Back in the Burbs by Tracy Wolff
Chapter Five
I should take the death of my car (melodramatic? me?) as the sign it surely is. An hour later, my dead car has been towed to a garage. Thank goodness Aunt Maggie’s car is still in the garage, though I probably need a boating license to drive something that big these days. I decide to not risk another misadventure and instead scour the kitchen for the only thing on my grocery list that really matters—wine.
I find an unopened bottle in the fridge and have it open in five seconds flat. Well, mostly because it has a screw cap, but it’s an urgent necessity, too. I just discovered that my HGTV addiction and newfound (and misplaced) confidence has led me to a very dark place.
Literally.
There isn’t a single light in the living room of Aunt Maggie’s house that works, and the sun is minutes away from disappearing altogether for the night. I toss back the last of the wine in my classy red Solo cup and pour another before I lose all light entirely. Priorities and all. Plus, I already spent forty minutes trying to find the circuit breaker box. It defeated me.
The Property Brothers make it look so easy. Jonathan and Drew are now officially a pair of straight-up lying jerks. I’ll still watch them, though. Hell, I swore off men forever after Karl but, no joke, I’d blow Jonathan right now if he showed me where the breaker box is located.
Okay, that might be the wine talking—at least a little. But anyone who has ever tried to find a breaker box in an unfamiliar house in the dark knows my frustration level.
Even more pathetic, I’m doing that alone as I wander onto my death-trap front porch and sink onto the middle step, wrapping one arm around the fallen tree limb like it’s a lifeline, and stare out at cookie-cutter Americana.
The only thing that stands out more than Aunt Maggie’s ramshackle two-story cottage with its cracked driveway and raggedy yard and porch is the droopy-eared dog of indeterminate breed and age lying in the middle of my jungle-themed front lawn.
I set my empty cup down and slowly approach the sad-looking dog. She apparently has worse survival instincts than I do because she just lays there like this is to be her fate. She is clearly well fed and cared for, so she must have a home somewhere in the neighborhood. I reach for the bone-shaped tag hanging from her collar and flip it over to show her name. Buttercup. But of course no address.
“Nice to meet you, Buttercup.” I scratch behind her ear, and her foot immediately starts slapping against the grass.
I wish I felt a tenth as happy as she does. Instead, I’m an anxiety-riddled pretzel who, after way too long staring at my phone today, is now a YouTube-licensed contractor, which is about as legitimate as having a medical degree from WebMD.
Scared?
Yeah, me too.
Of course, being frightened out of my mind and running on panic-fueled adrenaline is pretty much my life right now. To be honest, I’m not sure I ever knew which way I was going besides following the lead of someone else.
A loud three-note whistle comes from down the street. Buttercup lifts her head and looks in that direction but doesn’t get up. The sound blasts out again. My girl Buttercup, though, is not interested.
“Butters, come.”
A commanding male voice has both of us straining in the dark to gaze down the tree-lined street, lit only by the occasional faux gaslight lamps, at a man jogging toward my house. He runs under another lamp, the soft glow illuminating him enough to pick up that he is a big guy in running shorts with a T-shirt tucked into the waistband. Then he disappears as he moves out from underneath the umbrella of soft light. He shows up a few seconds later under the light of a different lamp. Each time, I take in different details. Wavy brown hair. Broad shoulders. Nice arms. Trim waist. By the time I notice his calves, I realize I’m holding my breath every time he disappears in the shadows.
Yeah, it has apparently been that long since I’ve even remotely found someone attractive. It’s like sometime during the past few years, my libido was turned off. It was there, and then it wasn’t. Even worse? I really didn’t care.
But suddenly there it is again—tanned, rested, and ready for action like it just came back from vacation on Horny Island. I’m so startled by this revelation that I stumble backward to my porch steps and plop down next to the tree again. Honestly, that’s the only wood I want in my future.
I’m so distracted by this change in my hormones that I don’t look up at the runner’s face until he stops on the sidewalk in front of my house. As soon as I do, my oh-hello hormones become come-and-get-me-tiger hormones. Yeah, I’m embarrassed for me, too.
Buttercup begins thunking the ground with her fat tail; then she gets up, moseys over to the steps, and plops herself down next to me. Of all the dogs in all the world, Buttercup has to belong to the guy I now recognize as the one mowing his lawn across the street, who I flipped off on the down low earlier.
If I could speak, I would. Instead, I just sit there with my mouth half open, because some people really are so good-looking that it’s hard to form words around them.
“Getting the place ready to sell?” he asks, his voice low and slow like warm honey in a hot toddy on Christmas Eve.
Words still beyond my abilities, I shake my head.
“I should have known this was where she was going.” He nods at the dog as he unwinds a worn leash that was wrapped around his wrist. “I can’t seem to keep her away from this wreck.”
And just like that, my libido goes back into cold storage. I grit my jaw. “Was that really necessary? My aunt wasn’t exactly herself before she got sick.”
Unless she was always a hoarder and we just miraculously missed it. I mean, sure, I haven’t been back to Sutton once in the past twenty years, but Aunt Maggie and I talked all the time. I would have noticed if she was hoarding at such dangerous levels, right?
Now I feel ashamed that my family just accepted Aunt Maggie’s constant suggestions that we meet up at our house, which is two towns and three awful highway interchanges over, or in the city, and we never saw them for what they really were—a strategy to keep us from noticing her illness.
“As if you actually knew her,” he says, echoing my own thoughts, the bastard. He gives me a slow up-and-down that manages to stay on the not-creepy side of the line. “So you’re the famed great-niece, eh?”
From his tone, it’s obvious he’s not impressed. And sure, I’m not looking my best these days, but that’s intentional. I’m choosing not to give a shit. You can’t judge a person intentionally fucking off, right?
“You have some nerve just showing up and passing judgment.”
He makes a clicking noise, and Buttercup turns her head in his direction but doesn’t move.
They always say that dogs can recognize bad people. I never really believed it, but as Buttercup doesn’t even inch toward Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dickish, I’m ready to bet it all that dogs have a sixth sense for sure.
“You’re not actually going to live here, are you?” he asks, one brow raised in challenge.
“I am.” Against everyone’s unasked-for advice.
He scans Aunt Maggie’s house, a smile playing on his lips, and then centers his attention back on me. “Good luck with that.”
I stand up, needing the extra added height to even out what feels like a weird power differential between us, then cross my arms, going for a self-confident chin raise that still manages to feel awkward as hell. “I don’t need luck.”
He smacks his palm against his thigh, drawing Buttercup to his side finally, and then snaps the leash to the dog’s collar and stands up, a know-it-all smirk on his face. “Glad to hear it. By the way, if you are naive enough to try to fix up this place, I’d suggest starting with the grass. I understand you’re on your last HOA violation warning about that.”
Wait. How does he know that? Who in the hell is he? And more importantly, do I have “be an asshole to me, please” tattooed on my forehead?
Before I can get any of that out, though, he walks away, appearing and disappearing under the fake gaslight lamps’ glow as he crosses the street and jogs up his front steps, then disappears behind a perfectly painted red door. Yeah, I watched. He is a total and complete smug dickwad, but it’s still a good view.
Not that it matters. I’m going to show that big jerk.
This is my house, and I’m a new woman.
I’m Mallory Martin, soon-to-be divorcée and already unemployed office manager. I have nowhere to go but toward the light of success—and I will not be mowing the grass until the last possible day now.
Of course, before I can do any of that, I have to find the breaker box.