Neighborhood Watch

by Stylo Fantome

  So no matter how shitty things had gotten for her, she'd always remained positive. When she'd lost her job earlier last summer, she'd been upset, but she'd known things would be okay. Her old roommate, Katya Tocci, would help her out, and of course her parents wouldn't let her go without. Plus, she was resourceful, she'd work at a fast food restaurant if she had to.

  Then things had somewhat turned around when she'd gotten her job at The Garden, a night club on the top level and a sex club on the bottom level. She'd worked in bars before, but it was different there. She wasn't serving liquor, she was serving expensive mineral water and kinky sex toys. She doled out advice and courage to newcomers, and she kept a sharp eye on any guests who got a little too “comfortable”.

  She was very good at her job, and it turned out she had a head for running the place. The club's owner, Liam Edenhoff, was a good business owner, but during that summer and fall he'd been distracted a lot. Tori had picked up the slack, and it hadn't gone unnoticed. She was quickly promoted, and by December, found herself in the position of assistant manager, which came with a hefty pay increase.

  Of course, somewhere along the line, she'd also developed an all consuming crush on her boss. Normally a man eater, she hadn't had eyes for anyone but Liam since she'd developed her little crush. It was part of what drove her to do such good work, it was one of the only ways he seemed to really notice her. He had a tendency to treat her like a little sister, which was the worst.

  Yet still, she kept her positive attitude. She kept on trucking and smiling. Provided a shoulder to cry on for Katya when her romantic life was blowing up, and another shoulder when her family life almost dissolved. She even allowed Katya's boyfriend – the real estate mogul Wulfric Stone – to talk her into letting his uptight sister live with her, and beyond that, Tori made friends with the girl. Talked with her, got her to loosen up.

  So no matter what was going on, she kept her rose colored glasses on. She kept telling herself since things were pretty okay for her now, that meant they had to become pretty amazing soon. Katya had found her happily ever after with Wulf, and they were best friends, so Tori's turn had to be coming. She'd seen enough romcoms to know how this shit worked.

  Her turn didn't come, though. Her turn went to a quiet, snobby woman with zero percent body fat. Wulf's assistant, Ayumi Nakada, flew in so far under the radar, nobody even noticed her until she'd swept Liam Edenhoff off his feet. Had him taking her to fancy rentals in Malibu and tearing his hair out over her. Falling head over heels in love with her.

  Even after all that, Tori was pretty sure she could've kept going. A little tired, a little beat down, but one step at a time, and she'd be back to pretty okay.

  Then she'd had to go and fuck Landon Edenhoff. Liam's twin brother, they were almost carbon copies of each other. A person had to know them pretty well to tell them apart. Landon was the brains to Liam's heart – he was an actual doctor, a certified cardiologist or some shit. Unfortunately, he was also a chain smoking, vodka chugging, coke addict. He kept his shit together in the light of day, but Tori had seen him in the dark of night, and it wasn't pretty.

  And I slept with him.

  It didn't matter that the sex had been phenomenal. She didn't care that it had been the best orgasm she'd ever had. He was awful, and he treated everyone awful, and he didn't care about her at all. Quite possibly didn't even like her. And because she'd been kinda drunk and sorta depressed, she'd just spread her legs for him.

  No. No, Tori was not feeling “pretty okay” anymore. She was a long way from okay. She was slowly spiraling down towards “fucking miserable” and she wasn't quite sure how she'd handle it when she finally hit rock bottom.

  “ARE YOU SURE?”

  Tori wasn't paying attention to her stylist. She was staring down at her phone. Liam was calling her. She hadn't spoken to him since she'd tried to quit a couple days ago. Since he'd promised to wait for her.

  Since he hadn't waited at all and she'd fucked his brother.

  She declined the call, then tucked the cell phone under the cape covering her body.

  “I'm sorry, what?” she asked, looking in the mirror in front of her. A woman with a punky hair cut stood behind her, staring down at her hair.

