I can’t help it. I roll my eyes. “Then take a picture.”
“Not the kind of answer I was hoping for.”
“Well, you’re not the kind of neighbor I was hoping for.” Not at all. I like my neighbors to be less attractive and to at least smell bad. But this one? She’s like sunshine and sugar kisses, and if she flips her hair one more time…
“Wow. This is not a productive conversation.” She snorts and points to my truck. “I think you should leave.”
Grunting my agreement, I take a step and my foot lands in a puddle, remnants of the storm the night before. Letting out a burdened sigh, I look down to see my new Converse covered in mud. When I look back up, Bex stands before me with her lips twitching.
“Go ahead. We’ll see who has the last laugh,” I say flippantly over my shoulder as I head back to the truck.
“You know, I don’t need you to stop by here and be so rude to me, Austin.” Her voice sounds like she’s close. When I look back over my shoulder, I see she’s following me, wagging a finger in the air.
Here we go.
“Oh?” As I get to the truck, I open the door and pause, putting her in my sights. “What do you need me to do?”
“Nothing. I need nothing from you. I just wanted to get along with the person I live closest to.”
“Well, if you want to get along, it’s easy. Do. Not. Touch. That. Hedge.”
Bex shakes her head. “I can see you’re not wanting to discuss this right now, so we’ll table it.”
I let my eyes roll to the heavens, again, and I say a quick prayer. Slamming the truck door shut again, I spin around faster than a kitchen blender. “We’re not tabling anything. Not now, not tomorrow, not next week. We’re going to call this a done deal; no one will be touching that hedge anytime soon, not without my permission first.”
“Austin,” Bex growls, putting her fingers to her temples. “That’s the thing. I don’t need your permission. I can do what I want to do to that hedge by the word of law.” She waves her folder in the air. “If I want to, I could plow those hedges…”
The mere suggestion makes me see red. It’s time to go. My lips tighten into a straight line and I feel my pulse quicken as I turn on my heel, fling the truck’s door open and hop in. I slam the door shut and finally find peace in the silence of the cab.
Once I turn over the ignition, I roll down the window and point a finger directly at Bex. “Do not do anything to that hedge. Got it? Nothing. No. Thing. Not a thing. Ever.”
“Austin,” Bex starts to say, but again, I’m seeing red. The smart part of me knows that she isn’t to blame for where this anger is coming from, but my irrational part? He’s on fire at the moment and ready to burn everything down. And I do mean everything.
I need to get him home and lock this Austin in a room.
“Nope.” I throw the gears into reverse and start to pull out of her driveaway. I make sure I can see where she’s standing and confirm she’s nowhere near the truck. For effect, of course, I hit the gas. Hard. Maybe a little too hard, in retrospect, because I alsomayhave sped up a touch as I was backing up.
So, no, I don’t see that puddle my tire lands in, spraying mud all over Bex in the process. But you can bet I hear about it.
Her high-pitched scream stops me in my tracks. I hit the brakes, only when I do, the truck is already rolling into another puddle and the friction of my stopping causes another wave to rise up and splash out, covering the parts of her that aren’t already under mud a nice thick coat of murky browny-gray.
I’m horrified. Even after being as mad as I was a second ago, I surely did not mean for this to escalate so quickly.
I go to open the door, but Bex holds up her hand.
“Go.” She points one long, mud-covered arm toward my house. “Just go home and leave me alone.”
“But…”
She shakes her head, looking at me with what appears to be confusion in her eyes. “What happened to you?”
“You did what?”
Sighing, I lay on Emma’s sturdy travel massage table and repeat myself. “I accidentally sprayed her with mud.” Five tiny digits dig into the flesh around my shoulder. My karma, obviously, for my earlier actions. “Ouch.”
“Sorry.” Emma snickers. “I must be channeling your new neighbor’s irritation and it’s coming through. How can you spray someone with mud by accident?”
The sound of someone clearing their throat echoes in the small space. Since Emma’s here with me, I quickly deduce it’s Amy, my housekeeper. She’d shown up today with a homemade tuna casserole, and two days early for her usual cleaning day, but that’s a conversation for another day.
