Frenemies

by Emma Hart

  She rolled her eyes, shaking her head from side to side at the same time.

  It was a wonder she didn’t give herself a migraine.

  “You liked the boy. He’s single. You’re single. I’m not hurting anyone.”

  “You are.” I sat up straight again and looked her in the eye. “You are, Grandma, that’s what you don’t understand. He hurt me, and while he’s finally apologized, that doesn’t mean I’m not dealing with things I thought I’d buried.”

  She actually had the good grace to look ashamed.

  Only slightly, mind you.

  “I never thought I’d ever, ever see him again. I was pretty much in love with him back then, and that’s a lot of feelings to deal with. So while you’re sitting there plotting all the ways you can shoot arrows into our asses in your little game of Cupid, you forget that I’m a real person with real feelings. Not to mention that Mason has a child. A child, Grandma.”

  “She’s a good kid,” she said in a gentle voice. “And you’re right. I’m sorry. I won’t mess with you anymore.”

  What?

  Did she agree?

  “Don’t look at me like you don’t trust me, Imogen.”

  “I don’t trust you,” I replied. “You never give in that easily. Or ever.”

  Grandma adjusted her glasses and opened her book again. “I can be reasonable. It probably won’t happen again this year, though.”

  “I suppose that’s the best I can ask for.” I pushed up from the sofa and kissed the side of her head. “I’m going to watch TV in bed.”

  “Okay, dear. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.” I glanced back at her three or four times, but she was already engrossed in her book and paying me no attention whatsoever.

  I was definitely suspicious of her. I knew my grandmother and the only time she’d ever given into something that easily was when her car battery had died and I had to drive her around for three days.

  I actually think she liked that, though, so the joke was on me.

  I headed upstairs to my room and shut the door behind me. It was deathly silent up here, but instead of turning on my TV, I sat on the bed and stared at the blank screen.

  All the ideas I’d had, all the plans to be a civil person, they’d all gone out of the window. I hadn’t lied with what I’d said to both Mason and Grandma today. I had feelings I had to deal with because I was only human.

  Only when I’d done that could I begin to actually grow a pair and be an adult.

  Hey. At least I was aware of my shortcomings.

  Fixing them?

  That was another matter entirely…

  CHAPTER EIGHT – IMMY

  Clown In A Box

  “I don’t have any of the pink, but I can order some today. It’ll be here Tuesday,” I told the woman in front of me. She was about to become a grandma and wanted to knit her new grandbaby something special, but I was out of the color she wanted in the yarn she wanted.

  “Ooh, I don’t know.” She fiddled with the strap of her purse. “I did hope to purchase it today.”

  “Ma’am, I can honestly say that most stores around here won’t stock this yarn, and if they do, they probably won’t in this color. It’s not one of my regular stocks and we have the biggest selection in the county.”

  She nibbled on her bottom lip. “Will it definitely be here on Tuesday?”

  “Let me put it into the software real quick for you.” I turned to the laptop and input the order, triple checking the delivery date before I confirmed that it would be here by midday on Tuesday.

  After another minute or two of decision-making where I served another customer, she agreed, paid, and left.

  I blew out a breath into the empty store. Thank God for that—I needed to have lunch before the class this afternoon.

  I flipped the sign on the door to closed and locked it, then headed to the back for my lunch. It didn’t take long to eat, although that might have been because the news I was reading on my phone wasn’t all that appetizing.

  You know, the world was ending and all that. Never mind that I’d already lived through something like four apocalypses.

  All we needed was the zombies.

  Then I really would have lived through all the projected ends of the world.

  Well, assuming I survived the zombies. That was undecided. I wasn’t much of a runner.

  I skimmed past the latest celebrity scandals right as I finished up. There was always something going on, and while I wasn’t one to keep up on it, gossip blogs were great to read while on the toilet.

  Hey, we all have a vice.

  I locked my phone and, after throwing my trash in the can, headed out to the main store. I had ten minutes to finish setting up for the class before ten kids descended on my Saturday.

  A box by the front door caught my eye as I was walking through. I frowned—I wasn’t expecting any deliveries to the store, and there was no way my usual UPS or FedEx guys would leave a parcel outside in the middle of freaking Main Street.

  I quickly unlocked the door and reached down for the box. There was no address on it, just my name written in block capitals.

  That was weird.

  Was it, like, a bomb?

  Oh, my God. What if it was a bomb?

  Jesus, Immy, have a word with yourself. Nobody is interested in bombing a small-town art graduate who runs an art store and teaches ceramic painting to kids.

  I picked it up and carried it inside, shaking off those stupid dramatic thoughts. I locked the door behind me and set the box on the counter on top of my order book.

  This was how the stupid bitches died in horror movies.

  I reached under the counter for the box cutter and sliced open the tape. It exploded in front of me with a maniacal laugh.

  My entire life flashed in front of my eyes.

  I screamed, staggering back onto the small shelving unit behind me. My hand knocked into a vase that went flying to the floor and smashed, making me scream again at the sudden noise.

  My heart thundered against my ribs, and I gripped the top of the unit so tightly my knuckles ached.

  What.

  The.

  Fuck.