  “You really want to do this,” her stylist, Joon, checked again, running her fingers through Tori's long, dark locks.

  “I really want to do this.”

  “Rough Christmas?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Do you know the reason why most women make a drastic change to their hair?” Joon asked, then she didn't bother waiting for an answer. “A break up or they lost their job or something else huge. They chop it all off, or they dye it red, or whatever. So when someone like you, who's never dyed their hair before ever, comes in and asks for a bleach job, I assume the worst.”

  Tori cringed.

  Great. I can't even be upset without being tragically cliché and painfully stereotypical.

  “Yeah, it was a rough fucking Christmas. I'm feeling like kind of a shitty person, so I'm hoping changing my outsides will inspire me to change my insides. I've always wanted to be a blonde, so why not try it. We can always dye it back if it looks like shit,” she said.

  “Okay, you're the boss. But I refuse to completely bleach you out and turn you platinum. Trust me and I'll make it look cute, okay?”

  “Fine, whatever.”

  It took forever. Lighteners and bleach, round after round. Then dye, then highlights, which meant foil wraps, and sitting and cooking forever. Her scalp was burning and itching by the end, which Tori actually thought was fitting. It was how her soul was feeling, after all.

  Joon refused to let her see herself, which just added to her nerves. While her back was to the mirror, her hair was neatly trimmed, then blown out. She could catch glimpses of dark honey locks falling around her face, but couldn't get a sense of the overall picture. While she tried to imagine her new look, another half an hour was spent coaxing her hair into gentle waves.

  Finally, after a grand total of three hours, Joon stood in front of her.

  “I think ...” she said slowly, her eyes wandering over Tori's head.

  “You think ... what? I made a horrible mistake? It's going to fall off at the root? What?”

  “I think you made a really good choice. You look amazing as a blonde.”

  The stylist stepped forward and abruptly spun Tori around. She gripped the arm rests as she twirled, then gasped when she saw her reflection.

  Tori had been a chocolate brunette her whole life. She'd never changed it because she'd thought it had always gone well with her natural tan and dark brown eyes. Very harmonizing.

  If anything, the dark, dirty blonde harmonized even better. She felt like she looked like a true California girl, for the first time ever. The roots had been left dark and the dye was blended out perfectly to give it all a very natural look. It was a dark enough shade to really match her skin tone, but light enough to clearly, undeniably, be blonde.

  “I love it, Joon. Thank you.”

  “Don't thank me yet,” the stylist laughed as she pulled the cape away from Tori's body. “I've got a whole list of instructions for you. Blonde looks fun in theory, not so much in practice. Your whole shower routine just changed, babe.”

  “Oh great, now you tell me.”

  She was a little surprised when she was actually given a care sheet, which explained how to take care of her newly bleached hair. Then she was given product after product – special shampoos and conditioners. Detangler and frizz control. By the time she got up to the counter and saw her grand total, she almost thought Joon was trying to scam her.

  Good thing Liam pays me well.

  She was feeling happy when she left the salon. She caught glimpses of herself in store windows, saw a smiling, happy blonde. A girl who was going somewhere, doing something, having a blast.

  But then there were no more windows, and she remembered she wasn't going anywhere. She was still the same
girl, blonde or brunette. She was the back burner chick. The one dudes either wanted as their best friend, or their fuck buddy. The one nobody really took seriously.

  The one who was always alone.

  Great. I just paid hundreds of dollars to feel shitty in a different shade of hair color.

  3

  Landon sat in the large window at the front of Liam's apartment. He had it opened wide and was straddling the sill. He held his phone to his ear with one hand, and used the other to hold his cigarette.

  “So where did I let you talk me into going?” he asked, blowing a stream of smoke into the cool air.

  “Indonesia,” his friend Velez said in an excited voice. “It's fucking amazing, man. Ever been?”

  “No.”

  “We're gonna meet up in Bali, it's totally touristy, so it sees a lot of people coming and going. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  Landon let his eyes fall shut for a moment.

