Perfectly Inappropriate

g” to her in the journal was a lot better than not talking to her at all.

I eye the journal guiltily. In the last couple of months, I’ve started a whole bunch of entries I haven’t finished. Tonight, I promise myself. I restack the books, unfortunately just as precariously, with the journal on top as a reminder.

“Yo!” Brooks calls up the stairs. “Will you get down here and help me with this behemoth?”

He almost certainly means my kitchen table, which I built. The kitchen table is a heavy piece, made with reclaimed beams from old barns, fitted together to form a mosaic pattern. I’m pretty damn proud of it.

Brooks and I are carrying said table into the house when a voice calls to me from the next yard over. “Hey you! Young man!”

I look up to see my new next-door neighbor on the right side, a prune-faced white-haired lady standing on her front stoop, holding a jar.

“Which one of you is the new renter?”

We set down the table and I raise my hand, feeling like a kid who’s about to get in trouble in school.

“That’d be me, ma’am. Sawyer. Sawyer Paulson.”

“Well, Sawyer Paulson, when you get a chance, can you make yourself useful and come help me open this spaghetti sauce?”

“Happy to, ma’am.” I cross my yard and unscrew the top of the marinara bottle.

“I’m Doris Wheeling,” she says, accepting the open jar and lid back. “I’ll try not to harass you, but even with that jar-opening thingy my son-in-law bought for me, I couldn’t get this open.”

“Happy to help anytime, ma’am.” I scrounge in my pocket and find one of my furniture-making cards, frayed but serviceable. “Call or text my cell if you need jars opened.”

She points behind me. “I think your son has found a friend.”

Sure enough, when I turn around, Jonah is kneeling in the bushes beside another boy his age, inspecting something that from a distance looks like a small frog or a big bug.

“That’s Elle’s boy. Madden. They’re your neighbors on the other side. It’s just the two of them. You might offer to help her with her jars, too.”

Did Doris Wheeling just make that sound really, really dirty?

“I um, I could do that.” I cast a quick glance toward the house on the other side of mine. It’s the twin to the one Jonah and I are renting but infinitely better maintained.

Mrs. Wheeling taps arthritic fingers on the side of the jar, tugging my attention back to the conversation. “Anyway, thanks, Sawyer.”

I nod. “Anytime.”

“And a pleasure to meet you.”

“Same here.”

She gives me a lopsided smile, turns, and shuffles into her house.

I cast one more glance toward my other neighbor’s house. Elle. Huh. Weird. I guess it’s a more common name than I’d guessed.

Unless—

The thought is accompanied by a mental picture of soft blond hair, perfect creamy breasts, and a plump lower lip slack with pleasure.

Nah. Wishful thinking.

I banish the sexy screen grab from my head and walk back to where Brooks is fidgeting with his phone. On his count of three, we hoist the table aloft and carry it inside.

“Couldn’t you build this shit lighter?” Brooks groans.

I don’t bother to answer him, just adjust my grasp to put more of the weight on him.