Social Neighbor (The Social Series Book 1)

by J. L. Mac

  I wheeled back out into the living room and peered up onto the pass-through bar top where a basket of apples and oranges was sitting. They were a little old but still edible. I was glad that I kept the fruit on hand for post-gym snacks because until someone brought me some food, I was going to live like a rabbit.

  I wondered where Martin was as I snagged an apple, wiped the hazy film that covered it on my tee shirt and bit off a huge hunk. The thing about being extremely hungry was that no matter what you ended up eating, it tasted fucking amazing. My apple was no different. I picked my cell phone up with my free hand and opened my messages to send Martin a text.

  Maybe he hasn’t noticed my missed call.

  I shot him a text asking him where the hell he was, set my phone back down in my lap and snagged another apple. This was getting dire. Me, a pretty big guy living off four apples and four, five, six oranges for the foreseeable future? Not good.

  “Lieutenant Dan managed, didn’t he?” I muttered to my second apple that was already half gone.

  One thing that I hadn’t considered about being temporarily injured and left to my own devices in Tommy’s apartment with two apples and three oranges in my stomach was that going to the bathroom became…urgent.

  Bad call, Stone.

  I chastised myself as I wheeled and maneuvered as quickly as possible to the bathroom, wondering how long it would take me to transfer from my chair to the toilet and then rid myself of my sweats.

  I kept my eye on the prize as I successfully rounded the corner into the bathroom. My left hand banged against the door jam where I already had raw friction burns and gashes.

  “Come on, Stone!” I gritted my teeth, really hating myself at the moment. This just wasn’t going to work, and I clearly could not survive by binging on days old fruit.

  I needed help.

  I managed to handle what needed handling but I was exhausted and desperate to make things as easy as possible for future bathroom visits. That meant getting rid of all the rugs in my way, the towel rack beside the shower and the small table in the hallway. Those were all obstacles that took time to maneuver around and when you’re in need of the bathroom and stuck in a wheelchair, time to maneuver is a costly luxury.

  If Halley knew any of this she’d try giving me an ultimatum. The nurse or adult diapers. I could practically see her pointing that sharp index finger at me like a loaded gun.

  Flor is right next door. So is her friend Matt. I could ask them for help.

  No. I wasn’t going there. I had enough to confront with Flor. Adding my current dilemma into the mix just wasn’t a good idea. Besides, what would I say? “Hey, Flor, listen, sorry about my sister treating you like you were gum under her designer stiletto, but could you wheelchair-proof my brother’s apartment and feed me?”

  My cell phone began ringing in my lap, jolting me from the path my thoughts had stumbled down.

  “Martin, what’s going on, brother?”

  “Not much. Just got home. How are you doing?”

  “I’m starving.”

  “Do you need me to bring some food? Do you need anything from the pharmacy?” He sounded tired and I felt bad for asking him to do anything this late in the evening. The man was old enough to be my father and if Martin was anything like my mother, he was likely in his pajama’s right after dinner. So, I lied.

  “I’m actually good for tonight but maybe tomorrow. I’ll let you know. My assistant is going to take care of shopping for me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, yeah. You know Halley. She’s a control freak. She made sure I was pretty well set up here. My assistant is going to get whatever she missed. No excuses to screw up and piss her off…” I trailed off.

  “Well, okay, but I can be over to your place if you need me. Just call or send me a text and I’ll be by. It’s not like we live that far from each other. Sound good?”

  “Yes. Thanks, Martin. I really appreciate it. Everything.” I wouldn’t tell him that I had chosen to hang out at Tommy’s place. He’d want to dissect that decision and I could tell he was too tired and I was too…too everything right then.

  “I know you do, bud. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Alright. Good night.”

  “’Night.”

  I pecked out a text message to Conrad, giving him instructions for the next day and a shopping list. He was going to be covering my ass for the foreseeable future, which meant he needed plenty of instruction. He’d also need plenty of coffee because he was now doing both our jobs. I felt bad for the guy. Particularly because he’d be dealing with Halley alone, a fate no man deserved. It still baffled me that she was married to a pretty good guy and their marriage seemed to be a happy one.

