I’m woken by the sound of beer bottles clinking together and the rustle of a trash bag from the living room. I groan, kicking my feet out of bed and tossing on a shirt and some pants before I step out of my bedroom, not sure what to expect.

A half-grin forms as I open the door though, because I’m suddenly sure it must be Lindsey out there. Maybe she decided my place was such a mess that she’d just let herself in and clean up. She probably wants—

I let the air out of my lungs in mild disappointment when I see it’s not Lindsey in my living room. It’s just my sister. Lydia’s wearing a backless workout shirt and yoga pants, as usual, with a pair of shoes that are such a bright shade of neon green that they hurt to look at.

“The fuck you doing?” I ask, ruffling a hand through my hair and yawning.

“Trying to make sure you don’t get eaten alive in the night by cockroaches, or maybe a rat the size of a coyote.”

“I don’t need you to take mom’s place just because she died,” I say, grabbing a plate I set by the couch and walking it to the sink. Annoyingly, Lydia chooses not to respond to that, so I’m forced to listen to my own words repeat in my head for the next few minutes, feeling more sour about them each second. “I never wanted people taking care of me,” I say more softly after some time has passed.

“You made that pretty clear,” she says. Her voice is tight enough to let me know I offended her. She never had the strained relationship with our parents that I did, so mom’s death is a lot less confusing for her. It’s just tragic. An open wound. For me it’s… It’s more like a scab that itches like hell, and I still don’t know if the wound beneath is healed or just waiting to bleed some more. “Do you try?” she asks.

“Try what?”

“To push people away. You know, I knew you before all of this. You’d think you would stop the act around me, at least. But it’s like you’re just constantly on duty, making sure nobody gets a chance to see the real you. What are you so afraid of, Chris?”

“I’m not afraid of anything,” I say, still scrubbing the same plate in the sink even though it was spotless a few minutes ago. Except those journals. Or getting closer to Lindsey. Or letting anybody in, because it’s easier to let them hate the version of myself I made up than the real one.

“Bullshit,” she says, slamming a bottle into the bag hard enough that it shatters inside. She sighs in irritation, setting the bag down and going to the pantry behind me to get a new one. “You know it’s not just free. Mom and dad died, so I reached out to you. I knew they’d want us to at least get connected again. And I sure as hell knew you weren't going to reach out. So I came to you. I’m making the effort, and my patience is almost up. So pretty soon you’re going to have to decide if you care enough to try, because I’m getting really sick of this one-sided effort shit, okay?”

“Yeah?” I ask. “I don’t remember asking for charity. I came out here to get the fuck away from everything. You’re the one who showed up.”

“You came to mom and dad’s cabin, right next to where they are buried. This place is as much mine as it is yours.”

“I bought it from the bank, and it’s my name on the papers.”

She shakes her head, dropping the bag of trash. “Right. Of course. Because you can throw your money around and that means you deserve to be here leaving your trash all over my parent’s house, that you can tell yourself you’re paying them respect when all you’re doing is shitting your life away.”

I want to tell her she’s wrong, that I’ve been doing something meaningful since I came here or finding some kind of peace with their memory. But all I’ve done is make excuses, waste time, and fail to write a book, all while I can’t even bring myself to read mom’s journals.

She lets out a long breath, softening her features as she walks closer. “Chris,” she says. “You’re all the family I have left. I want that to matter. I really do. So whenever you’re ready to care about it, I’ll be waiting. Okay?”

She gives me a quick hug, squeezing even as I keep my arms limp by my sides and my fists clenched.

“You big idiot,” she says with a sad smile before punching my arm and walking out.

I close my laptop with a frustrated sigh. It’s probably the tenth time this week I’ve tried to work on the manuscript again. Alec said the publisher will extend my deadline by six months if I go on a promo tour across Europe. Two weeks of book signings and a few public appearances for six more months of time. I told him to tell them they’d get their fucking book one way or another, even if I barely believe it myself. Right now a trip to Europe is the last thing I want, and I’m not even going to bother denying a big part of that is because I don’t want Lindsey to find an empty cabin when she finally does come back to see me again.

I thought about just putting out another T.S. Barnes book to occupy my time, but it feels empty. There’s only one book inside me that’s worth writing. Everything else is just a distraction, a waste of time and energy, or a money grab. Problem is, the book worth writing is the one that makes my brain feel like it’s shutting down. When I first came out here, I was able to do it. Word after word came so effortlessly it was practically writing itself, but then I started to realize what I was doing.

I wasn’t just writing some book. I was writing something that tried to make sense of all the shit that went wrong: my parents, my sister, the way fame fucked me over, the fact that I could barely tell you more than a handful of things about the women I’ve been with, if that. Once my own motives were clear, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t write a book to make sense of what I didn’t even understand. I put so much effort into closing myself off to my family that I could barely write a blurb about them, let alone an entire book.

So I tossed it.

I thought that was the end, but of course my neighbor down the mountain had other ideas.

Thinking about her hurts, whether I like to admit it or not. I guess telling her to fuck off by my parent’s graves when she offered to help was the final straw for her, because it has been over a week and I haven’t seen her again. It’s probably for the best, but I keep finding myself wishing I had given her offer real consideration. Maybe it’s just my cock confusing my brain, because even though I thought she was nothing more than average, lately I keep thinking about the small details about her in a way that has me fucking obsessing over her.

I remember the way her ears are a little too big and how she’s constantly adjusting her hair to cover them, or how her smile is just the slightest bit crooked and that when she bites her lip she always bites the left side. I think about how she dresses so modestly but can’t hide the swell of her hips and the perfect shape of her ass, or how she was naked that first night in my bathroom when she came to me covered in scratches and with dead leaves in her hair.

I’m romanticizing the fucking woman and it has only been a week, yet I can’t stop myself from doing it. I have nothing but dead time. Nothing but quiet and peace and endless moments for her to slip into my thoughts and grow there, like a stubborn weed that just keeps coming back bigger and stronger no matter how many times I cut it down.

I throw my head back on the couch, running my hands through my hair and staring at the ceiling. I know what I need to do to get her off my mind. I just need to fuck her.

Forget all the emotional crap. Forget playing nice or doing the right thing. I need to fuck her so I’ll realize she’s nothing special. It’s just another pussy and another mouth like all the rest. One night is all I need to wipe away the magic and the mystery my brain seems intent on surrounding Lindsey with.

The gloves are coming off, neighbor.