3. My Pocket

Nadia

Iturned to my back in bed, stretched my body ramrod straight, and snapped to the dark ceiling, "Oh my God. I'm going to kill him!"

I'd heard the party spark up at a little after nine.

This was a surprise because it was a weeknight, and according to me, who hit the sheets anywhere between nine and eleven every night (and okay, that tended to lean toward the nine o'clock hour), it was too late to start up a party.

Sadly, the music that filtered through the trees between his place and mine only got louder and moved from seventies rock (which I could tolerate) to metal (which I could not), with a penchant toward Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Tool and Slipknot (yes, I knew the bands, because Trevor was a metalhead).

With this came loud voices, including intermittent shouting, laughter, and even loud conversations that carried across the water to my lovely abode.

They sounded like they were having fun, raucous fun that included people jumping into the water and frolicking there for a goodly period of time (which was insane, I'd stuck my toe in, and it was freezing).

Fortunately, that stopped, but the rest of it carried on.

And on.

And on.

I couldn't sleep with noise outside white noise (say, a fan or traffic), unless it was the drone of a narrator telling a sleep story, which I had also tried in order to get some sleep, but the noise even filtered through that.

Definitely not music, laughter and voices.

Which meant, right then, it was after three in the morning, and I'd not yet been able to fall asleep.

It had been two weeks since I'd moved in, and I hadn't seen (nor heard) Doc in all that time after our first, unsuccessful meeting.

It was Dave who showed me how to use the generator, coming over with Brenda after she called to set an appointment to walk me through keeping her flowers watered and healthy.

At that time, I learned Brenda was a woman much like her husband. That being of indeterminate age (I'd peg her at anywhere between mid-fifties and mid-seventies). She had a mad cap of thin, wispy hair that was dyed an unbecoming, unnatural blonde (not being offensive, there was no other way to say it). She wore glasses, no makeup, was pleasingly plump, sported oversize shorts that went to her knees and an equally oversized T-shirt that had a trio of graphic kittens on it sniffing flowers.

She also had a kind smile that lit her eyes behind her glasses and a patient demeanor.

However, she refused to tell me her taco meat secret, something I had a desperate need to know, because when I'd opened the container, it looked just like seasoned ground beef, but when I ate it, it was flavorful and so tender, it was a minor miracle.

Though, she did say she'd bring more by when she made another batch, which I thought was really sweet.

Other than Dave and Brenda, and the people I ignored the two times I'd gone into town to hit the dread grocery store, I hadn't seen a single soul.

I'd unpacked all my boxes.

I'd programmed the TV with all my streaming services.

I'd kept the plants watered and healthy.

I'd binged more television than I allowed myself to keep track of.

I'd read five books.

I'd shopped online, because, although Brenda had outfitted the cabin splendidly, she didn't have cloth napkins, the placemats on offer weren't as cute as the ones I'd found when I'd discovered the napkins, and her pretty, antique wineglasses and tumblers didn't hold near enough liquid (and she didn't have martini glasses at all). She also hadn't provided plastic ones for outside should I, say, want a glass of wine while sitting on the pier (which I did). Nor did she provide a marble wine cooler should I, say, drink a whole bottle of wine while sitting and reading on the porch (which I also did).

And other stuff.

I'd also semi-kinda met my postman, who drove packages all the way up the lane to my front door.

What I did not do was journal my innermost thoughts and fears and feelings about all that had happened four months ago (not to mention, seven years prior) in any of the five matching, silk-covered, cherry blossom embossed journals I'd sent to the cabin in my boxes.

I didn't meditate in an effort to achieve a higher consciousness.

I didn't do any research to see if Misted Pines offered a thoughtful and supportive counselor I could make a standing appointment with to go and hash out all that was clogging my brain and make a plan on how to open the drain and let it slip away.

No, I did none of that.

It seemed the only thing I learned about myself was that I became so unmotivated as to be nearly incapacitated by days of having nothing to do and no one I was responsible for.

Namely, around twenty-five munchkins, who filled my days with alternating bouts of extreme pride and sheer frustration who counted on me.

Sure, I texted my friends, sent emails and had a couple of phone conversations, but I was social media-ing it through all of that, even if I wasn't doing it on social media.

That being faking it.

The cabin and the lake made it easy. A picturesque cottage in the pines on a lake with me smiling through a selfie, looking honey-tanned and healthy, because me and my wineglass would head to the pier at around two each day. Along with the fact there were a lot of pots of plants to water, and they were all outside (a tan was all about faking the healthy bit).

All my friends took one look at these photos and told me to invite them out ASAP.

I didn't invite a single one of them.

I was wallowing and drinking too much. And it got worse, because every day, I'd wake up, determined that would be the day when I'd grab my imaginary staff and head down the path to battle my demons and figure it all out, and then I'd go to bed, beating myself up because that was not the day I'd done anything.

Now…this.

Mr. Cutoff Shorts who forgot how to get to his barber just as he'd forgotten he had a neighbor who didn't listen to metal (I was a Swiftie, and damn proud of it, not that he knew that, still). And I might no longer have a job, but I liked my sleep, and I didn't find Limp Bizkit good at lullabies.