  No, but I can't be here anymore, and I need to do something. Anything. Everything's so gray now, nothing distracts me anymore. I want explosions, and I don't care how I get them.

  “Yeah, I said I was down. Who's gonna suspect a doctor?” he asked, tapping his ashes so they fell to the sidewalk below.

  “You'd be surprised. Sneaking a bunch of drugs out of a third world country isn't as easy as it used to be,” Velez warned him.

  “I guess we'll find out.”

  “Okay. So you get here on the first, and to make it look authentic, you've gotta spend some time here. I'm thinking like five days? Whatever. We'll get some hookers. Then you ...”

  Landon tuned out as he noticed a girl coming out of the building next door. His building, technically – he was the owner of Twin Estates building number one. If there had been any apartments available in it, he'd be living over there. He spent enough time there, anyway, sleeping his way through the female tenants.

  But this blonde chick, he didn't recognize. He was seven stories up, which also made it difficult. He leaned forward and narrowed his eyes, following her movements. She was dragging a huge bag of trash behind her, her head bent down as she moved. Without her face, he'd never know who she was, so he flicked his cigarette in her direction. A little too well, it turned out, as it bounced off her shoulder.

  “What the ...” he heard her startled shout as she jumped to the side. She glanced up, saw him, then glanced down at the ground. Saw the cigarette butt burning near her feet. When she looked back up at him, she held up her middle finger. “GET FUCKED, EDENHOFF!”

  “Tori?” he laughed loudly. She glared at him for a second longer, then continued on her trek down the block.

  “Are you listening to me, bro?” Velez's voice interjected.

  “No, not even a little. Look, I got the general idea,” Landon said as he scrambled back inside and hurried for the front door. “I'll see you after the first, we can hash all the details out when I get there.”

  “Okay. And look, if you get here and decide you don't want to do it, no hard feelings.”

  “Thanks. Talk to you when I'm getting on the flight.”

  “Peace.”

  By the time he hung up, Landon was halfway down the stairs. Another minute or so and he was barreling his way outside. He'd been pretty sure she'd be gone by the time he got down there, but she was still outside. Tori was standing in front of a huge dumpster, struggling to swing her trash bag up into it.

  “Need some help?” he asked, startling her during a back swing. She let out a yelp and let go of the bag, sending it flying backwards into the wall.

  “What the fuck is your problem!?” she shouted, whirling around him. “First you throw your disgusting habit at me, now you're sneaking up on me? Fuck off!”

  Landon chuckled and grabbed the garbage bag off the ground. He was able to get it into the dumpster with one solid throw.

  “I didn't mean to hit you,” he said, looking her over. “Nice hair. And nice ... shoes.”

  She was wearing a pair of Crocs. He hadn't realized anyone under forty wore Crocs, and here she was, doubling down and wearing them with socks. She'd matched them to a pair of sweatpants cut into shorts and a loose, cropped tank top. As if that wasn't all enough to take in, she also wasn't wearing a bra. Tori had amazing breasts, full and round and perky. Yet still, they weren't quite stealing the show. No, it was the frizzy blonde knot on the top of her head.

  She looks fucking insane.

  “Are you done?” she hissed, plunking her hands on her hips. He realized he must have been staring at her for quite a while.

  “No. When did you do this?” he asked, reaching out to touch her hair. She slapped his hand away.

  “Yesterday. Goodbye, Landon,” she replied as she stomped off. He simply fell into step behind her.

  “Nice color, looks good on you. Is it supposed to look like that, though?” he asked, following her to the elevator inside her building.

  “No,” she groaned. “I forgot to use the special shampoo, then didn't use any conditioner, and then I slept on it. It's completely fried, it feels like a corn husk fucked the Sahara desert.”

  He barked out a laugh, startling both of them. The elevator doors slid open and they both got on.

  “Oh. Well. Still looks good,” he offered. She glared at him.

