Social Neighbor (The Social Series Book 1)

by J. L. Mac

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because he offered me a job. He needs help while he recovers, and it feels a little like charity, but it’s way better than working for my dad and…he has an idea for this slump I’m in with the books.” I stopped working and looked up at Matt who motioned his hand for me to get on with it.

  I hurried to my bag and pulled out the list Graham had given me. Matt looked at it quizzically. “What’s this?”

  “Goliath over there had a point. He said that I can’t write the series because I skipped my childhood. You know how my mom was.”

  Matt bugged his eyes in that I know way.

  “So, he made this list of stuff that children do. You know, mischief and such. He thinks that if I relive my childhood, the one I didn’t really have, I’ll connect with the books. What do you think?”

  “Where’s the girl stuff?”

  “What?”

  “It’s a fab idea, babe, but there is no girl stuff here,” he said, flipping the note over then back again. I looked at him blankly, waiting for him to spell it out for me. “Oh my god! You know, manicures, pedicures, sleepovers, chick flick marathon, tea parties… girl stuff.” He shrugged as if it was all so simple and I was being dense.

  I hummed, thinking that Matt had a point. “So I’ll add girl stuff. What do you think though?”

  “I think it’s pretty damn genius. Can’t hurt, right? It should be fun at the very least.” He handed the list back to me and I stuffed it into my back pocket.

  “I hope so,” I breathed as I tossed a baguette in the oven.

  “What about the job? Sounds easy enough and it would keep you from worrying about work while you get the books wrapped up.” He raised his brows and cocked his head slightly as he went over the pros and cons of Graham’s proposition.

  “I know.” I sighed. I tapped a wooden spoon against the saucepot and turned to face Matt. “I think I’ll take him up on his offer, and I’m really hoping I don’t end up regretting it.”

  “You won’t. It will all be fine and you’ll be a published author in no time!” Matt pecked me on my cheek and headed toward his bedroom to call Cal, no doubt.

  I worked efficiently, preparing spaghetti carbonara for dinner, only checking my phone a few times. I needed to hurry if I planned on having dinner at a decent hour. My phone chimed and my tablet dinged from somewhere in my bedroom. Based on the sound of the chime I knew it had to be a new message.

  Facebook.

  I opened my messages to see a new one from Graham.

  Graham Stone: So, hypothetically speaking, of course, if I sent you a “dick pic,” should I expect to get pepper sprayed. Again?

  As much as I would have liked to just ignore his childish message, I couldn’t. I laughed. Heartily. In spite of my back and forth frustration and fascination with him, my fingers went to work, typing out my response.

  Florence Randall: If it’s as weird looking as the last one someone sent me, then yes. Yes. Absolutely. I will pepper spray you until my finger cramps or the can runs dry, whichever comes first.

  Graham Stone: Baby, I can assure you that my cock isn’t anything you’ll find repulsive. I predict it would have the opposite effect.

  Florence Randall: Are we having computer foreplay right now?

  Graham Stone: We are so having computer foreplay right now. Feels good, huh?

  Florence Randall: Actually, my hands are cold from typing and I’m pretty sure I’m scorching the sauce.

  Graham Stone: I could make this a whole lot better… Come over already.

  Florence Randall: Graham.

  Graham Stone: Flor. Come over.

  Florence Randall: I can’t.

  Graham Stone: Why not?

  Florence Randall: It’s not a good idea. Dinner is on the stove.

  Graham Stone: Good ideas are overrated. Come over and cross something else off your list. “Make out with the boy next door.” Unless you were interested in Mrs. Gardot.

  Florence Randall: That was a self-serving addition to the list, Goliath. I’m onto you. How’d you know I have a thing for the elderly?

  Graham Stone: Flor, come over or I’m coming to get you.

  Florence Randall: Ha! You can’t. You’re crippled.

