Page 8 of Grease Monkey
Without waiting for a reply, she opens the door and walks over to my discarded school clothes, bundling them into her arms. She is still smiling—although I’m not sure if it’s from her joy at having her teeth done or if it’s a side effect of her treatment. Either way, it doesn’t look right on her face.
“I need you to go next door and ask for my casserole dish. It’sLe Creusetand cost nearly two hundred dollars.” I stare at the woman who has never cooked a day in her life like she’s grown an extra head. “Three months they’ve had it, Morgana. Can you believe that?”
I can’t, but only because I don’t care. My mom might style her looks and phony personality on Bree Van de Camp fromDesperate Housewives, pretending to be the put-together homemaker, doting wife, and loving mother with amazing culinary skills. But she can’t cook to save herself, has never picked up a needle and thread in her life, and her overbearing tendencies have only worsened since my brother up and left.
I part my lips, but any protest of going next door and interrupting the happy couple dies when Mom’s hand cups my cheek. Her soft thumb brushes lightly across my skin before moving to smooth down the long blonde strands of hair I inherited from her in a fruitless attempt to calm the mess of curls I got from my dad.
“Why don’t you wear your hair off your face, sweetheart?” she asks, setting my dirty clothes on the end of my bed, then walks over to my desk and grabs a clip. Coming behind me, she gathers the top of my curls and pins them back, circling to stand in front of me again. She pulls a long strand over my shoulder, watching with pursed lips as it pings back into place. I look into her brilliant green eyes and want to argue that looking like I’ve got the top of a pineapple on my head is not a fashion statement.
“There, that’s a bit better. You’ve got too much of a pretty face to hide behind these curls.” She toys with the strand again, pulling it down and letting it go several times. “My hair stylist could have these chemically straightened for you.”
I shake my head and step out of her hold, reaching up to touch the pin. “Mom, I’m just going to ask for a dish back. I don’t need to look good doing that.” I tug at the clip, letting the ringlets loose to frame my face again. “Besides, I like my curls. I don’t want them gone.”
Mom throws her hands in the air. “Fine. What do I know?”
“Mom—”
Her arms suddenly engulf me, pulling me into a hug and holding my head close to her chest.
“Now your brother’s gone; you’re all I have left, Morgana. I’m sorry that I care so much.”
Guilt floods me whenever she mentions Skip like he’s no longer alive. I wish she would reach out to him.
“You could call him?” I don’t know why I bother asking. I know she’d never swallow her pride, not even for her son. I pat her back stiffly and hold the clip out in my hand. Keeping Mom happy is easier for everyone, so I turn and let her make my hair look ten times bigger than it actually is.
“My gorgeous girl,” she whispers, squeezing my arm gently before collecting my clothes again and making her way to the door. She pauses on the threshold and says, “Please get my dish back, Morgana.”
I really don’t want to do this.
Sighing, I follow her, taking each step slowly to the ground floor, trying to delay the inevitable. Sliding on my shoes, I edge my head forward, watching Mom pull out a bottle of cheap chardonnay from the wine fridge and fill her expensive Baccarat wineglass straight to the top.
Silently, I slip outside, shivering as I dart across the lawn that separates our house from theirs, and quickly run up the wooden steps to the front door. Their house is almost identical to ours; two stories, with large windows overlooking the front yard, and white shuttered frames lining them. But unlike ours, theirs looks warm, inviting, and happy. There’s a double swing over in the corner of the porch, bright mismatching-colored pillows scattered across it, making it look the perfect spot to cuddle up with a book or in the arms of a loved one and just get lost in the day. I wonder if Mrs. Grant was sitting out here earlier or if she leaves the pillows out even in winter. Either way, Mom would never have something so out in the open for anyone to walk past and see her acting human for once.
Stop stalling and knock on the door, Morgana.
Squaring my shoulders, I raise my hand, knock quickly, and wait. Seconds turn to minutes, and I squirm on the spot, shifting from foot to foot and shoving my cold hands into my sweatshirt pockets.Come on, Teddy. Why isn’t he answering? Oh, right, because he and his gorgeous girlfriend are probably in his room, in his bed, doing what every couple their age does. Not that Teddy is massively older than me, but one look at him, and I can bet my trust fund he’s massively more experienced than me.
I’m about to leave, make up some excuse that no one is home, when a clatter from the garage falters my steps. Of course, that’s where he’d be.Every chance he gets, Teddy is out fixing up a red Mustang—his baby I’ve heard him call it—in his front yard, and like the creeper I am, I sometimes like to watch him from my window seat. The boy next door is everything I’m not, and that fascinates me. He’s laid back, like he has no worries, expectations, or a predetermined future weighing him down. And how I wish I knew what that was like for even a second. Not to mention, he is insanely good-looking. Dark brown eyes, dark stubble lining his jaw, and thick dark hair… God, he looks like Stefan from theVampire Diaries—eye color aside—and could be on the cover of romance novels. For someone only two years older than me, he doesn’t look like a boy. He looks like a man, all rugged and impossibly sexy. And worse—if you could call it a bad thing—he doesn’t appear to have the ego that surrounds many of the “popular” boys in my school.
My palms feel slick, curled into balls by my sides as I walk down the narrow pathway to the back of the garage. I hesitate at the corner, chewing on my bottom lip as I scuff my toe on the path and tug the zipper of my sweatshirt, pulling the clasp up and down the teeth, the high-pitched sawing noise doing nothing for my nerves.
For the love of God, stop acting like a child and pull up your big girl pants, Morgana. You’re his neighbor, for crying out loud.
I swallow, closing the gap to the garage door, and peer through the window into the dim space. Suddenly, I’ve forgotten how to breathe, my tongue’s grown ten sizes too big for my mouth, and my heart has developed an arrhythmia so severe I think I might be tachycardic. Holding up his shirt, Teddy’s standing, sculpted chest on show, trousers around his ankles and hand on the back of his girlfriend’s head, locks of blonde hair tangled between his fingers as he guides her up and down his…
Oh.
Ooh.
I can’t move. I’m hypnotized by the smooth muscles on his stomach flexing each time her head almost touches his hips, his large hand gripping her hair, his thighs contracting as he thrusts in time with her head. She pulls off, her chin tilted upward, holding him in her hand. Oh, sweet baby Jesus, he’s huge, slick and shining with saliva on every hard inch. My hand flies to my neck, cupping it like it’s my throat he’s fucking. This is the first dick I’ve ever seen in real life, yet it’s not enough. I want to be the one on my knees for him, the one he’s not being gentle with if the fistful of hair is anything to go by, the primitive bare of his teeth as he whispers something I can’t hear.
This is insane. Never have I done something so taboo as watching someone intimately like this. Sucking in as much air as my lungs allow, my body inches closer to the window, and I curl my fingertips around the bottom rail surrounding the glass. My eyes leave the back of the girl’s head, traveling back up Teddy’s defined chest to his nearly black eyes.
Oh crap.
My lips part at the same time his do. A mixture of serenity and anguish spreads across his flawless face, his unblinking eyes never moving from mine, and when his lips twitch, it zaps my brain with a powerful rush of something hot, unknown and unfamiliar, overriding everything—the need to move away from the door, to stop watching, to retreat to the safety of my mundane world where I don’t know what Teddy looks like as he finds his release.
His shoulders sag, and that’s when the spell is broken. I push away from the door, stumbling over my feet as I scramble back in the direction I came from. Dazed, I slip on black ice and crash over a plant pot, the ceramic bowl landing on its side with a definite crack.
