by Liz Peters
When Jeremy emerged from the back of the van, he shouldn’t have been surprised to see the young woman standing outside the opposite building watching him carry the last pair of boxes into the apartment this morning. He figured he may as well make a good impression, and while he couldn’t exactly raise a hand in greeting or walk over and offer her a handshake while he introduced himself, he at least wanted to be friendly.
“Morning!” The sound of his voice broke the stillness of the early morning, and it must have startled her because she gasped and dropped the coffee she was carrying. Without a single word, she gathered it all up and turned back into the house, disappearing. Jeremy wasn’t sure what he’d done to cause that reaction, but maybe he’d startled her. She was a woman alone in a parking lot so early in the morning that the sun wasn’t even fully visible in the sky, and he was a complete stranger. That could explain a lot, or maybe he was just overthinking it.
As Jeremy walked into the apartment door and closed it behind him, he could feel the exhaustion wash over him in a wave. He was definitely overthinking things, and a nap could do him a world of good. Dropping the pair of boxes he was holding onto the table in the kitchen, he walked a straight line towards the couch and plopped onto it with a huff of breath.
Usually, he wasn’t able to sleep so easily. Jeremy could lie in one spot for hours, staring at the ceiling until exhaustion finally overcame him, but not today. Today life had worn him out enough that sleep wouldn’t be too long in coming, and before he knew what hit him, he was drifting off into slumber.
❖
It was always a little disorienting to wake up in a strange place, even more so to wake up in the middle of the afternoon on a couch you’d forgotten you had fallen asleep on. Jeremy sat up, rubbing his eyes and groaning at the stiff muscles in his back as he stretched and tried to remember exactly how he had gotten here. It all came flooding back in a moment once he looked around the room and realized where he was. With a soft grumble, he thought about how much more stuff he had to pull off the moving van still parked in the lot outside of the apartment.
It was times like this that he hated being alone. He knew it was for the best, but yet it was difficult. “May as well get started then.” Jeremy wasn’t sure who he was talking to. He didn’t have a pet or a roommate or anyone else who might be listening. He may as well be talking to the walls. It was a quick enough matter to head out to the van and grab a few more boxes. Not too many more before he could return it to the place he’d rented it from and get busy unpacking the rest of his life. It was kind of sad to think about how little space it took up in the back of the van.
He’d left a lot of things behind when he’d moved out of the house he’d shared with Stephanie and Jesse. Jeremy had figured they would be better off with all of that stuff than he would be, and he didn’t need much to make himself comfortable. He never had. Jeremy had always been something of a minimalist, ever since he was a teenager. The last thing to come in was the bed and mattress set that he somehow managed to drag in on his own without having to figure out how to find someone to help him with it.
Jeremy hadn’t expected it to be this warm in Michigan in September, but the sun was beating down on him by the time he got the last of the furniture in the house, causing a fine sheen of sweat to break out across his entire body. It left him feeling like he was drenched in it by the time he’d managed to get everything out of the van, and he was pretty sure he had a smell to match. Rather than subject anyone at the rental office to him in this state, he decided on taking a shower before he even tried to take the van back.
At least the bag with his shampoo, toothbrush, and soap had been one of the first things he’d managed to bring in out of the van. It was waiting for him in the bathroom when he walked in there, kicking his clothes into a pile in the corner of the room while he tried to figure out how the hot water worked in this new bathroom. Soon, he was letting the steamy heat of the shower soak into his already aching muscles and wash the dirt and sweat down the drain along with the swirl of soap and water that spiraled between his feet.
Jeremy took longer than he should have in the shower, but he owed himself at least this small luxury. He’d been riding himself hard for the past few days while he moved, but he knew that he could at least take it easy while he waited for his job to begin. There were only a few places he needed to find. A grocery store, a gym and a laundromat were at the top of his list since they were what he thought he was going to need the most to get used to living in a new place. Then if he could just find the easiest way to get to the practice fields from here he’d be set.
Arriving at the end of the season meant Jeremy was going to have a lot of catching up to do once he finally got a start on his new job. It had been his luck that the former batting coach had waited to retire until the end of the season. Otherwise, he would have been waiting until January to get any job offers if anything had become available. Those jobs tended to only come around once in a blue moon, and Jeremy had jumped at the chance. The timing worked to his advantage, and gave him plenty of time to get his team ready for the next season.
It would also give him enough time to get in shape for the next season. He had always been athletic, and he wasn’t about to let an injury change that now. The last few weeks of packing, and prepping for the big move had taken its toll on his usual workout schedule. The drive here, combined with trying to move a few boxes and then sleeping on a couch were making him realize his body wasn’t as young as it used to be. Signing up at a local gym was going to be at the top of his to-do list.