  He didn’t say anything else for a minute or two and I got back to work on dinner. I really needed to hurry along. My empty stomach was growing impatient. I dipped a spoon down into the sauce and brought it to my lips, hoping that I got the seasoning just right.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  I jumped, causing me to drop the spoon on the stovetop. It clanged and flung creamy carbonara sauce on the front of my blouse.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  My door jolted under his fist. I squeaked like a wounded rabbit and instinctively ran and hopped up on the couch in my living room.

  “Go away!” I yelled.

  “No!” Graham shouted.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  “Open up, Flor!”

  “No!”

  “Please?”

  “No! Go home, Graham! I’ll be over in a bit!”

  “Fine! Have it your way!”

  Silence.

  I jumped off the couch and tiptoed to the door, careful not to make too much noise. I peered out the peephole and saw that he’d left. The hall was clear. I would have been a big fat liar if I said I’d hoped he would have kept trying. For how long? I had no idea. But the young girl in me loved the idea of being chased, sought after by her crush. What woman wouldn’t?

  I pressed my ear to the door to see if I could hear him clattering his way back into his own apartment. Nothing. I’d hoped he hadn’t fallen again. If he did, surely I’d hear it. He weighs as much as a Prius. I stood still for a moment considering a whole host of terrible things that could happen.

  I unbolted the door and swung it open, ready to save the day if necessary. It wasn’t necessary. Graham wheeled toward me fast, swept his arms out wide, giving me no place to go, and I landed roughly in his lap.

  “Gah! Dammit, you’re an ogre!”

  “Oh, you know you loved Shrek. Seems to me, you laughed throughout the entire movie.”

  “I liked the donkey better.” I glowered. “Let me up.”

  “No. Kiss me.”

  “I will not! Do all the ladies fall for this shit?”

  “Don’t know. I’ve never spent this much time with any of them.”

  “Oh. Well if that was meant to make me feel better, it doesn’t. It only means you’re a major man-whore.”

  “Used to be, but as it were, I haven’t been laid in quite some time. None of that matters anyway because I’m seeing someone.”

  “Since when?”

  “A while.”

  “Who?”

  “Look in the mirror, baby. Because if you have any notion in that beautiful head of yours that you aren’t mine, you’d be wrong.” He tightened his arms around my waist and leaned forward, burying his nose in my hair.

  “I’m no one’s, Graham,” I whispered without conviction, my eyes closed.

  “Think so?” he murmured.

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s funny because your mouth says one thing but your eyes are screaming something else. Sorry, but you’re all mine, baby.”

  “Graham, don’t say stuff like that. It isn’t funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny.”

  “Graham… I don’t…” I stumbled over my words, not really sure what exactly to say. He was right. I knew he was right. I felt like I belonged to the big ogre and at the same time, I didn’t. Did I?

  “Now, tell me you aren’t mine. Tell me that you don’t know the truth like I do.”

  “I…”

  “Exactly.” He smiled a boyish lopsided smile that made me want to kiss him right then and there but I didn’t. The sauce was going to burn.

  Graham

  Satisfaction

  I couldn’t resist teasing her. Winning a smile or a laugh from her had become my new favorite t
hing to do. That laugh, that smile, they were prized possessions, sacred in their own right.

  I dug into the pasta she prepared and watched as she smoothed a rumpled piece of paper on the coffee table and wrote on it between bites of pasta.

  “What are you doing?”

  She scribbled something else on the paper, looked up at me and took a deep breath before speaking.

  “I have decided to accept your challenge.” A lazy smile crept across my face.

  “…but! I have some changes, additions to make,” she amended, holding one finger up.

  “Like?” I scooped up a fork full of pasta and sighed as the flavors burst across my tongue.

  I could get used to this.

  “Well, after looking over this list, it occurred to Matt and me that these are all things boys do.”

  “Not true.” I shrugged and shook my head. What was she getting at?

  “Most of it is very boy-ish. I’m a female, Graham.”

  “Don’t I know it.” I licked my lips and eyed her head to toe before taking another bite of my dinner.

  “Stop it.” She laughed and threw her pen at me. “I’m serious.”

