Neighbor Dearest(10)
That same afternoon on the walk to work, I noticed that Damien had added quite a bit to the mural since last check. There was now a section depicting a bunch of pyramids.
Chills ran through me as I marveled at his talent and all of the intricate details of his work, the way the colors all blended and faded into each other. I wondered if there was any significance to the scenic images. Damien Hennessey was one complex human being.
When I arrived at the youth center, Ariel was waiting in my office. She looked like she’d been crying.
Shit.
Even though I knew what had likely transpired, I asked, “What happened?”
“I was right about Kai. He was cheating on me.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that.”
After letting her vent for the better part of an hour, I finally said, “There’s a reason for the serenity prayer, Ariel. You ever hear of it?”
“The one about praying for the strength to accept the things we can’t change? Yeah, my mom taught it to me a long time ago.”
“Yes. That’s the one. I’m still working on that myself, but really, we have no choice but to accept certain things. All we can do is try our best to move on.”
I smiled to myself, realizing that I was basically giving Ariel the same advice that Damien had given me. It was so much easier dishing out that advice than adhering to it.
On the walk home that night, for some unknown reason, I felt more at peace than I had in a long time. I decided to pick up one of my favorite frozen individual lasagnas from the organic section of the market. I’d bake it and have it with some wine, maybe watch something on Netflix. I was getting excited about it.
Boy, my life was pretty pathetic.
After I arrived at the apartment, I placed the lasagna into the preheated toaster oven. It would take forty minutes to bake all the way through. That would leave me just enough time to take a bath, shave my legs and maybe read a little in the tub.
It was probably the most relaxing bath I’d ever taken. Surrounded by candles, I immersed myself in an addicting book Jade had gifted me. It was actually a ménage romance. I didn’t normally read such kinky stuff, but she was adamant that I would love it, especially since it was about two men and a woman instead of the other way around. I ended up getting really into it—so much so, that I somehow fell asleep after pleasuring myself to one of the hottest scenes.
The sound of the smoke alarm, and the smell of burning cheese caused me to jolt up from the tub. Grabbing a towel, I ran to the kitchen to find flames shooting from my toaster oven. It was on fire!
Panicking, I grabbed a bowl and began to fill it with water. Before I had a chance to dump the water onto anything, my door burst open. The next thing I knew, Damien was charging toward me with an extinguisher and yelling at me to get back.
Everything happened so fast. I just stood there numb, clutching the towel around me as he doused the flames.
When the fire was fully out, Damien and I both stood there in silence looking at the charred remains of my beloved toaster oven. The damage was mostly contained to the oven itself, but the countertop looked like it might have been charred a bit, too.
I coughed from the smoke.
“What the fuck,” he muttered, still staring at the scene of the disaster.
“I’m so sorry. I’ll pay for whatever damage was done to the counter. I—”
“How did this happen?”
“Frozen lasagna…it burned.”
“No. I mean…how did it happen?”
“I was reading a book in the bathtub and—”
“You were reading in the tub,” he interrupted, gritting his teeth. “You were READING in the tub while you were also cooking something that almost burned my goddamn building down?”
“No. You don’t understand. I—”
Damien started to charge toward the bathroom.
“Where are you going?”
“I want to see what book is so important that it nearly cost you your life.”
Fuck.
No.
Fuck!
It was too late. He’d already picked up my Kindle off the floor. My heart was beating faster than it probably ever had.
After he took a look at the title and swiped through a few pages, he turned to me and laughed incredulously. “Nice. Real nice. The apartment was about to burn down while you were in here reading about two guys drilling a girl in every orifice,” he huffed before tossing the Kindle aside. He was half-smiling when he said, “You little perv.”
Mortified could not even begin to describe how I was feeling. I wanted to cry, but I was too frozen in shock to form tears.
“I fell asleep. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“What would’ve happened if I wasn’t home?”