The only fortunate thing was the scratching from that first night hadn't come back. I'd checked out that window and the area around it. It had a tree close, and maybe I was wrong about it being pine needles, because they didn't touch the window, but there was no other clue as to what it might have been.

In my ruminations, I hadn't realized the noise was lessening, so when the music cut out entirely, I turned and looked at my cute, blue Echo Dot (something else the mailman brought to me).

It was 3:57 in the morning.

Immediately, I grabbed my phone and snapped a photo of the time.

I did this because I was good with a grudge, even better with revenge fantasies.

And worse than that for Mr. Cutoffs, I was third generation American, but Russian flowed unhindered through my veins. Mom taught me some, Dedulya taught me even more. And hispapachka was hardcore, from the motherland, so the man who taught my dedulya was the real deal.

Thus, I lay in bed, bided my time, and at exactly a quarter to six, I threw the covers back and got up.

I washed my face, brushed my teeth, flossed, and then headed to the walk-in closet.

I pulled off my sleep shorts, pulled on a pair of faded jeans, left the skintight shelf-bra cami I'd slept in, but shrugged on a light cardigan.

I then shoved my feet in the pink velvet Birkenstock slides with the gold buckles I bought before I moved, because I thought Birkenstocks said, "Washington State," but if I was going to do them, they were going to be velvet with a gold buckle.

So far, I hadn't worn them.

Today was the damned day.

I then took my phone and marched out the back door to the trail that led to my neighbor's house.

When I suddenly emerged into a clearing after what could only have been a five-minute walk (if that), I was stunned immobile for a number of reasons.

First, his house was extraordinary.

A mish-mosh of stories with a timbered roof and siding painted an attractive midnight blue with polished wood accents around the windows.

There was no rhyme or reason to it. I couldn't place it in an architectural era either. I wasn't even sure how it was standing, with this bit sticking out and that bit rising high and windows everywhere.

Yet, it wasn't fanciful.

It seemed solid, sturdy, like it sprouted out of the earth because it was meant to be placed right there, and when humans eradicated our own species through our pride and avarice, taking many other species with us, this house would remain.

Forever and ever.

Topping that, it gave me another eerie feeling, the first I'd felt since I'd arrived at that lake, but this one was further complicated by being both peaceful and exciting.

I didn't understand that sensation and was in no mood to try.

The other thing that threw me was, off to the side, there was an attractive area with a built-in grill, handsome seating made of logs, a table and chairs for eating outside, and not far from that was a fire pit with logs around it to sit or lounge against, covered in heavy, colorful wool blankets that were so big, they also draped across the ground.

This wasn't what threw me.

What threw me was the sheer number of spent cans and bottles everywhere. Three opened coolers that still had drinks floating in the now melted ice. Ashtrays here and there filled with cigarette butts and the blunt ends of spent joints. There was a lone football resting in the dirt not far from the area, and I noted two Frisbees also left where they'd fallen when the people using them lost interest.

Several massive Bluetooth speakers were scattered around, and it didn't take a techie to know they were synced. My sleepless night told me that.

And there were three bras drunkenly hanging from a pine tree, and what looked like a pair of panties tangled with a pair of boxers sat on one of the wool blankets by the firepit.

At least the massive garbage bin that had been rolled out had its lid firmly in place, or every critter near would be running amok. In fact, I didn't know how the lingering scent of hops and cooked meat didn't call to them.

I didn't need this visual representation of what had gone down at my neighbor's place, I'd heard it, but it looked worse than what I'd heard.

By far.

Distractedly noting the massive, shiny, black truck parked off to the side, I marched up to the small square deck that butted the front door. The deck had no railing and was not meant to hang out on. Partly because it wasn't big enough, mostly because the attractive outdoor area had been built, maybe ten feet away, so you wouldn't sit on a front porch when you could sit in that side area and see the lake through the trees.

The front door was open, the storm door had its screens in, and it was closed.

But through it, I could see into a sunken living room.

Precisely, I could see Doc, flat on his back, no shirt, jeans covering his lower half, bare feet, one leg on the couch, one foot on the floor, passed out.

And on top of him, in nothing but a bra, straddling him, also passed out, was a brunette.

I'd never met her and still, I felt I knew her intimately.

Gross.

I hammered on the door.

Both of them jumped immediately, and I couldn't stop my lips curving up.

Yes.

It was cold in Russia, and that chill ran through my veins.

I kept hammering on the door.

She lilted to sitting astride him, her neck bent like she didn't have the strength to raise her head, hair covering her face.

He put his hands to her hips, his long fingers curling into her flesh, (this causing me to feel something I resolutely ignored) and turned his head to me.

When he saw me, his handsome, sleepy face morphed to granite.

I thinned my lips on principle.

He lifted the woman off him as he curled up, then set her on the couch as he got out of it.

He then prowled to me, crafting a new miracle, considering his ultra-faded jeans had a button fly, and as far as I could tell, only one button was done up, so how they remained on his slim (but powerful) hips was unfathomable.