  “Okay. Okay,” I conceded and put on a serious expression, one that meant business. I reluctantly set my fork down and gave her my undivided attention.

  “That being said, I added some things to the list, things that you will, you must do with me.” She was trying to sound authoritative but her eyes belied what she was trying to do here.

  “I’ll do whatever you want, baby.” I liked saying that to her because nearly every time I said it, her cheeks turned a little rosy and her full lips parted.

  “Facials!” she began.

  “Um…” She had to be kidding.

  “Manicures and pedicures. Chick flick marathon to include classics such as An Affair To Remember, Sleepless In Seattle, and P.S. I Love You. Tried to cover old and new with that selection.” She nodded as if I’d say “Oh yes! Of course! Excellent idea!” She’d lost her mind.

  “What?”

  Ignoring my obvious disinclination to do anything on her list, she went on. “A tea party! Makeovers. That’s all I could think of so far.” She handed me the list and smiled brightly in that way that made my heart turn on end.

  “I’m not the one trying to write a book, Miss Randall,” I argued.

  “This is true, but you said you’d help and you are an integral part of the process. I need your participation, Mr. Stone.” She’d addressed me formally and I had to shut down the smile that was forcing its way across my face.

  “Formal now, are we?”

  “One good turn deserves another.” She perched her hand on her hip and did that feminine persuasion thing that women loved to use, the one that was usually reserved for speeding tickets and expensive gifts.

  “Yeah. Okay fine.” I was a fucking sucker. I was her sucker. But I liked it.

  “Great! Ravishing Ruby or Beguiling Blue?”

  “Fuck me.” I shook my head, chose to ignore the two bottle of finger nail polish she’d snagged from her bag, and got back to my barely warm pasta. This woman was guaranteed to be the death of me. What was worse was I knew I’d let her.

  “So what color do you want?”

  “I’m really into the all natural look right now.” I waved my hand and batted my eyes like I belonged in that movie Birdcage.

  “You have to pick,” she insisted.

  “Why do I have to do the first thing on your list? Why don’t you do something from the list? You’re the one who skipped your entire childhood. I should sacrifice my manhood because you didn’t do anything fun as a kid? No way. You go first.”

  “Fine. How about we do something that we can both agree on.”

  “Fine. Name some.”

  “Um… Okay, here’s… Oh! How about twenty questions? That’s on the list.”

  “Boring.”

  “Or we could paint nails?”

  “I’ll ask the first question,” I said with enthusiasm. I adjusted myself in my seat and tried to think of something good to ask. God it had been so long since I’d played this game. “First kiss. When, where, who?”

  “That’s three questions.”

  “Fine. Who?”

  “Devin McLeary.” She smiled and shook her head. Lucky bastard kissed my girl. That possessive, territorial part of me wanted to find the little prick and tell him hands off. It was ridiculous of me to think that way.

  “Um, we can ask whatever we want?”

  “Yes. Fire away.”

  “Okay, um, do you read?”

  “That’s a terrible question to ask!” I laughed boisterously. “But since you asked, no. Not really. Well, I do, I guess. I read spread sheets and contracts and Facebook.”

  “I don’t even know you right now.” She scowled playfully and shook her head in mock condemnation.

  “Favorite thing to do?”

  “Read.”

  “An unlikely pair, aren’t we?”

  “Biggest fear?”

  “Oh there’s the heavy. Okay. Um…I guess, failure.” I nodded and ran my hand across my pocket where a bronze sobriety coin was hidden inside. I had a habit of fidgeting with it without even realizing that I was doing it. I’d worn smooth spots across both sides of it with the pad of my thumb. Those smooth spots were evidence, vestiges of bad nights and rough mornings when drinking weighed heavily on my mind, so I’d stuff my hands in my pockets, roll the coin around and remind myself of all the reasons why I stayed sober.

  The beautiful thing about twenty questions was that expounding on your answer was not a part of the game. I didn’t dare say more beyond that one word. Failure. If I were a wise man like Martin, I would have seized the opportunity to reveal my ugly truth. I’d capitalize on the segue we’d made into the conversation.

