Page 43 of Lucky Shot
FOURTEEN
NOAH
My tripfrom the port in Miami wasn’t long. Less than an hour to Sunrise, and I was in my house overlooking the Everglades. After unpacking and throwing my plethora of Speedos into the laundry machine with the few clothes I actually wore over the last three weeks, I realize I have exactly zero to do.
I contemplate reaching out to the guys on my team that I hang with, just to see what they are doing, but that feels a little desperate. I haven’t been home even an hour and I want to get back online to see if Demi is on. He won’t be. I know that because he said he’d be pretty late tonight.
The sun is nowhere near going down. What the hell am I going to do to pass the hours until he is online?
“Ugh,” I groan as I fall onto my couch. There’s no way I can let my life revolve around this guy… even if he gives me butterflies and makes my heart race. And my cheeks still hurt from smiling all night.
Nope. I need to not be pathetic.
Throwing open my backdoor, I step outside. My backyard doesn’t have fences or privacy fences separating my house from my neighbors. The community is gated and then it backs onto the Everglades Wildlife Refuge. So, while it’s not impossible to get to my house from the back of the property, the wildlife refuge is heavily guarded.
Poachers and shit.
On my right is the heir of the multi-billion dollar Running Oil Company, an eccentric twenty-something named Ibis Jacobi Lukariah III. Yep. That weird ass name belongs to at least two other people. He’s an odd guy too. I think he has to be to live with that name.
His bestie, Kyst Madlock, is almost always there along with the neighbors on Ibis’s other side, twins Asher and August, sons of a self-made man who invented something having to do with cars. Some crazy innovation that apparently changed the automotive industry. Since I know very little about cars and have never cared to look him up, I don’t know what it is.
To the left of my house is an old man who’s let his home deteriorate. The yard is always overgrown, the walls are beginning to crack, and the plants have turned black. The HOA has been trying to force him to do maintenance, but I don’t think he’s physically capable. His opposite neighbors and those across the road have tried to offer help, but apparently, he’s a crotchety old man and some nasty words were thrown.
I keep to my own yard. I’ve contemplated paying my landscapers to subtly move into his yard, little by little, until the work is done and then just play stupid. They couldn’t see the property line. What was I supposed to do? But after hearing how the old guy treated our neighbors? I didn’t want to take a chance that my landscapers would be attacked. It took going through three companies until I found one I liked.
Turning my back to the old man’s derelict house, I head for Ibis’. They’re out back on the patio; one of the twins is in the pool.
“Hey!” Kyst calls when he sees me coming.
I grin and jog toward them. “How’s it going?” I ask, slapping hands and fists and whatever else dudebros like to do in greeting. If you let them initiate, all you have to do is follow along, and any awkwardness can be avoided.
“How was your gay retreat?” the twin on the deck asks.
“Gay cruise,” Ibis corrects and then looks at me. “Was it a sausage fest?”
“No more than it is back here,” I say and drop onto a lounge. My answer makes the four of them look around and then the twin on the deck laughs.
“He’s not wrong. Why don’t we ever have chicks over?” the twin on the deck asks.
“Because the women who live in the community are kind of—" Ibis twirls his finger at his temple, indicatingcrazy.
“That’s a little harsh, no?” I ask.
“Judgmental,” Kyst says.
“Really? Name one I’m wrong about.”
“I didn’t say you were wrong,” Kyst says, laughing. “Remember Rebecca from 23618? Didn’t she come at you with a weed whacker for using the wrong path to walk up to her door?”
Ibis nodded. “That wasn’t even the worst. Nordicka from 90751 threw knives at me from her balcony when she moved in, and I was bringing her a welcome to the neighborhood gift. It was fucking cake from West End! It was fucking gold.”
“Why was she on the balcony with knives?” I ask. “Is the kitchen on the second floor?” I look up at his house, wondering if that would even make sense. Not that the houses in the neighborhood are cookie cutter by any means.
“The important question is what did you do with the cake?” the twin in the pool asks. He’s at the side, his arms crossed over the ledge and his chin resting there as he watches us.
“I ate it, of course. It was a fucking good cake,” Ibis said. “Had it been cupcakes, I might have hurled them at her.”
I laugh, shaking my head.
