Chapter 5

"Pam, those look amazing." I took the large, heavy pan with the marinated chicken from her. The dark barbecue sauce was slathered on and looked as amazing as it always did.

"Bea's on her way. She also made a bean salad, and she's cutting up some parsley on top. Do you need any help, hon? I'm not very good at the grill, but I can be your sous chef if you want."

"I'm good, Pam. You just enjoy yourself."

"It's awfully hot for this early in Spring."

"It could snow next week." I laughed.

"I'm trying to avoid Pete. He wants to complain about the tree trimming. He thinks the city cut them back too far. He just wants to bitch like he always does about everything. It's not like I have any control, and honestly, I just don't want to hear it."

"He does like to complain. I saw him the other day yelling at Benji about leaving too wide of a gap between cars when the poor bastard was trying to park. Came right out and knocked on his car window as he was trying to parallel park."

"Well, Benji does do that. He's too worried about dings in his new Tesla." She giggled. "He's a sweet kid, though. Pete can come across like an asshole if you don't know how much he cares about this place."

"All he does is look out his window and stare at everyone now that he's retired."

"Mm-Hmm… Bless his heart."

"I've been around you long enough to know what that means!" I flipped the burgers, and the smoke rose quickly, making my eyes water. Pam was full of southernisms.

"Let me know if you need any help, David. This is your party, too, and you should have some fun instead of being behind that hot grill all day."

"It's fine, Pam. I'll get the chicken on as soon as these burgers are finished."

"You got any room on the grill?" A deep voice asked from over my shoulder.

"You can just set it down on the table, and I'll throw it on when I get a second." I pointed to the already overcrowded table that held all the raw meat I still had to get to.

"Yeah – no. No offense, but I like to grill my own if you don't mind." The deep chuckle made chills burst down my spine even though I was sweating from the heat. Before I could turn to look, Taylor's lookalike walked up beside me and set his raw steaks down on the table. "No offense, but I don't trust just anyone with my meat."

Now, I wasn't just sweating in front of my new crush – I was also blushing. Either way, I knew I was beet red. It was humiliating.

"How's Liza? Is she the entertainment tonight?"

"Only if you give her enough treats. Sadly, her only real trick is rolling over so you can rub her belly."

"I like belly rubs, too." My head spun as he grinned happily. "Sorry I didn't get your name the other day."

"Uh… I'm… uh… David."

"David? That's a nice name. I'm Justin, and it's nice to officially meet you, I guess." Justin… I repeated his name in my head so I wouldn't forget it. "Now, about the steaks?"

"You can put your steaks on when I get these burgers off. I just have one more batch to go."

"Can I help? I really love to grill, and my parents are wandering around getting to know the neighbors, which isn't really my thing. I could just stay here with you if that's cool?"

"Yeah. I could totally use the help!" I responded way too enthusiastically. Just being this close to him was making me nervous, but I wanted him to stay here with me so I could get to know him. "I have a lot of… er… meat to get through."

He snorted. "That sounds like a real problem. I'm happy to help with your… uh… meat. Those burgers are getting a little well done." He reached over and grabbed one of the clean platters and held it as I quickly pulled them off the grill. I had gotten distracted by the gorgeous man beside me and almost let it all burn.

"I don't usually do that."

"What? Grill meat with strangers?"

"No. Well, yeah, that too. No, I mean burn things on the grill."

"Like I said – I don't trust just anyone with my meat."

I gulped again and had to stop myself from throwing down the spatula and running away before I really embarrassed myself.

"You're blushing."

"It's hot. I'm… just…"

"Here, let me. You can be my assistant for a bit so you can cool off. Besides, you're really overdressed to be behind the grill today." He winked, and I almost collapsed onto the hot concrete. "Does it always get this hot in April around here?"

"No. This is… not normal. Usually, it's sweater weather most of the time. Sometimes it can even snow if we're totally unlucky."

"At least there's Summer to look forward to. I just signed up for the softball league, and now I'm thinking that's a stupid idea. If it's this hot now…"

"How do you play ball?" I hiccupped and threw my hand over my mouth. I was definitely putting my worst foot forward around him. He was probably about to throw down the spatula and run away to his parents. Parents? He had parents here… I needed to get my head on gayly straight.

His eyes met mine, and I felt like he was staring into my soul. Those beautiful brown eyes were so big, and don't even get me started on his long lashes. He was inhumanly pretty. Life wasn't fair.

"You know it's a ball, and you play with it." His smirk almost destroyed me right there on the street in front of all my neighbors.

"Uh… It's a lot cooler away from the heat. Thank you."

"Hey, bro. I brought a six-pack if you want a beer. I stashed my cooler beside the table. Help yourself."