  “I’ll never understand why you love this stuff so much,” I mumbled, tossing Tommy’s astronomy book back to him on the couch.

  “That’s because you’re dense.” His voice squeaked and I refrained from teasing him over it. Pretty soon he would have a deep voice like mine.

  “Very funny, nerd.”

  “The girls like it,” he retorted with a grin in place.

  “I do okay on my own, thanks.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “What? I do. Just ask Amy Fitzsimmons,” I leaned in whispering.

  “Hey, have you heard about the new asteroid they found? It’s some ways away but only just now visible to our lenses. Cool, huh?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “Mr. Glover at the science building made a whole presentation for me and the other kids yesterday.”

  “All three of you?”

  “Shut up. If The Intercity Children’s Science Organization had more funding, I bet we’d have plenty of other kids spending time there. People just don’t care about that kind of stuff, I guess.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right, Tommy.” I glanced over to where Tommy was sitting on the couch and noticed a bright, twinkling orb glowing in the center of his chest. It looked like a diamond except it seemed to be getting brighter, bigger.

  “Tommy?” His brown eyes met mine and fear burned in them.

  “No one cares, Graham.” He whispered and the bright orb at the center of his chest kept growing and flickering like a ball of flames. It licked at his clothes and blazed so bright that I had to keep looking away, but panic rose up in me and I was desperate to help him. I didn’t know how because I didn’t understand what was happening, but I still felt as though I needed to help him. Bigger still, the flames grew.

  “I care, Tommy! I care!”

  He sat motionless on the couch as the flames grew and grew, threatening to consume him. He wasn’t moving or trying to get away. His face was stricken but his body was calm. I batted at his chest with a pillow but the flame and light continued to build.

  “Tommy!” I screamed, feeling helpless to fix whatever was wrong with him. “Tommy!” I groaned as a guttural cry sprang from my throat. “Tommy!” The light flickered and glimmered, and everything went quiet. The light had collapsed into itself and in one deafening clap of thunder, it exploded, sending light and dust and particles too small to identify all around the living room. Smoke billowed and I looked around me frantically, but it was no use. Tommy was my super nova.

  I awoke with a start, feeling very confused and disoriented, though I’d had the same nightmare for many years now. No matter how many times I had the dream where I watched my younger brother light up and explode like one of the many star systems he spent so much time watching, it never got easier.

  It made me feel tired and emotionally drained. Years had passed, but for me, Tommy’s death and my ownership in it felt fresh. I didn’t think I’d ever come to terms with the loss of him, and perhaps I didn’t want to come to terms with it. Maybe somewhere inside my twisted, fucked up mind, I felt as though coming to terms with his death also meant letting him go. The idea of that felt too final, too frightening. If I clung to my grief, in some ways, I also clung to Tommy.

  “Thomas Nathanie
l Stone.” I whispered his full name like a prayer, and I’d hoped that maybe if I sent it up, somewhere, wherever prayers went, then maybe he’d hear me and know that I was here and cared. I cared so fucking much it clawed at me from the inside out, but I’d never surrender to that pain. I’d never surrender what little bit of him I still held on to.

  Flor

  #FML

  I wanted to work. I needed to work. I was determined to use my Saturday wisely. With the first book in my series needing some serious attention, I planned to stay in my pajamas all day and throw myself into getting the damned book closer to being finished.

  I had decided that diplomacy didn’t sound half bad. It could work. It worked for third world countries every day, I had reasoned with myself. I’d simply message my neighbor on Facebook, introduce myself and ask if he had a minute to chat. At which time, I would kindly ask him to keep in mind that his neighbors would appreciate a little more discretion when it came to his noise level. A thousand decibels was just uncalled for.

  I opened the “message” box on my screen and typed in his name.