  I blinked furiously, trying to bring focus back to my vision. A clown-like Jack in the Box was taking up the entire counter, and it flopped side to side as it stared at me. It had the most hideous yellow hair and red cheeks, and the manic blue eyes were surrounded by black and white paint, but it was the tongue that really got me.

  The tongue snaked halfway up its cheek, and it was the most glaring pink I’d ever seen in my life.

  It was absolutely fucking terrifying.

  I was going to kill Mason Black.

  I didn’t need to look in the box to know if this was his work or not. This was the kind of outrageous shit he loved to pull. In his opinion, if a prank didn’t scare the ever-loving shit out of me, it wasn’t worth doing.

  Hence all the spiders.

  Well, he’d won, because I was two seconds from calling nine-one-one and getting checked for a heart attack.

  I was pretty sure I’d experienced the precursor to one just then.

  I grabbed my phone to text him, then stopped. I didn’t have his number anymore, so a texted death threat wasn’t going to do me any favors right now.

  No. I had to come up with a way of getting back at him that didn’t involve talking to him.

  Unfortunately, that would have to wait, because I had a class to teach.

  Damn it.

  ***

  “Tell me again how this works.” Hannah looked the ladder up and down. “How are you going to attach the Jack clown thing to his window?”

  “Double-sided sticky tape,” I said simply.

  “Double-sided sticky tape,” she repeatedly dryly. “How do you even know which room is his?”

  Ah, the hitch in my plan.

  “I don’t.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. That’s why we’re staking out his house.�
��

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but we’re about as sleuth-like as a T-Rex.”

  “At least we have real arms,” I muttered. “Look, his payback needs to be severe and swift. I have to get this over and done with and send the message that I know it was him.”

  “Jesus, you sound like a group of unhinged politicians waging war in a remote part of the world.” Hannah sighed, pulling her dark hair into a ponytail on top of her head. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.”

  “You’re the best cousin ever.”

  “Our parents would be ashamed of us.”

  “Our parents are on vacation on a cruise ship for a month. They should be ashamed of abandoning us in our time of need.” I pulled two walkie-talkies from my nightstand.

  Hannah took the one I pushed her way. “How could they possibly know that your ex-fuck buddy would buy the house next door?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just needy, okay?” I snorted. “Let’s check that this works.”

  “I honestly don’t know what I’m doing here.”

  “You’re being a set of eyes for me. Wait here.” I walked into the bathroom and held down the button. “Can you hear me?”

  The line crackled. “Yes, Lady Ridiculous, I can hear you.”

  I didn’t appreciate her attitude.

  I went back into the bedroom and clapped my hand against my forearm in celebration. “Let’s do this.”

  “Wait. What window are you putting it on? Aren’t you scared you’re going to put the fear of God into his daughter? She’s, like, three, Immy.”

  “I know, I know.” I paused. “Grandma spied on him.”

  “Oh, for the love of God.

  “Again, I know.”

  “That woman needs an intervention, I’m telling you.” She handed me the stupid clown with a shudder. “So do you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. This is just until I can think of something else I can do that won’t scare Maya and doesn’t require me getting too close to him.”

  “Why? Are you worried your vagina will jump right off your body and latch onto his penis? Maybe your ovaries?”

  “Shut up.” I stalked into Grandma’s room and peered over at the house next door.

  It was past midnight and it was completely pitch black. Hannah joined me, and we both watched for a moment to make sure.

  “They’re asleep,” she whispered. “Are we gonna do this?”

  I nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Together, we crept down the stairs like a pair of ninjas. We were even dressed in black because, well, why not?

  Grandma was asleep with The Great British Bake-Off blaring from the TV screen courtesy of Netflix, and we passed just as Mary Berry criticized someone’s moistness.

  Hannah shuddered, and I stifled a laugh.

  The ladder was already waiting for us outside, and together, we got it down off the front porch onto the yard. Hannah nodded, fist-bumping me, and headed back inside to do her job.

  Make sure I don’t get caught, in other words.

  I hauled the ladder over to Mason’s front yard and quietly laid it against his house. Extending it would be the trickiest part of this endeavor. Not the safest part, either.

  Huh. Maybe I should have made Hannah do this bit.

  Never mind. You live and learn.

  Hopefully, I lived.

  Nothing was guaranteed here. Not my life, not my dignity… Nothing.

  The ladder creaked a little as I extended it. I winced, but at least it didn’t clang against the wall. There was a small win.

  I’d take what I could get.

  I tucked the stupid clown under my arm and took to the ladder. Carefully—the last thing I wanted was for my giant clomping steps to alert him to my presence.

  Despite my best efforts, the ladder groaned louder the closer I got to the top. I winced with every step, and I was about to push through the final few steps to reach his window when my radio crackled from my pocket.

  “Immy! The light!”

  I jerked my head up to look at the window. Aw, shit! She was right! Mason’s light was on and I…

  I was in trouble.

  I backed up, moving as quickly down the ladder as I possibly could. I was three rungs from the bottom when the curtains swished open and his face appeared in the window.