  He wasn't lying, though. It did look like she'd just slept on it, which made him think of her in bed. Which made him think of sex. Sex could do that to a person's hair. Especially good sex.

  I lied – I did get to experience one good explosion recently.

  “What do you want, Landon?” she asked when they got off on her floor. “If you're not apologizing for trying to set me on fire, you can just go back home.”

  “I didn't try to set you on fire,” he argued. “So I don't have to apologize for shit. What're you up to?”

  “Is this real life? Are you trying to hit on me? Ask me out?”

  She sounded incredulous. Like she couldn't believe he would have the audacity to even think that would be something she might be interested in. Yet when he followed her into her apartment, she didn't try to stop him.

  “No. I'm trying to fuck you,” he said, shutting the door behind him. She snorted.

  “No thanks. I'm not in the mood today.”

  “I'm pretty good at getting people in the mood.”

  “Have you met you?” she asked, turning around in the entrance to her kitchen. “You're like the anti-mood.”

  A wave of brilliance washed over Landon's mind. She was completely back lit by the kitchen, her hands back on her hips, her legs planted wide apart. He was sure she was trying to look intimidating, but she didn't. Her face was too naturally pleasant, her body too deliciously curvy, for her to ever be threatening. She looked like a party in a body, and surprisingly, she had an air of innocence about her. Like she could never really do anything bad, ever.

  Like the type of person customs agents wouldn't even look twice at.

  “What are you doing for New Year's?” he asked.

  “Huh?” she grunted, caught off guard by the subject change.

  “New Year's. It's a thing people do, I think, I don't know. What are you doing?” he asked again. She thought for a moment.

  “I don't know. Liam usually throws a party at his building, but I'm not going. I'll probably go out alone. Or stay home.”

  “You should come with me -”

  “I'm not going to whatever overpass you'll be hanging out under. No thanks.”

  “- to Bali,” he finished speaking. Her eyes opened wide for a moment, then she laughed.

  “What, is that like a new opium den downtown?” she cackled.

  “No, it's an island in Indonesia known for its beautiful beach side resorts,” he corrected her.

  “I don't believe for one second you're going to Bali, and even if you were, I don't believe you'd want me to come with you.”

  He took out his phone and opened an app. Flicked through a couple options, then clicked on his itinerary.
He held it out with the screen facing her.

  “I'm going,” he said, and watched as her eyes got wide again as she took in his flight information. “And I'm inviting you to come along.”

  “But ... why?” she finally asked, glancing up at him.

  “Eh. I'm not so into beaches. Fucking on beaches, though ...” he let the sentence hang. She rolled her eyes.

  “You've never had any trouble getting pussy, Landon.”

  “I certainly didn't the other night.”

  He watched as her breath caught in her throat. Stared as her chest heaved for a second.

  God bless thin t-shirts and hard nipples.

  “Then that proves my point,” she finally spoke. “If you can nail me so easily, then you can nail any chick. You don't need me on your vacation.”

  “But I want you,” he said, and was a little shocked to realize it wasn't a total lie. The sex between them had been outstanding, and sometimes it was nice to be able to just sleep with someone without all the work it took to pick up a chick. He didn't mind Tori, even thought she was funny sometimes, and if she could also help him with his new drug mule gig? Bonus points for her.

  “I ...” she stammered, and he could see her resolve crack. “No. This is a bad, bad idea.”

  “So? Seems like you and I are used to bad ideas. At least this will be a fun one.”

  “I can't.”

  “Why not? C'mon, Tor, it'll be fun. We can go to a topless beach, drink margaritas all day, have sex all night,” he offered, but he saw those ideas weren't enough, so he pulled out some big guns. “Look. Honestly? I don't want to be around Liam. It's hard enough seeing him do so well while I'm doing so shitty; I don't really wanna celebrate it. And I figured you didn't really want to be stuck at a job with him, and also living in the same building as the love of his life. Let's go be miserable together.”