagna into the preheated toaster oven. It would take forty minutes to bake all the way through. That would leave me just enough time to take a bath, shave my legs and maybe read a little in the tub.

It was probably the most relaxing bath I’d ever taken. Surrounded by candles, I immersed myself in an addicting book Jade had gifted me. It was actually a ménage romance. I didn’t normally read such kinky stuff, but she was adamant that I would love it, especially since it was about two men and a woman instead of the other way around. I ended up getting really into it—so much so, that I somehow fell asleep after pleasuring myself to one of the hottest scenes.

The sound of the smoke alarm, and the smell of burning cheese caused me to jolt up from the tub. Grabbing a towel, I ran to the kitchen to find flames shooting from my toaster oven. It was on fire!

Panicking, I grabbed a bowl and began to fill it with water. Before I had a chance to dump the water onto anything, my door burst open. The next thing I knew, Damien was charging toward me with an extinguisher and yelling at me to get back.