By the time Jeremy realized he’d been in the shower far too long, the water hitting his back was starting to run cold and his fingers and toes had begun to turn into prunes, wrinkling up until the skin there was almost painful. He turned the water off with a quick wrench of one wrist before stepping out onto the bathmat he’d laid out and grabbed a towel from the open box on the bathroom counter. He had just enough time to drape it around his hips before he heard the sound of someone knocking on his front door.
“Well, I wonder who that could be.” Again he had no idea who he was speaking to unless the walls were listening. Jeremy didn’t even pause for a moment to get dressed since whoever this was had shown up unannounced. He supposed this was what they got for knocking on a stranger’s door in the middle of the afternoon.
Chapter Three
Laila
The first day of school always went by in a blur. It could have been one of those things that seemed to drag on forever, but with the number of things there were to do in a day, it was easy to get lost in it all. The day flew by and she barely realized it was over until the last of her new students walked out the door. The classroom seemed unnaturally quiet and empty without the two dozen five-year-olds who brought it to life, but it gave Laila a moment to finally think about everything that had happened to her since she woke up this morning.
Her eyes were drawn to the piece of paper on her desk that held the recipe for Alicia’s mother’s apple pie. She didn’t know about it being “man-catching pie,” but she’d had it before. It was easily the best pie she’d ever tasted in her life, and Laila knew she would have been a fool to turn down the recipe. Besides, she did owe her new neighbor an apology for her behavior this morning. There was no way she was going to let that random first impression of her be the one that lasted.
Before she could change her mind, she grabbed the piece of paper, folded it up, and shoved it in her pocket. She loaded up a few of her supplies and lesson plans to take home with her, then headed out the door. She was joined by a few of the other teachers making a beeline for the parking lot.
Half of the ingredients on this list were things she already had at home, but the other half was going to require a stop at the grocery store. By the time Laila pulled into the parking lot of the supermarket, she’d started to consider making the pie for herself and pretend that she hadn’t looked like a fool in front of her new neighbor. There would probably be another c
hance for her to make a good impression at one of the cookouts or block parties that they would inevitably be at, and it was likely he wouldn’t remember the random encounter from this morning.
She took her time in the produce department picking out the best and sweetest apples for her pie. She knew this was key in making the pie a great success. She started thinking maybe she could just leave the pie on his front step with a nice note and an apology for being rude.
She grabbed a pound of butter from the dairy section and headed off to look for brown sugar. By the time she got to the checkout, she realized how hungry she was and admitted that maybe she had selfish motives for making the pie. That opinion held throughout the rest of the drive home and Laila was eager to get this project started as she carried her supplies into the apartment.
She couldn’t but notice that the moving van was still parked in the same place it had been when she’d left this morning. The back was closed, and there was no sign of the guy who had been moving boxes this morning.
How did she even know that he was her new neighbor? Maybe it was the moving guy who was unloading boxes for the family that would be moving in. It was probably a family since that was a two bedroom apartment, unlike her own one bedroom. That entire building was full of two bedroom units. No one lived there but families. So, it would have made sense that they had someone moving boxes in for them this morning. There was really no telling who she’d seen.
She put on some of her favorite music and started peeling the apples, preparing the crust and mixing all of the filling ingredients together while the oven was preheating. When it was time to slide the pie in the oven, she was certain that she was going to walk over there, knock on the door, and be greeted by someone entirely different than she’d seen in the parking lot. That gave Laila the courage she needed to get through the rest of the baking process. The glass of white wine she poured herself while the pie was in the oven didn’t hurt her confidence too much either. The fact that she decided to follow it up with a second one was pretty uncharacteristic of Laila, but it had been a long first day.
The pie came out of the oven steaming and went onto the counter to cool off for a little while, though she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to keep her courage up much longer. The only thing left to figure out was how to juggle the pie across the parking lot without burning herself and whether or not she was going to be able to even knock on the new neighbor’s door without chickening out.
Finally, she pulled on one of a pair of oven mitts, balancing the pie carefully on the protected hand while she used the other to open and then close the front door before making her way across the parking lot. It was easy enough to make that walk, but once she was standing in front of the door, she froze. Half of her was screaming to turn around, go back, and just eat that entire pie herself while she finished off the rest of that bottle of wine. The other half of her was trying to drag her hand up to knock on the door that was only a few inches from her face. Finally, the wine-courage kicked in and she knocked, holding her breath until it suddenly opened in front of her.
What she saw on the other side was not at all what she’d been expecting. It was the same guy she’d seen in the parking lot this morning, but this time he was wearing nothing but a towel that hung loosely on his hips. She couldn’t even tell what was holding it together or keeping it from falling, but this guy didn’t seem to care. Laila currently had seen more of him than the last three guys she had been on a date with, and she didn’t even know his name.
Words escaped her, and the only noise she could manage was a long breath pushed out from between nearly pursed lips and a raised eyebrow, though she couldn’t manage to take her eyes off his abs.