They also provided the solution to the mystery of what that dart of thick hair down the center of his abs pointed to, and it was a bigger patch of dark hair. Not to mention, I had an inkling whose boxers and panties were left on that wool blanket. Either that, or the man preferred commando.

He got to the door, and I had to jump back when he pushed it open hostilely.

"What the fuck time is it?" he asked me, also hostile (obviously), one arm held out to keep the door open.

Perfect introduction.

I engaged my camera, pulled up the picture I'd taken earlier and shoved it in his face.

"That was the time your party ended," I declared.

His eyes, which, this close, I could see were a silvery gray, and I could also see they were ringed with a very thick fringe of dark lashes, glanced at my phone before they came back to me.

"Get your fuckin' phone out of my face."

I dropped my phone and kept at him.

"Please allow me to explain what it appears you do not know, that being what appropriate neighborly conduct is."

"I'm not sure you know a lot about that," he retorted.

"Oh really?" I asked fake-sweetly. "Well, I know you don't run through your neighbors' yards."

"We live in a fuckin' forest. We don't have yards," he cut in.

I went on like he didn't speak. "And you don't have wild parties with loud music and loud people on a weekday, or any day, where it goes nearly until dawn. Weekdays, you pipe down at nine. Weekends, midnight."

"Is that a rule?" he asked snidely.

"Yes," I answered loftily.

"Woman, I moved out here to live like I wanna live without some uptight bitch wakin' me up in the wee hours of the fuckin' morning and getting up in my shit."

"Then you should have picked a lake that didn't have another house on it." I jabbed a finger at his house to indicate the lake beyond it. "That lake"—I leaned into him—"has another house on it." I leaned back and jerked a thumb to myself. "Mine. So if you'd behave appropriately from here on out, it'd be appreciated."

"Kiss my ass," he returned.

Oh no he didn't.

"You can do that, or you can speak to the local police about whatever fine they levy for excessive noise," I threatened.

"We don't have noise ordinances out here, princess."

"Law enforcement is tasked with keeping the peace, and what was going on last night was far from peaceful."

"If you had a problem with it, why didn't you walk your sweet ass over here last night and ask nice instead of pulling this shit?"

I felt my eyes get round in affront, and I was feeling so affronted, I missed how his attention laser focused on my reaction.

I also missed the change in his demeanor at what he saw.

"Excuse me, Mr. Hell's Angel," I snapped. "Crawl forward from where it appears you live in the roaring, anything-goes, good-times seventies to today and tell me, what woman in her right mind would walk alone into a rowdy party in the middle of nowhere to ask a man to keep it down? In short, are you insane? And that doesn't even account for the fact I shouldn't have to."

"I'm not in an MC."

My head jerked at this confusing announcement.

"What?" I asked.

"I got a bike, but I'm not in an MC."

"A what?"

"An MC." When I was obviously looking as confused as I actually still was, he educated me. "A motorcycle club."

"Oh," I mumbled then shook my hair to get myself mentally back on track.

But this time, I didn't miss how his gaze went right to my hair.

I put that in my pocket to forget about and wash until it was nothing but fluff and carried on.

"My point still stands."

"You called me Mr. Hell's Angel."

I twisted at the waist and looked pointedly at the mess in his party area.

When I went back to him, he'd leaned out to have his own look, and a smile was flirting with his full lips.

This guy!

"I'm not asking for a lot," I pointed out.

His attention returned to me. "Really? Because last night was a good fuckin' time, and it woulda sucked for a lot of people, including me, if I had to kick my friends out at midnight because my neighbor has a stick up her ass."

"I don't have a stick up my ass," I said hotly.

His brows rose.

"I don't!" I declared.

"Babe?" a woman's voice drifted from the interior of the house. "Get rid of her. She's a drag."

I put that in my pocket too. Not only what she said, but her entire existence, though, primarily where she woke up that morning.

"You done?" he asked me.

I was not.

"Listen, it's very simple. At around midnight, just ask everyone to keep it down, turn the music down and switch it over to Fleetwood Mac or the Eagles or something."

"No, woman, you listen," he retorted. "People who live like us do it because we don't want anyone telling us how to live. If you picked the wrong place to land, that's on you. Don't hang your shit on me."

After delivering that, he did a full body scan of me that was entirely inappropriate considering not only our conversation, but that he had a woman inside he'd clearly had relations with not too long ago (as in, perhaps only hours had elapsed). It lingered on my hips, on my bust area and then on my hair before he locked eyes with me, muttered a cutting, "Nice Birks. Fuck, velvet."

And then I had to jump out of the way when he stopped holding the storm door open and it whizzed closed.

If that wasn't enough, he shut the inner door right in my face.

Well!

"What a dick," I whispered to the door.

On that, I marched down the stairs and to the trail, my eyes to my Birkenstocks, my blood pressure out the roof.

And as I flicked my slides off into a cubby in my back hall, I thought, Fuck him. Those shoes are adorable.

I then went into my equally adorable kitchen and made coffee.