  I squealed and lost my footing, falling the rest of the way down to the ground where I landed on my ass with a massive thud. The grass was wet and squelched as I sank into it, but I didn’t care much in that second because I was pretty sure I’d just seen my life flash before my eyes.

  No doubt I was now covered in mud, and there was sure as hell no way to escape this mess I’d just gotten myself into.

  Ugh.

  Light flooded the yard, and both mine and Mason’s front doors swung open at the same time. I pushed myself up into sitting and took a good look at myself.

  I was covered in mud.

  Absolutely covered.

  Mason ran down his path to me and held out his hands. Reluctantly, I placed mine in his with a pout, and he pulled me to my feet and out of the muddy puddle I’d just happened to land in.

  Because of course I had.

  “Oh, my God,” Hannah breathed.

  Mason glanced at her before he looked me over. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” The only thing bruised was my ego. “I didn’t fall far.”

  “Can I ask why you have a ladder against the side of my house?” He raised his eyebrows, and his lips pulled up to one side, reflecting the amusement I could see glinting in his eyes.

  My hands were still in his.

  I tugged them back and lost my footing on the muddy mess I’d made. Mason was quicker than me, and he grabbed me by the upper arms to stop me from falling on my ass twice in five minutes.

  “Maybe you should go inside where it’s safe, and you can explain tomorrow.”

  “Oh, shut up!” I muttered, shaking him off me. I grabbed the walkie talkie from the ground and stomped toward my house.

  His laughter followed me the entire way. Humiliation burned through me, but really, I should have known there was no way I could pull that off. Should’ve waited until Maya had left and then just put it on the kitchen window or something.

  Ugh.

  I kicked my muddy sneakers off before going inside.

  “Well, that went well,” Hannah said dryly, shutting the door behind us.

  Grandma was apparently done with her Netflix binge because the living room was empty, and thank God. I’d never live this down if she saw me looking like something that just erupted out of a swamp.

  I pulled off my sweater and t-shirt on my way upstairs. I wasn’t going to justify responding to Hannah right now.

  Mostly, I had nothing to say. I was too busy hating myself for such a stupid idea because it was one more win for Mason.

  Ugh.

  And of course the store wasn’t open tomorrow, so there was no way I could get out of this inevitable conversation.

  Ugh, ugh, ugh.

  CHAPTER NINE – IMMY

  Pancakes And Obituaries

  The familiar ‘dun, dun, dun’ of the song Another One Bites the Dust shook my bedroom floor.

  This was not how I wanted to start my Sunday. If Grandma was playing Queen, it meant she was planning on guilting me into a date. I’d done it for her three times now, and not one of those dates had worked out.

  I rolled over and checked my phone on the nightstand.

  Eight-fifteen.

  Wasn’t she supposed to be at church? This was my only day off this week, damn it.

  Dun. Dun. Dun.

  Followed by Grandma’s shrieking rendition of the chorus.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  I had no idea why I was muttering his name—he wasn’t helping me right now.

  I peeled myself out of the sheets to standing, yawned, then made my way downstairs. There was a huge stack of pancakes in the middle of the kitchen table.

&nbs
p; I hit the button on the CD player to stop the music.

  “Hey!”

  “Why aren’t you at church?” I asked, grabbing one of the chocolate-chip pancakes and tearing a bite out of it as it was.

  Grandma looked disapprovingly at me. “Church was canceled.”

  “Canceled? Does God have the flu? Or maybe a migraine. I know I’d have one if I had to listen to your singing every day. Oh, wait,” I finished on a deadpan.

  She swatted at me with her spatula. “No, Pastor Beaphar is sick, actually. So I made pancakes.”

  “Are you feeding the entire neighborhood?”

  “I thought you could take some to Mason and Maya as an apology for attempting to climb up his wall last night.”

  My lips thinned. “How do you know about that?”

  “My ladder is against his house, Imogen. I’m not senile yet, child. I figured it out.” She put another pancake on the tower. “Why did you try to climb his house?”

  I briefly explained yesterday lunchtime’s antics and how it ended up in last night’s fiasco.

  Predictably, she laughed so hard she burned a pancake. “I take it back. Seeing you in the mud was probably enough of an apology.”

  I glared at her. “Give me the pancakes. I need to go explain anyway.”

  “You’re gonna go like that?” She looked me up and down pointedly. “You look like you just rolled out of bed.”

  “I did,” I replied through gritted teeth. “Your little concert woke me up.”

  She slid eight pancakes onto another plate and held it out to me. “Well, I read the obituaries on my phone this morning. Theodore York died this week. We used to date, you know, back in the day. I’m simply reminding you that I could be the next one to bite the dust.”

  “Grandma, you’re not dying.”

  “Yet.”

  “By your logic, the same applies to me!” I yelled back.

  I rested the plate on the stairs for a moment while I grabbed a sweater from the hooks in the hallway to hide the fact I wasn’t wearing a bra. Yeah, I could go upstairs and get changed, but it was just delaying the inevitable.

  Besides, it wasn’t like he’d never seen me first thing in the morning.

  I tugged on the waistband of my shorts and grabbed the pancakes before I made my way over to Mason’s. Giggling came from the general area of the backyard, and I raised my hand to knock on the door right as it opened.