  Hello, Mr. Stone. My name is Flor. I was wondering if you had a moment to chat?

  I clicked the send button and waited.

  Five minutes.

  Ten minutes.

  Fifteen minutes and the screen flickered, changing the “delivered” notification to a “read” notification.

  Oh! Yes! He saw it!

  I waited eagerly as I saw the little empty bubble indicating that he was typing a response. Best case scenario was that he meant no harm and was just highly oblivious to those around him and his noise level. Worst case scenario was that he was a total asshole who didn’t care about my frustration at all.

  I was wrong about worst case scenario.

  So. Very. Terribly. Wrong.

  I regretted being so eager. I regretted messaging him. I regretted my damned Wi-Fi service when his response lit my screen.

  “What the fuck? Oh my god! Animal! Gah!” I choked and gagged and covered my eyes. “Matt! I’m going to kill our neighbor. He’s dead! Hope he bought some of that life insurance he sells!” Like a car accident, I didn’t want to see it but I couldn’t help but look on.

  “What in the hell is going on?” Matt said out of breath as he came running into my bedroom in his underwear with his hair still in disarray from sleep.

  “Dick pic! He sent me a dick pic!” I said in a shrill voice that hardly sounded like my own. I thrust my tablet in Matt’s face. You would have thought I slapped him, because his head snapped back awkwardly, creating a double chin on my lean best friend.

  “Oh my god! It’s too early for this shit,” he declared in his scratchy morning voice. “Why? Who does that?” He asked, studying the picture a lot harder than I had. “Is that a mole?” He squinted his eyes. “I’ve never seen one with a mole. The occasional freckle, yes, but a mole?”

  “Matt!” I screeched, repulsed by his observations.

  “Come to think of it, I’ve never seen one so crooked either.” Matt continued to peer at the image with his lip curled in disgust.

  “You are gross for looking that hard!” I jerked my tablet away from him, turned on my heel, tossing the tablet on my bed like a Frisbee and marched for my purse.

  “I’ll show him! Sick asshole!” I snagged the small can of pepper spray from my purse and bolted for the door before rationality could hinder my revenge.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Flor! You can’t pepper spray someone like that!” Matt chased me in his underwear, doing his best to snatch the can from my grip.

  “Watch me!” I snapped as I slung our door open without care for the small console with mail and keys against the wall. The heavy door clattered violently, and likely damaged something, but I didn’t care. I was on a mission. The neighbor’s eyes were going to burn just as much as mine did!

  I used the side of my balled fist to bang on his door as hard as I could. I rapped three, four, five, six times before pausing. Little zips of pain rocketed up my arm but I hammered away.

  “You’re a sick bastard! Open the door! Now! I know you’re in there! I’ve listened to your ruckus for two hours now! Open up! Sending me pictures of your freaky little wiener? Open up!”

  The door jarred slightly. I listened closely and jerked away from Matt who kept trying to tug me back to our own door. I heard a few small thuds as I waited for him to open the door. It seemed to be taking forever but I waited, shoving at Matt’s grabby hands as he kept reaching for my weapon of choice. The door bumped against its frame as “G. Stone” unlocked his lair. The door began to crack open and everything went in slow motion for the next ten seconds. Or at least it felt like slow motion as I brought the can of pepper spray up in front of me, closed my own eyes tightly and turned my head as I depressed the button, unleashing my revenge for his dick pic stunt.

  “Ah! What in the fuck? Holy shit! You pepper sprayed me!”

  “Oh my god,” I whispered aghast, dropping the pepper spray from my hand. It hit the floor with a hollow sounding clank and rolled away. “Oh my god,” I whispered again, now feeling more shocked and confused than aghast. “Graham. Graham? My Graham. How? I… Why… What happened? I’m so confused…” I said, eyeing the condition he was in.

  “Yeah! Got that!” he barked as he fumbled with his wheelchair. He wanted running water, I presumed.

