The Voyeur Next Door (13 page)

“He’s not really a jerk,” Tamara said, reminding me she was still there. “He just likes to act like one.”

“Oh well, we all have dreams.”

“He’s been through stuff,” Tamara went on, giving me that unwavering look that made me think she was trying to telepathically feed me information.

“What kind of stuff?” I wondered, because apparently our telepathic link was broken.

She shrugged. “I can’t tell you if he hasn’t already, but just give him time. He’ll come around.”

I started to tell her I didn’t care if he came around, but opted against it. Truthfully, I kind of wanted to see this non-jerk Gabriel, kind of the way I wanted to see a flying unicorn.

But I turned my attention away from the impossible and focused on the task at hand. I had never sewn an outfit, but I knew how to follow instructions and, really, how hard could it be?

“Okay, why don’t we sit down and try to at least draw something close to what you like,” I decided. “Then we’ll—”

I was interrupted by the sickening crunch of shattering bones and the howl of pain. The outburst seemed to be the only sound ripping through the room as all other conversation screeched to a halt and heads swiveled in the direction of the crowd clustered a mere few feet away.

I recognized Carl in his blue polo and jeans. What took me a moment longer to understand was why he was huddled on the floor, clutching at his face.

Blood streamed past his chin and through his fingers in a thick, crimson gush. It rained down the front of his shirt and pooled across the white floor. His face was white with pain and shock and he seemed incapable of catching his breath. Others were rushing to help him, but my gaze had moved past the blond to where Gabriel stood, barely a foot from Carl, a wide plank tucked against his side. He watched the scene with a frighteningly calm expression and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what had happened.

Horror propelled me over to him.

“Did you hit him?” I hissed, careful to keep my voice down.

Calm, gray eyes rolled down to me. “He walked into it.”

“Are you…” I couldn’t even finish that sentence. My anger and disbelief were suffocating. “What is the matter with you?”

He adjusted the wooden beam more firmly in his grasp. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.” But as he walked away, I could have sworn I heard him mutter, “Get that coffee now, asshole.”

Gabriel

“Gabe hit one of the parents at the school yesterday.”

Sitting straight across from me at the dinner table clad in her
self-expression
, Tammy leered at me with a sadistic sort of pleasure, the way I suspected the
Grinch
would have while he stood on the mountain side and watched as the Whos woke up to find their shit gone.

Our mother, a bird-like creature with delicate features and a panache for over exaggerating a situation, immediately went on alert. Her gray eyes widened until I was sure her eyeballs would drop into her shrimp salad.

“Gabriel?”

“I didn’t hit him,” I assured her.

“He did,” Tammy insisted. “There was blood everywhere.”

Now Mom looked simply horrified. The tacky knot of wood Jonas had given her as a ring on their wedding day contrasted against the pale skin of her fingers when she gasped behind her hand.

“Gabriel!”

“I didn’t hit him!” I protested, louder. “We went for the same board and I reached it first.”

“So you hit him?” Mom cried.

“I didn’t—”

“He asked Ali out,” Tammy kindly assisted. “Gabe was pissed.”

Mom blinked. “Who’s Ali?”

“Who asked Ali out?” Earl jumped in from the seat next to Tammy.

“Mr. Doray,” Tammy said. “He gave Ali his card and said—”

“That wasn’t why I hit him,” I snapped, inwardly cringing at the spark of light glistening in Earl’s watery gaze.

Mom caught on to my slip up like a shark on an injured scuba diver. “So you did hit him.”

“Told you.” Tammy smirked.

There were nineteen years between Tammy and I. I was already in college when Mom and Jonas found out they were expecting. Yet, despite the years between us, we had always been fairly close, except on days like when I wanted to reach across the table and strangle her.

“It was barely a tap,” I said to Mom. “It was an accident.”

Tammy snickered. “Oh, but you should have heard Alyssa. She was
hysterical
!” Her sniggering grew into spine-chilling cackles.
“Daddy! Daddy!”
she mocked, laughing harder. “It was awesome.”

I stared at my sister in absolute astonishment. “There are days I wonder if we shouldn’t get you institutionalized.”

Tammy snorted. “So I get pleasure from other people’s pain. Sue me.”

“Tam, we don’t laugh at other people’s pain,” Jonas embarked in his breathy whisper. “We must respect others and their feelings. Gabriel, we should never use our fists to resolve conflict.”