“Hello?” The new guy snapped his fingers in between them, bringing her back to her senses. “Can I help you?”
“I...” Laila had no idea how she was supposed to answer that. There were a lot of ways she could imagine this guy helping her, and none of them would have been an appropriate way to start a conversation with. She was struggling to maintain her dignity as the wine was suddenly making itself very apparent in her thought process. She couldn’t even remember her own name for what seemed like a small eternity.
“I’m sorry.” Finally, she managed to choke out the first sentence, and the rest came out in a flood of words. “I’m sorry for not talking to you earlier when you said hello. My name is Laila Reid. I’m your neighbor across the lot. I noticed you moving in this morning, but I was already having a crazy day. I made you a pie.” She was already kicking herself for babbling, but it was too late to do anything about it.
“Hi, Laila Reid.” He paused, leaning against the door frame with one hand while the other rested on his hip. The motion left his towel hanging even more precariously. Laila was pretty sure there was nothing but a miracle holding it in place by now, and there was no way she was going to be able to take her eyes off of it. Was he seriously doing this on purpose??
“So I’m Jeremy Nichols, and clearly the new neighbor. Why don’t you come in and let me get dressed? Then we can cut a slice of that pie and get to know each other better?”
Laila swallowed and nodded, following him into the apartment while he closed the door behind them before pointing to the kitchen.
“You can put the pie down in there. It looks pretty hot. I’ll go grab some clothes and meet you back here in a few minutes. Okay?”
“Sure thing.” The only thing Laila was thinking was pretty hot was the guy walking away from her after her response. She put the pie down, but her eyes were on his ass as he walked into the next room, closing the door behind him. She was trying her best to guess what was under that towel. Was that walk arrogant or confident? Was he an athlete? Was he single? That wine was certainly not helping with her assessments.
She was left kicking herself for drooling over a hot stranger like some teenager with a hardcore crush. This morning’s dream had left her feeling especially horny and this situation wasn’t helping.
It had been way too long since she’d been on a date. She knew that much, and even longer since she had been with a guy. Even then, it wasn’t someone as attractive as Jeremy. Her last serious boyfriend, Mike Taylor, had been an accountant at a local chain of gas stations. And he’d had the nerve to call her the boring one. Maybe that was why he’d dumped her for someone more exciting like the strip club waitress he had lined up next. She later found out he’d cheated on her long before he got the courage to break up with her.
The other dates she’d been on since then had been total flops. They were mostly blind dates with guys that she’d been set up with by other teachers at the school, or by friends with good intentions. They were hoping to get her out of the funk that breaking up with Mike had left her in. She realized it wasn’t such a funk really. It just looked like one to outsiders because she wasn’t eager to jump right back into the dating scene.
Her last date had been back in May, just before the school year ended for the summer. Since then, she’d sworn off of dating entirely, deciding to focus on her career. She’d spent the summer getting together everything she needed for the school year and thinking about getting a cat. Alicia had told her that was the first step in becoming a crazy cat lady and tried to set her up with bachelor number four in the same night. That was the last one that she’d turned down. Everyone had given up even trying since then. Maybe that was for the best.
Though, Jeremy was enough to tempt anyone into breaking whatever promises they’d made to themselves. At least he was out of Laila’s league, and there was no chance he was ever going to ask her out, so maybe he was going to be safe to keep around as eye candy. That was the moment he decided to walk back into the room. This time he was wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants that didn’t do much more than cover up exactly what the towel had, but with less danger of falling down. She was still as distracted as she’d been before. His stomach was perfect. She could have run her fingers along the lines in his abs and traced the pattern there for hou
rs. He was gorgeous, and they were totally alone here. She was certain he had picked up on her frustration and she struggled to keep her eyes where they belonged.
“So, Laila Reid, why don’t you tell me a little about yourself. Since we’re going to be neighbors we may as well get to know each other.” Jeremy grinned and settled into the barstool on one side of the bar in the small kitchen before motioning for her to take the other barstool across from him. She settled in, trying not to get too excited by the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
At least when he sat down his bulge was out of her line of sight. That made her a bit more comfortable and she was able to focus on the conversation.
“Well, I’ve lived here for about three years, and before you, I was the newest kid on the block. I’m a kindergarten teacher at the elementary school down the street. What about you?” She watched as he got up grabbing a couple of plates from one of the boxes on the counter along with some forks and a knife and started carving out slices from the still steaming apple pie she’d left on the counter before passing her a plate.
“Oh a teacher, eh? I can’t say I’m doing anything that interesting. I just got a job as the batting coach for the local AAA team.” He grabbed his fork and started blowing on the first forkful of pie to avoid burning his mouth. She caught herself looking at his lips and hoped he didn’t notice.
“So you’re a coach?” She mirrored his motion, eating her own forkful of pie a little too quickly, though she nearly choked on it when she heard his answer.
