Falling asleep that night was horrible. I tossed and turned and thought about how big of a fool I made of myself in front of my possible new neighbor. I was still praying that he was running out after a one-night stand, but knowing my luck, that wasn’t likely. He would probably be sitting across from me at dinner tomorrow night while I did my best to avoid looking at him.
I pulled out my Kindle and relied on my latest book boyfriend to help me get out of my own head and fall asleep. It was a really bad plan because once I got started, I didn’t want to put it down. It was around one in the morning when I finally turned it off, and I had to be up early in the morning to meet my client for a shoot.
The sound of my alarm blaring woke me up and I slammed my hand against my phone to shut it up. I felt like I had only been asleep for about ten minutes, and I had every intention to take advantage of the snooze feature. My alarm continued to blare, and after pressing every button on the phone I could find, I finally peeked one of my eyes open to see what the heck was wrong with the torture device.
The light from my phone almost blinded me in my pitch-black room causing me to close my eyes again until I realized that I had just seen two twenty-five on the screen. I sat up in bed and looked around my room. The music was still blaring, and it took me a minute before I realized it was “Take Your Time” by Sam Hunt. While it was a song I loved, it wasn’t something I wanted waking me up in the middle of the night unless Sam himself was there to serenade me.
The lyrics were muffled but the beat of the song was clear, vibrating against the wall behind my head. I turned toward the wall and squinted my eyes as if they had enough hate power to get the music to shut off without me having to climb out of bed.
The floor was cold as I walked like a zombie into Brooke’s room. I could barely see her through the hall light that was shining into her room, but I knew she was sprawled out in the middle of her queen size bed taking up all of the room. When we first moved in together, we had to share a bed until we could afford another one. It was the hardest few months of my life. I had never been cuddled so hard. We had fallen in love with the apartment, and we decided having the apartment was worth not having everything else in the beginning. I didn’t realize at that time that Brooke was a complete bed hog and would attempt to smother me to death in my sleep with her cuddles. In the year that we had lived here, we worked hard to furnish it in a style that was both Brooke’s and mine. So, it was half girly and half nerdy.
“Shit,” I whisper yelled when I felt something stab my foot.
I hopped on one foot and looked down at the eyelash curler that caused my foot to feel like it needed to be amputated. I had always thought that thing looked like it was used to cause suffering in its victims. Not beauty.
I limped my way to Brooke’s bed and plopped down beside her causing her to bounce on the mattress. She didn’t even notice. The music was still blaring through the apartment, but it was much quieter on this side of the hall.
“Brooke.” I shook her shoulder and her blonde hair swayed with the movement.
“Hello.” I shook harder. “Earth to Brooke.”
There was no movement whatsoever other than what I was causing. She was completely dead to the world. When I bounced up and down on the mattress and tickled her foot with no results, I chalked her up as a lost cause.
I momentarily considered just forgetting about the music and trying to go back to bed, but when I walked back out into the hall the song changed and cheering broke out.
“Are you kidding me?” I said out loud to myself.
The sound of several voices drunkenly singing the lyrics to a song I didn’t recognize had me marching my way out of my apartment and to the apartment next door.
I knocked on the door and waited several moments with no answer. The singing was still going strong, and I wasn’t surprised that they didn’t hear me. I raised my fist in the air and pounded again, this time louder.
The door swung open and the voices that I thought were loud a moment ago seemed to triple in volume. A tall man who could only be described as a dark Adonis stood in the doorway. His hair was a dark brown that complemented his dark tan perfectly. I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were because I was completely distracted by the smooth smile that took over his handsome face.
“Hello, gorgeous. I’m Liam.”
He stuck out his large hand and slipped my much smaller, slightly sweaty one in his.
“Are you here for the party?” His gaze roamed down my body and stopped on my chest. I followed his path and tensed when I realized I was still in my Harry Potter pajama shorts that left nothing to the imagination and a white tank top with no bra that literally directed you on which way your imagination should go.
I tucked a strand of my raven black hair behind my ear and crossed my arms.
“No. I’m Kennedy. I live next door.” I shuffled on my feet because I hated confrontation. “I was actually coming to ask you to turn the music down.”
“Yo, Liam. What’s going on?” The deep southern drawl caused me to pull my gaze away from the smile on Liam’s face to see none other than the guy from the stairs.
“Well Tucker, our little neighbor here is asking for us to turn down the noise.” Liam pointed to me and instantly got a strike against him for referring to me as little. I wasn’t a little girl, and I hated being referred to as such just because I was a woman.
“Hello again.” He leaned against the doorframe and I watched as his eyes turned to me.
“You’ve met?” Liam asked as he turned to look at me.
“Yeah. She’s the girl I was telling you about earlier.”
“So anyway,” I interrupted. “I’d love to stay and chat, but some of us have to be up early for work so if you could turn the music down just a bit, I’d appreciate it.”
I turned away from them without waiting for a response. I could feel them watching me as I walked and tugged at the hem of my shorts to cover myself.
“Wait,” Tucker called out, halting me, and I slowly turned to him. “What’s your name?”
I blinked at his question and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
“Why?”
“Why do I want to know your name?” he asked.
I nodded my head.
“We’re neighbors now. I think we should at least know each other’s names.”
“Well, Tucker.” I took a step back toward my door. “As one good neighbor to another,” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Turn down the music and I’ll think about telling you my name.”
Then I scurried to my door and slammed it shut behind me.