Jonas would have been a big hit in the sixties when free love and pot were rampant. He was all about feelings and embracing one’s own positive energy. In short, he was a hippie nerd with organic sweaters and a zen attitude. Yet somehow, he made my mother happy so I put up with him.

“I used a board,” I said.

“Come on, Dad,” Tammy cut in. “You have to admit it’s kind of funny.”

Jonas opened his abnormally large mouth to answer, but Mom was still stewing on her earlier question.

“Who’s Ali?”

“Gabe’s girlfriend,” Tammy supplied helpfully.

“What?” Mom’s head snapped around to me. “You have a girlfriend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend. I barely like her.”

“Which I personally don’t understand,” Earl piped in. “She is amazing. The sweetest little thing I have met in a long time.”

“I like her,” Tammy agreed. “She’s funny.”

“Well, you’re old and you’re crazy,” I said to the two across from me. “Neither of your opinions count.”

“Don’t flatter me,” Tammy said with a grin.

“I want to meet her,” Mom decided.

“Why?” I blurted. “I told you, she’s not—”

“Well, everyone else has met her,” Mom protested with a slight pucker in her bottom lip.

“I’ll bring her next Sunday,” Earl said. “You will love her, Lydia,” he promised Mom. “She’s a doll.”

My phone chirped in my pocket, sending my knee crashing into the underside of the table when I jumped. Everyone at the table jumped with me in surprise. Mom lost her fork with a resounding clang when it hit the side of her salad bowl.

Apologizing, I dug the devious out of my pocket and answered it right there at the table, which in my mother’s world, was a big no-no.

“Hello?”

“Gabriel! Not at the table!” Mom hissed.

I ignored her. I had been waiting all weekend for the construction crew to get back to me and hadn’t. I wasn’t going to miss them because Jonas thought technology was the devil’s tool and Mom went along with it.

“Hey, we still on for later?”
Lloyd’s voice filled my ear and deflated my shoulders.

“Yeah, I’ll see you at your place,” I muttered.

Lloyd snorted.
“Don’t sound so excited. See you then.”

He hung up, so I hung up and stuffed the phone back into my pocket.

Damn it!

“Gabriel, you know the rules,” Mom started in on me. “No phones at the table.”

“Sorry,” was the best I could manage.

“Were you hoping it was Ali?” Tammy coaxed.

“No, you little demon,” I snapped without heat. “It was Lloyd. We’re going to watch the game later at his place.”

Tammy perked. “Lloyd?”

I scowled at her enthusiasm. “He’s too old for you.”

Tammy frowned. “By like…” Her eyes rolled upwards as she did the math in her head.

“Nineteen years,” I mumbled. “That’s two decades.”

“One decade and nine years,” she corrected smartly. “See? I can do fancy math, too.”

“You’re only sixteen,” I pointed out. “Lloyd isn’t into babies.”

Tammy gasped. “I am a very mature sixteen year old. Besides, I don’t want to get married to the guy. I just want to get him naked and—”

“Tamara Nicole Pierce!” Mom exploded, face as red as the pretty silk scarf around her throat.

“What?” Tamara cried. “I was going to say draw him. Geez! Someone’s a pervert.”

But I knew that wasn’t what she was going to say. I could see it in the sideways smirk she sent me across the table.

“You’re sick,” was all I said.

Tammy shrugged, still grinning. “Yeah, but my imagination is fucking amazing.”

Mac was already at Lloyd’s when I got there straight from Mom’s place. The apartment was dark with only the pale light from the TV to guide me around the bulky furniture. I could just make out Mac’s head poking up from the back of the sofa as I made my way forward.

“Shit that was a long week,” Lloyd said in the way of a greeting as he handed me a cold beer.

I twisted off the top and took a swig before dumping myself into the lumpy armchair.

“What are we watching?”

“Figure skating,” Mac answered from the sofa.

Sure enough, a skinny blonde in a glittery, white get up twirled and swished across the ice.

We weren’t picky when it came to the type of sports we watched. I was almost certain it didn’t even matter. Sundays were our unwind days and we spent it vegging at Lloyd’s and staring blankly at the screen while we finished off a case of beer. There were seldom any words exchanged. But that was what our friendship had become, sports and silence. There were days I wondered why we bothered. What we once had would never return. It was too ruined to be repaired. But we always tried.