  I scurried after him feeling desperate to help the big ogre. Matt disappeared like a flash, probably wanting nothing to do with the police that were likely about to be called. I couldn’t blame him. I followed Graham into his apartment feeling like I was watching the whole mess unfold on a movie screen versus real life. My life!

  “Let me help! I’m so sorry. I thought you were someone else!”

  “So you randomly accost people at their door with pepper spray?” he ground out angrily as he bumped into the walls. I winced, but I deserved that. “Water. Ah! I need water!”

  “No, don’t use water! I heard it makes it worse,” Matt piped up from beside me still in his underwear but now with his cell phone in hand and scrolling down his screen furiously.

  “Why wouldn’t water work?”

  “I don’t know. I just heard that once. Somewhere,” he muttered, obviously trying to recall when and where he heard this piece of advice. “Checking now.”

  “So what works?” Graham demanded as he spluttered through the tears rolling at a constant rate down his face.

  “They said pepper spray is oily and that’s why water doesn’t work.”

  “What if we put a drop or two of dish soap in the water?” I offered, desperate to make it better.

  “You’re not putting fucking soap in my eyes too!”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so, so, so, sorry.”

  Matt was typing on his phone with as much deftness as he used when texting a new lover. He felt bad too.

  “Okay! Okay! Milk. Do you have milk?”

  “Milk?” Graham and I asked in unison, his disbelief mirroring my own.

  “Milk. Says the dairy fat in milk helps neutralize the burning.”

  Without waiting for Graham to respond, I found my way to his kitchen and silently thanked God that he did have milk in his refrigerator because I knew for a fact we didn’t. I’d finished it off during my cookie binge fest. The cookies I had made for him! Him! My mind was reeling.

  After rummaging for a large bowl, I dumped the contents of the milk carton out and brought the bowl to where Graham was sitting in his chair. And he was visibly seething.

  Oh shit.

  “Lean forward,” I tried to grasp the nape of his neck and direct him toward the bowl of milk but he batted my hand away with one big paw.

  “I got it. Don’t touch me. What kind of lunatic knocks on their neighbor’s door just to pepper spray them?” he ground out before taking a big breath and submerging his whole handsome face in a salad bowl of milk.

  “Jesus Christ,” I mumbled as tears stung against the back of my eyes. “Graham, I’m so
rry. I thought you were this guy. I… He sent me a picture of his junk and I flipped.”

  “Fuck me. The milk is sour,” he grumbled.

  “Shit,” Matt and I said in unison. I hurried back to the kitchen and noted that the date stamped on the side of carton was a week before.

  “I can go to the store and buy more!” I offered hastily. Graham bent to dip his face back into the milk and I grabbed the muscled cap of his shoulder. “It’s spoiled!”

  “Don’t care,” he muttered, took a big breath and leaned forward, bathing his pepper sprayed face in spoiled milk. This couldn’t get any worse.

  “Some guy sent you a picture of his cock?” he asked, bringing his milk sodden face up from the makeshift basin.

  “Yes. Oh this is a long story.” I sighed nervously, not knowing where to begin or how to even remotely explain my actions. “Not that there is anything wrong with dick pics, but it’s just I thought it was my noisy neighbor. His Facebook…and his name… I was just trying to ask him to keep it down…” I trailed off and worried my bottom lip between my teeth.

  Graham shook his head and took another deep breath before dipping his face back into the bowl.

  “Says you should try to open your eyes in the milk if you can,” Matt added from over my shoulder. “Also says a spray bottle with water and a drop of dish soap will do the trick. The milk only helps with the pain. It doesn’t wash away the oily resin.” Matt shrugged, still looking at his screen.

  Graham’s head popped up from the bowl, sour milk dripping down his face. “So now she gets to spray me in the eyes with soap and water? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He took another breath and submerged his face back into the bowl of milk.

  I reached for a towel, regretting that I was going to have to spray soap in his eyes and really regretting that I’d pepper sprayed him in the first damned place. “I’m sorry,” I whispered again.