Two Hotties Next Door

They ended up at his computer.

Meredith stood on one side of him as Ace did the other. Bringing up the old newspaper archives, they went toward the matrimony section. The town always liked to print the couples that had married.

“How will this help?” Ace asked.

“There you go. ‘We wish Zane and Wynter Webster all the best as they are married.’” Meredith leaned past him and pointed at the address. “Can you cross-reference that address?”

He typed in the address in the newspaper search and at least twenty files came up, going back seventy years.

“Wait, seventy years?”

“That’s when the houses were first built,” Meredith said. “It has to be.”

“Okay, is anyone else finding this creepy?” Ace asked.

“Look, it’s just a coincidence. Single people moving in and finding love. It happens all the time. They make movies about it. Besides, we’re all good. Not anywhere does it say that one woman marries two men,” Meredith said.

“They wouldn’t write it,” Brett said. “Even if she stayed with the two men it would be illegal.”

“I’m going back out to weed. This is why the internet is dangerous. It makes people think things that are just stupid.”

Chapter Seven

Ace glanced around Meredith’s studio. She’d completed a couple of projects, both of which featured himself and Brett. They were really good as well. He was impressed. She was downstairs talking with Will, her manager.

The guy was in his late fifties but seemed to care for her a lot. Pushing his hands into his pockets, Ace paused at one of the half-finished sketches. It was of him in bed. One of his arms rested behind his head, and he looked completely relaxed. He didn’t pose for this one.

“She has a real talent, doesn’t she?”

He spun around to see Will there. No sign of Meredith.

“Yeah, she does.”

“I remember when she sat in my office, and no matter what I said to her, she just kept drawing until she was done. When she showed me what she saw, I was blown away. Up until that moment I was all about work. The extra hours, the lack of vacations. I couldn’t even remember my kids’ ages, and I knew something had to give. She saw all of that, and overnight, I quit my job and helped her instead.”

“She certainly has a way of making you do crazy things for her.” Ace didn’t think for a second that he’d be sharing her with his best friend, much less enjoying it, but he did. Having her between him and Brett, it was … amazing. They hadn’t taken her at the same time, but she certainly loved it whenever he teased her tight little asshole. Not that he was going to tell this man that.

They were close but not that close.

“You and this Brett, you care about her?”

“We do.”

“You’ve given her back her passion, which I love.” Will moved toward one of the finished paintings. “It was her family, you know.”

“What?”

“It didn’t matter that she had a sell-out gallery or that her website was overrun with requests for her work. So long as they stayed away, she could do anything, be anything. Her work was always flawless. The energy seemed to be held within the painting. I was ill for two weeks, so I wasn’t able to be there to help. She went and stayed at her parents’ house for three days.” Will scoffed and shook his head. “I should have known. Whatever they did or said, it got to her. The first painting I saw after that was like an amateur was copying her with no real passion at all.”

“You think her parents ruined her mojo?”

“It’s one way of putting it. Until that moment, no one could touch her. She was on fire. That’s how passionate she was, and to see her in front of a canvas… The last year has been tough. She’s been worried, scared, and that sparkle hasn’t been there. Now though, I see it flaring up again. She’s right there in this painting. You and Brett, I want to thank you both for doing whatever it is that you do. Meredith is not herself without her ability to draw like this, to lose herself in her art.”

“She’s a firecracker. You were lucky to find her.”

Will smiled. “I have a feeling that she found me.”

Meredith came back, smiling. “Sorry about that. My supplier wanted to try and give me a bad deal on something. How are you two getting along?”

“I’m telling him how good you’ve been doing since you moved here,” Will said.

Ace didn’t say anything.

“It’s the fresh air. You know, and the neighbors, they keep me sane.”

He followed them out of the studio.

Ace stood back and watched as she hugged Will and waved at him. Closing the door, she leaned against it. “Did he say anything to you?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. He can be very protective.”