"Uh… thanks… bro. That sounds great." I bent down and pulled the cooler open – trying not to stare at his bare legs. He was super tan. Probably from playing sports? Maybe he laid out on the roof or something to achieve that level of tan perfection. Maybe he did it in the nude, so it was even all over? Maybe I was becoming his stalker? He was so close, and it was intoxicating for him to stay here with me instead of with all of the other people on the street.

He was the exact opposite of me in every way. He was tan, and I was pasty. He was tall, and I was short. He had muscles, and I didn't. He had dark hair and eyes, and I looked like an Irishman. He was young, and I was… not young.

He was just being nice. Maybe he was bored? Most of the people on our street, even in the condos, were all above thirty. Most of us were well above thirty, actually. Half the street was a senior or about to become one. I had been one of the younger people since I moved here. But young? Not really.

"So, you all do this once a year?"

"A few times, actually: Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, the Beginning of Fall, and the first weekend of Spring. It's fun but a lot of work."

"You organize it?"

"Not really. They just know that I'll grill for everyone while they socialize. I enjoy it, and I'm not really all that social, I guess."

"You're single?"

"Uh…" I sputtered. "Yeah."

"And you have a dog named Liza Minelli, not to mention you apparently know nothing about sports. So, either you're a computer nerd or gay?"

"The latter. Well, kind of both, I guess."

"Cute."

"I… uh…"

He flipped the burgers over and adjusted the heat on the grill. "You're right. Even in my tank top, this is hot. Might as well get a little sun." He pulled his tank top over his head and threw it down by the cooler. "That's better."

"I… uh…" I couldn't form words. I stood up and mimicked, pulling the cap off of the bottle. "Opener?"

"Here." He reached out, and his hand touched mine as he took the bottle from me, leaving a warmth on my skin from his fingers. "I didn't bring one. I learned to do this in the frat." He took the bottle and pulled his keys out of his pocket, using one of them to snap the top quickly off. "Here. Do you mind getting me one, too? I mean, I am doing all the work over here." He chuckled.

I took my beer from his hand and bent back down to get him one. "I don't think you're doing all the work."

"Well, I do have the best assistant." He took the beer out of my hand and deftly popped the top again before pocketing his keys. "These are ready. What's next?"

I picked up the platter, and he slid the burgers onto it. I carried them over to the table and set them down by the buns before walking back over. He stood behind the grill, grinning, and I finally got a full-on view of his tanned and toned torso. Jesus fucking Christ – life was not fair! His brown nipples stood at attention, and his six-pack looked like you could grate cheese on it. But what killed me was the dark treasure trail that ran down underneath his waistband. Sweat dotted his chest, and I could have stared for hours as the small droplets ran down his smooth skin.

I was in hell.

I loved it – I hated it.

I felt electrified around him, which was totally stupid. There was absolutely nothing between us in any way, but just being close to him felt like I had been struck by lightning. The particles in the air between us felt charged and exciting – dangerous. Dangerous for me, anyway, since this was totally in my head and not in the reality of what was happening here at all.

He was snarky. He wasn't actually flirting. He looked like that and had his entire life still in front of him. My best years had already passed – in every way. I needed to screw my head on straight and enjoy this for what it was – a new neighbor who just happened to be gorgeous and so sexy that it was painful to be around him. It wasn't my first time dealing with a hottie. I had to remember that.

"Did you just go catatonic on me?" His hand on my arm brought me back to reality. "You were just staring at me or staring through me, maybe? Do you need to get away from the heat for a bit? I can handle it on my own for a while."

"No, I was just…" He removed his hand, and I sucked in a quick breath. "I was just thinking how strange life was. It's stupid."

"It's not. My life has felt very bizarre to me since moving here. It's like I'm caught up in this high strangeness. My life feels like someone else's right now." He frowned. "Chicken?" He pointed over to the hefty platter. "That will take longer than everything else."

"I like high strangeness. That sounds… complex." I brought the platter over and held it as he used the tongs to lay the chicken on the hot grill. The hiss of the meat touching the heat drowned out most of the other sounds on the street.

"It feels it, but in my case, it's not. It's just another stupid story of someone's stupid actions… or inaction, I guess. I left my senior year of college because I had to. I fucked off a little too much, and now I'm here living with my family in a brand-new place I've never lived before while taking online classes to graduate. All of my friends are living the life I should be, and I'm in this in-between space... It's my own fault, and it is stupidly high strangeness. And what's even stranger is I'm starting to actually like this weird little place."

"The Pleasant can do that to you. It has a charm. I grew up here and moved away. I never really thought I'd come back, but here I am. Now, I can't imagine being anywhere else. It's comforting to be in the place I always felt like home in."