“So, that Ali chick’s interesting.” Lloyd took himself and his beer to the armchair opposite mine. The cap hit the coffee table between us with barely audible ping. “Surprised you hired her.”

It seemed to be that the universe wasn’t going to let me get away from that woman. She was on everyone’s mind and everyone felt obliged to bring her up to me, like I was somehow responsible for her.  It irritated me because only a week ago, I hadn’t known she existed. Now I couldn’t get away from her.

“I didn’t,” I muttered, watching the figure skater do a flawless twirl in midair. “Earl did.”

“She’s weird,” Mac said without taking his eyes off the screen. “Kind of creeps me out.”

Ali twisted a lot of feelings out of me, none of which I appreciated. But I never thought she was creepy. Odd, yes. Eccentric, yes. Infuriating, fucking right. But not creepy.

I turned towards Mac, the lip of the bottle hovering inches from my bottom lip.

“Why?”

I took a swig.

He shrugged a thin shoulder beneath his ratty, green t-shirt. “Because she’s always watching.” It was said in a low, almost conspiratorial whisper, like Ali might hear him if he wasn’t quiet. “She reminds me of this movie I saw once about this girl who was cornered by these five guys and they raped and murdered her. She came back to seek revenge and for the first half of the movie, she’d just sit in a corner and watch her victims before killing them in some seriously fucked up ways.”

“Dude,” Lloyd mumbled around a mouthful of beer.

“Exactly,” Mac agreed. “Every time I go into the office, she’s just sitting there behind those fucked up glasses … watching. It wigs me out.”

Lloyd burst out laughing, which made me chuckle.

“Maybe she secretly likes you.”

The swig I’d taken went down like a lump of rock, making my throat burn and my eyes water. I coughed, thumping one fist against my chest to loosen the knot blocking my airway.

“Maybe,” Mac agreed with a lazy shrug. “Maybe if she got rid of those glasses…”

“I bet she has a smoking hot bod beneath those ugly dresses,” Lloyd surmised. “She’s younger than us, isn’t she?”

They were both looking to me for the answer while I struggled not to die.

“I guess,” I forced out. “She graduated university a year ago, or something.”

Lloyd whistled through his teeth. “Someone that young shouldn’t be dressed like they’re on their way to a bridge club.”

“How the hell do you know what people wear in a bridge club?” Mac shot back.

Lloyd shrugged. “She dresses like my grandmother and my grandmother lives at those places.”

“But you know what?” Mac put up the hand not holding his beer. “I would still fuck her, doggy style with the lights off.”

Lloyd flicked a bottle cap at him that Mac deflected with the forearm he threw up to shield his face.

“I bet she’s insane in bed,” Lloyd chimed in. “The quiet ones usually are.”

Mac laughed. “I’ll let you know.”

“That’s enough!”

My own voice made me jump. But it was nothing like the wide-eyed surprise on my friend’s faces as they gawked back at me. I shifted in the worn leather, my anger an uncomfortable heat coming off my skin.

“You calling dibs, Gabe?” Mac asked tentatively.

No, I wasn’t fucking calling dibs,
I wanted to snarl at him. Dibs meant I wanted her and I didn’t. The girl infuriated me and drove me to commit unspeakable crimes, like breaking a guy’s nose because … I had no idea why, but he deserved it. Nevertheless, lines always seemed a bit blurred where Ali was concerned.

“Knock it off!” I snapped, more to the tug o’ war going on in my head than the two watching me.

“Gabe?” Lloyd hedged quietly. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I shot back. “You guys should just know better than to talk like that.”

It was a low blow. I knew it the moment it left my mouth and my friends stiffened. A fine chill crystallized around the warmth that had filled the room only moments ago and settled like a fine dusting of frost. I felt it cut into my skin and nearly hissed at the pain. But it was too late to take it back.

“Do you guys ever think about her?” Mac was barely audible over the cheer of the crowd on TV.

I didn’t answer. Neither did Lloyd.

“I do,” Mac went on, a bit numbly while staring at the bottle in his hand. “We really fucked up with her.”

“Mac…”

Mac sucked in a shaky breath and straightened his shoulders. He heaved his pipe cleaner frame out of the sofa.