Chapter Two

 

 

Jake

It was just my type of shitty luck to have a young and sexy woman as a neighbor. I had moved here to Arvada just to escape women in general after my divorce. Now I had an attractive and young one living next door to me. It was horrible and shitty luck that I couldn’t shake off.

I never blamed the universe for what had happened. I had made the decision to marry Sidney despite my family warning me to steer clear of someone like her, but the sex had been far too good to let her go. Sidney knew her way around a bedroom, but that had been part of the problem. She was so damn good at it that she lured other men in too.

My father’s voice echoed in my head as I watched the young woman talk with someone who appeared to be a realtor from the living room. “Son, 99 percent of women are cunning and manipulative. That’s just how God made them. Look for the rare 1 percent, but don’t dare to dream of ever finding it.”

Cunning. Manipulative. Greedy. That was exactly who Sidney was. I had a rundown house, barely a few bucks in my account, and full parental custody of Darren after a year of fighting each other in court. Within a matter seconds, that judge had ordered me broke and Darren to be split in half every summer and holidays while Sidney lived in a nice beach house with my savings account in her name.

Bitterness tore through me. I let the curtain drop down before picking up the stack of mail in the hallway. I sifted through it to toss the junk in the trash can. The television had clicked on in the living room. I could feel the tension radiating off Darren even before I stepped in to turn it off.

“You need to finish your project, buddy,” I said, taking the TV remote from his grasp.

“I can finish it later,” Darren said. He folded his small arms over his chest with an angry huff and looked away from me. “You never let me play with my friends anymore.”

“You can play with them at recess during school,” I said, but that didn’t appease him. I caught sight of his scowl. “I’m serious, Darren. Finish that project or you won’t get to play outside for a while.”

“What’s the difference?” Darren mumbled.

He got to his feet anyway to grab his backpack by the front door. I let out a sigh the second he was out of sight and hearing range. There were many times I wondered if the judge had picked the right parent to raise Darren full time. I had no doubt about how much Sidney loved him. She was good about the affection part, and while I loved my son more than life, I couldn’t find it in me to embrace him like he wanted.

I had my father to thank for that. What a kick he would get out of me blaming him for it. I couldn’t even remember the last time he had hugged me, let alone said he loved me.

I popped in the pizza we had picked up on our way home from school. Darren sat quietly at the kitchen table, circling randomly in his workbook. That was another thing I didn’t understand when it came to Darren. I could hardly ever hold still and focus. I had to move. My career in the Special Forces had been short thanks to an enemy bullet fracturing my spine the first few months of a tour. I was lucky from what the army doctors had told me at the time. Most of us never came back, and if we did come back, we came back with injuries so grotesque that it was unbearable. I missed those days, because then I had been moving somewhere with a mission. Now I moved at a slow pace around the house between getting Darren to school, going work, and paying bills.

“How about some football after pizza?” I asked.

Darren didn’t look up from his workbook. “No, thanks. I want to watch TV.”

I shook my head.

“You can’t just sit on the couch and watch TV,” I said. “You need fresh air and exercise.”

“We had plenty of that back with Mom.”

My jaw clenched. This was something Sidney and I had surprisingly agreed on in court. Darren was traumatized enough with everything that had happened. He didn’t need to hear either one of us talk about the other in a bad light. Still, I had no idea how to explain to him what divorce meant.

“I know,” I managed to say. “I’m sorry, bud. There’s just nothing I can do to make things better, is there?”

“No,” Darren said quietly. “Nothing.”

Darren silently ate his piece of pizza next to me at the kitchen table. It took all of my strength not to reach out and ruffle his blond locks of hair in the hope that it would cheer him up. I’m sorry. That was what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t apologize without explaining the entire truth of what had happened. That could come later, when he was old enough to understand that relationships could go awry without any cataclysmic event setting it into a downward spiral.

The doorbell rang right as I scooped up the paper plates from the table. Darren shot out of his seat with an excited grin.

“Hayley’s here!” he shouted, rushing into the hallway.

I arched an eyebrow. I had a sneaking suspicion that the only reason Darren liked Hayley out of all the other babysitters who tried to watch him was because she fed him chocolate and candy. Whenever he brushed his teeth in the morning after Hayley babysat him, there was always chocolate on them. She got him in bed on time though; I’d grant her that. I didn’t complain either, because I needed her there at night when I left.

Footsteps approached the kitchen.

“Hi, Jake.”

“Hayley,” I said, turning to look at her standing in the kitchen with a curt nod. “I just got him some pizza for dinner tonight. He’s finished with his homework too.”

“Right,” Hayley said, turning to look at Darren bouncing around her. “I guess that means we have some time to play a few games then, eh?”

“Not for too long,” I said over Darren shouting happily. “Just for thirty minutes is all.”

“D-d-d-daddy!”

I ignored the crestfallen look Darren sent me. I caught a hold of Hayley’s gaze pointedly. She gave a nod of understanding.

“You heard your pops,” she said. “Just for thirty minutes. I have my own homework to do tonight as well.”

“Feel free to use whatever you need,” I said. I clasped Darren’s shoulder as I passed by him. “I have to get ready for work.”

I entered my room to change for another long night. I slipped out of the rumpled clothes I had slept in all day when Darren had been in school. I gave my bed a longing glance. Nothing sounded better than settling down with Darren for the evening and going to bed at a normal hour again.

Crime never rested though. It thrived at nighttime.

I dressed in the usual attire of my pants and a black shirt with my bullet proof vest over it, and I grabbed my Glock 22 from the gun safe next to my bed. The sound of an air pump clicking on startled me for a second. Forcing my finger away from the trigger, I realized with growing dread why the sound was so loud.

My window was still propped open to let the summer air in. I bent down at the waist to see what I suspected— my new neighbor's bedroom window was wide open too, and I could see her blowing up an air mattress with a pile of sheets and blankets next to her.

My eyes focused on the tightness of her ass cheeks, which were peeking out from beneath her gray cotton shorts. I looked away sharply when I felt myself harden. Slamming my window shut, I pulled the shades down violently.

More shitty luck that our bedroom windows faced each other and she also liked to keep her windows open to let the night air in. Go fucking figure. I’d also undoubtedly be getting some shows at night, and enjoying them too.