"Is your family still around?"

"No. My dad died when I was in college, and Mom moved to Florida a few years later to be near her sister. So, I may be home, but it's not the home I once knew. But that doesn't make it any less home, does it?"

"Last piece." He took the last chicken breast from the platter. "This chicken smells amazing. Whatever sauce that is has a great aroma."

"The lesbians across the street bring it every year, and people go crazy for it."

"No one's really eating. They're all just talking in groups and drinking."

"They wait for everything to be finished, for the most part. By that time, they're tipsy and need to eat." I laughed easily and glanced over at him, trying not to stare at his massive pecs. They were photo-worthy.

He looked back at me and smiled. "I'm glad I decided to stick around. Talking to you has been… nice. I've only been hanging around a small group of people who're friends with my boss. I work part-time in the coffee shop."

"Crystal's place? That's cool. She and her friends are popular in town. I don't really know them – I just know about them. I've seen them out a few times, but I don't go out very often."

"Homebody, huh?" He looked me up and down. "That seems to track. You know you have a better chance of meeting someone if you leave your house, right? Sorry… That's none of my business."

"You're not wrong, though," I smirked. "My best friend tries to get me to go out, but… Liza doesn't like to be alone for long."

"That sounds like an excuse." He shrugged – his shoulder muscles bounced teasingly. "I mean, I don't really know you or anything, but… It does sound like an excuse. Hell, even I go out every now and then, and I've only begun my hate of peopling."

"Yeah – you're right. I just don't…" I stopped and looked at him. "It has to be easy for you. I think about how I was when I was younger – the way your future feels so far away… It's like you have your whole life still ahead of you while you're living in the now. At my age… It stops feeling that way. You just look backward and think of what you should have done differently."

"Well, then that's the problem. How can you look for a future when you're looking behind? It's not like you're old, David. How old are you?"

I grimaced. Here it was – the moment when this young kid saw me truly as I was. "I'm almost forty and going on sixty."

"That's your choice, and almost forty is not old. Why does everyone I meet in this town think they're old? Crystal and her friends act the same way. It's annoying."

"Maybe it feels true for us?"

"Maybe it's a crutch you use to stop yourself from putting yourself out there. Look at you. You're adorable. Go out and find the person who's probably looking for you, too. What do you have to lose?"

"You're what, twenty-one?"

"Twenty-three. Age means nothing. It's actions that matter."

"Sounds like you're twenty-three, but you're also not wrong." I held up my hands in defeat. "I guess we all do our best to be happy, but the older you get, the more you become cautious of getting your hopes up."

"Bullshit." He chuckled. "Grab that platter so I can take this batch off. This grill is a lot hotter on the left side."

I did as he asked and held it as he pulled a few pieces of chicken off the grill. He turned each piece over and looked at it as he pressed down and watched the juices run out, causing the flames to leap up.

"Where was I?" He grinned as he set a piece of chicken on the platter. "Oh, yeah! Bullshit. You never know what life has waiting for you if you don't let it find you. Maybe what you're looking for is right in front of you, and you can't even see it."

"Oh, I see it." I bit my bottom lip. "What if it doesn't see me?"

"You won't know if you don't try, will you? I think that's it. These other pieces need a little more." He glanced up and frowned. "Shit… My mom is waving at me to go over there. Can you handle it for a bit? I'll pop back over to put my steaks on and help you finish." He handed me the spatula and tongs and picked up his shirt off the ground. I watched – my mouth watering as he slid his tight tank top over his sweaty torso. I didn't even know I had a thing for underarm hair until I saw his. Yeah… I was fixating hard on this young man, and I knew it could go nowhere.

"Go have fun," I said sadly.

"I'll be back. Hey, you're the only person I know here." He grinned as he walked away. "Don't burn the chicken."

He did come back, but we were so busy trying to finish everything that our conversation kept getting interrupted by people waiting for us to finish. As we pulled the last piece of meat off the grill, he sighed and pulled his tank top up to wipe the sweat from his face.

"That was a lot of meat." He chuckled. "You usually do this by yourself?"

"Yeah. I like it. It keeps me busy."

"Yeah, busy… I'll see you around, I guess. I think I've avoided my family about as long as I can. Thanks for letting me help." He picked up the plate with his perfectly cooked steaks on it.

"Justin?" I couldn't believe what I was about to ask. "What's your last name?"

"Dixon," he said casually. "I'm on Insta if you wanna hit me up. Maybe we can go for a drink?"

With that, he grinned knowingly and sauntered over to his family.

I watched him the rest of the night. He seemed as lost as I felt. Somehow, it made me feel not so alone.