Page 12 of The Off-limits Grump Next Door
Tina”
I felt a surge of excitement, wondering what news Tina had. As I began to type out a response, my phone buzzed again. This time, it was an unknown number. I answered it just in case it was Tina calling with a different number.
"Hello?"
There was a pause on the other end, and for a moment, I thought it was a wrong number.
But then, a low, smooth voice spoke up. "Kendra... we need to talk."
My heart skipped a beat as I recognized the voice. It was Antonio Michaelson. But why was he calling me?
I hesitated, and then, I did the only thing I could think of.
I hung up.
Chapter Six
Antonio
I let out a frustrated grunt, staring at my phone, still displaying Kendra’s number and the stark “call ended” notification. Jake had eagerly handed over her contact when I said I needed to apologize, but… she hung up on me. Not that I didn’t deserve it. A part of me hoped she'd at least let me get a word in, but I guess that was too much to ask.
"Every time she gave you that chance, all you did was yell at her," a voice in my head snidely reminded me.
I took a deep breath, trying to organize the flood of emotions surging through me. My body was tense, and I could feel the sun beating down on my skin as I stood beside the pool at the Michaelson estate, staring at the water's surface.
On any other day, the bright sunlight and cool water would tempt me into a cannonball, splashing away the day’s stress. But not today. Today, nothing could pull me out of the fog clouding my mind, my thoughts completely stuck on Kendra.
The guilt had been eating at me ever since the incident at the diner. I had been unnecessarily hard on her, I knew that. The altercation was just as much my fault as hers—maybe even more.
I hadn’t been paying attention. My head was a mess, spinning with too many things at once, and she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Kendra seemed to have that kind of luck—running into me when I was at my worst.
A heavy pang of regret settled in my chest as I thought about all the other times we’d crossed paths. I always seemed to be off-kilter around her, snapping for no good reason. Everything in my life was going wrong, and instead of dealing with it, I was using her as a punching bag for my frustrations. It wasn’t right. She didn’t deserve that. No one did.
Letting out a shaky breath, I glanced at my phone again, feeling the urge to call her, to make things right. I tapped her number again, hoping she'd answer this time. The phone rang, but after a few seconds, I was met with her voicemail, her cheerful voice asking me to leave a message.
I paused, frozen. What could I even say? I didn’t want to leave a message. I wanted to talk to her, to apologize in person, to explain myself and fix this mess.
I hung up, staring at the screen. Part of me wanted to keep calling until she answered, but that would only make things worse. I tried one more time, and this time, a robotic voice greeted me. "Your call cannot be completed as dialed."
A sharp frown tugged at my lips. She blocked me.
I paced beside the pool, my mind racing as I thought about how to fix things. I could try talking to Lily, the diner’s owner. Maybe I could convince her to give Kendra her job back. It was the least I could do after my part in what had happened. If Kendra wasn’t going to speak to me, maybe she’d listen to Lily, and then… maybe she'd let me apologize.
The thought gnawed at me. I didn’t usually care about what anyone thought of me. I wasn’t always a jerk, but I wasn’t concerned with people’s opinions, either. Yet, with Kendra… I cared. Her opinion of me mattered for reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“Maybe that’s because you like this one,” the voice in my head mocked again, pushing me further into unease.
“What? No… I just don’t want to be on bad terms with my neighbor. It’s common courtesy,” I mumbled out loud, trying to reason with myself.
The voice scoffed, “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
Shaking off the nagging thoughts, I turned away from the pool, heading toward the house. The warmth of the sun couldn’t chase away the cold knot in my stomach. I needed to fix this before it festered any longer.
Taking the stairs two at a time, I pushed into my room, scanning for the car key I had dropped somewhere last night. My eyes darted over the dresser where the other car keys lay, and I grabbed the one for my Aston Martin, clenching it tightly in my hand like a lifeline.
I was about to head out to see Lily, but before I could make a move toward the door, there was a knock. “Antonio?” My brother Damon’s voice called out from the hallway.
“Yeah, come in,” I answered, half-expecting some minor interruption, but the look on Damon’s face when he stepped inside told me otherwise.
