Page 15 of The Deadbeat Next Door

I felt my cheeks heat. I’d just broken down in front of the man moments before, I couldn’t admit I had no idea what my style was. “I’m just replacing pieces as I have the money for it. Do you want to watch T.V.?”

He took a bite of pizza and waited, like he knew I was holding something back. I really didn’t like the way he was able to get inside my head, to understand things about me that I wasn’t sure I understood myself. “Sure, why not?”

I put my plate down and grabbed the remote from the floor, where it rested now that I had no tables in the room. Luckily, I’d hung the T.V. on the wall. “What do you want to watch?”

“There’s probably a game on,” he said.

“On a Tuesday night? I’ve only got the local channels, so I’m not sure we’ll be able to find any sports.”

He didn’t look at me like I was crazy, or widen his eyes like I was an alien species. “We could just talk,” he said. “I don’t watch much T.V. unless it’s sports.”

My heart raced at the idea of spending any more time talking to him. He already knew more about me than I liked and I didn’t need to know more about him, because I was getting the sneaking suspicion he wasn’t the Neanderthal I’d thought he was. I wasn’t sure why I wanted so badly to keep him locked away in the asshole box, I just knew I felt safer with him in there. “Or, we could watch a movie.” I hopped up and walked over to the case on the floor near the T.V. and VCR. “I’ve got a million movies. Do you like older movies or newer movies? Comedies or action movies?”

“Um, I like all kinds of movies. How about you surprise me?”

Surprise him? Was he going to read something into my choice of movie? If I picked an older movie, he’d discover my eccentric love of everything from an earlier age. He’d accuse me of being a little old lady in a young person’s body like Harrison did. No. It would not do. I picked up my binder of movies and carried it over to him. “Why don’t you pick?”

He put his plate on the floor and took the binder from me. He opened it and started to flip through it. He groaned and put a hand to his head. “It’s giving me a bit of a headache trying to read these titles,” he said. “Just pick one of your favorites. Something funny.”

I didn’t like the way his head injury was allowing him to win every debate. A good reason not to physically injure anyone in the future. I took the binder from him and flipped it to the section I’d marked as comedies. I grabbed one of my favorites and popped it into the DVD player.

I took my seat as the opening scenes of the movie began, with Fred Savage as a sick little boy in bed and Peter Falk bursting in as the grandfather there to entertain him.

I felt Cody’s eyes on me and turned my head, mouth full of pizza, to see him giving me a confused look. I chewed and swallowed. “You’ve never seen the Princess Bride?” I asked.

“The Princess Bride? What is this? I wouldn’t have pegged you as a fan of fairy tales.”

I breathed a sigh of relief that he’d finally been wrong about me on at least one point. “Just watch the movie and keep your mouth shut.”

“As you wish,” he said. I spun back to him to see him laughing at me.

I considered throwing my pizza at him, but that hadn’t worked out so well for me earlier, so I settled on glaring at him. “I don’t like talking during movies,” I said, pretending he hadn’t just hoodwinked me.

“That’s too bad,” he said. “Because I know every word to this movie and I’m going to speak along.”

I may have been guilty of speaking along myself a time or two, but only when I was watching the movie alone. The opening scenes with Wesley and Buttercup flashed on the screen and Cody, true to his word, recited every single freaking line. “Stop that,” I said. “I’m not kidding. I like silence during movies.”

“What’s the fun in that?”

“The fun is that I get to enjoy hearing the characters speaking the lines.”

“Huh. Doesn’t sound like much fun. I’m not sure I’ll be able to stay awake unless I talk, I’m feeling really tired.” He faked a massive yawn.

“I’m sitting right here. Go ahead and go to sleep. I’ll make sure you don’t die.” I didn’t mean it, I wouldn’t let him fall asleep, but I was totally calling his bluff.

“How about a little wager,” he said.

“What kind of wager?”

“Let’s see who knows the lines best. You have to speak them before the character says them, and if you get them wrong, you lose.”

I so totally wouldn’t lose. “And ruin the movie?” I asked. “Why would I want to do that?”

“Because if you win, you get the benefit of me leaving you alone for the rest of the week.”

“And if I lose?” I asked.

“You have to spend time with me every day. I’ll even cook you dinner every night for a week.”

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