  I was neither wise nor Martin Petersen, and so my lips were sealed.

  “As you said, one good turn deserves another. What’s your greatest fear?”

  “I… I don’t ever want to be like my father. Or my mother, for that matter. I want to be happy. Satisfied. Hard to find it, though. Satisfaction.” She left it at that and instantly Harry Potter and The Rolling Stones came to my mind.

  I held my finger up, telling her to wait right there and I rolled myself toward the vinyl. I knew exactly where the album was because it was exactly where Tommy had left it.

  “The Stones. Nineteen sixty-five. Album was Out of Our Heads. This though…greatest hits,” I announced as I plucked the vinyl from its place on Tommy’s shelf. I carefully slid the album from its sheath and laid it carefully on the turntable. The needle squeaked and cracked as it met the album and the electric guitar whined, the kick drum set the tempo and Mick Jagger’s voice filled the apartment. I smiled.

  Flor looked terribly confused. It was great. “Harry Potter!” I shouted above the music.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m perfect. I have a full stomach and my lady here with me listening to a sixty-five hit by the Stones.”

  “I don’t get it. Are you sure you’re okay? Fever?”

  “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” played as I made it back to where she sat on the couch. “Harry Potter. Professor Snape. Riddikulus!” I pointed my finger with a flourish as though it were a wand.

  The most devastating, earth-shattering smile lit her stunning face and my fate was sealed right then and there. Goddamn the woman! I knew right then that I wanted to see that smile every day. All the time. What’s more, I wanted to be the one to make her light up like that. Every day. She’d slapped a life sentence on me right then, and I couldn’t wait to start serving my time.

  “Now,” I said, wheeling up in front of her. I brought the foot of my good leg up against the edge of the coffee table and slid it out of the way. “…when you think about not getting any satisfaction, you won’t be sad. You’ll think of The Rolling Stones and me trying to dance and practice magic in a wheelchair.”

  “Riddikulus!” She whir
led her index finger in the air above her head and grinned.

  I extended my hand to her and she placed her small, warm hand in mine. I tugged her to me and swept her into my lap. “No need to worry about satisfaction now, baby,” I breathed in her ear.

  “I thought you said you don’t read,” she whispered softly, still smiling.

  “I don’t. Tommy did. I watched the movies.”

  “You’re killing me.”

  “Trust me, not nearly as much as you kill me.” I clutched my heart dramatically, winning a laugh from her. It was music to my ears. I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of it. “Wanna dance?”

  “I do.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and I rolled in and around, back and forth, with classic Stones playing on Tommy’s record player. Emotions bubbled up in me. I wanted to thank Tommy. I wanted to tell him that this perfect, beautiful woman with the most amazing smile was dancing with me in his apartment to his music, and it was a gift that I’d cherish forever. Mick crooned about wild horses and how they could never drag him away from his lady.

  Me either, Mick. Me either.

  Even once my leg was healed. Even after we marked off everything on her list. After I marked off everything on my list. I knew I may not end up with a permanent place in her life, but I also knew she’d have a permanent place in mine. Always.

  “Is twenty questions over now?”

  “It is for now.” I tugged her even closer and brushed my thumb over her bottom lip, determined to soak it up. She seemed hesitant, scared, but she leaned forward and pressed those amazing lips against mine. Like a starving man who’d just taken his first bite, I moaned, relieved by what she’d dished out for me.

  She moaned quietly as her lips melded and mingled with mine. I parted my lips, prompting her to do the same and she did. I swept my tongue against hers and relished the taste of her on my tongue. The scent of her perfume so close to me. I absently hoped that her soft subtle perfume would transfer to my clothes and linger once she went home tonight. Or maybe she would just stay…

  Seeming as though she’d heard my thoughts, she broke away from me, panting and flushed. “Graham, we should—shouldn’t.” She closed her eyes and tried to collect her thoughts, I presumed.