Page 20 of Her Pretty Words

“Yeah, about that, you didn’t want to tell me youlivedin Sanibel? It could’ve saved me the trouble of an ulcer or two.”

He chuckles. “That, Tato, would eliminate all the fun.” I dare a glance at him and nearly roll my eyes at his outfit choice. His pale skin is like porcelain against the sheer darkness of his clothes. No wonder he earned Dracula as a nickname.

I scoff. “Of all the people who could be my neighbor, you would be my last choice.”

“Pleased to hear I make the ranking at all,” he says through a cocky grin. “And I’m not your neighbor. You don’t live here.”

I lift my chin, keeping my expression neutral despite the nerve he struck. I hate that I’m an outsider to the island I call home.

He doesn’t seem to mind the silence. I wouldn’t care if he did. The sun has fully set by now, everything shines cobalt from the moon. I listen to the roaring sea and the wind ruffling through palm trees, and not the sound of Graysons footsteps so close beside me. I should go faster so I can get away from him, but for reasons I can’t place, I don’t.

I turn right on my street. So does he. I don’t say goodbye or give him the curtesy of a glance. I walk my bike through the sand to my back porch.

“Sweet dreams, neighbor.” There’s a grin in his voice. I hear him entering his house, so I peek over my shoulder. The dim yellow glows through the windows, as if he’s flicking on each light as he walks farther in.

It’s probably eighty degrees when I step inside my house. I have no choice other than to boil all night or open the windows. I choose the latter.

Once I’ve let Sanibel’s delicate breeze whisper through the house, I take another cold shower and throw on my usual bedtime attire in the bathroom. I climb under my plush crisp comforter and open an e-book on my phone. I read one sentence when an Airdrop notification blocks the words. It’s a selfie of Grayson, holding up a peace sign.

I ignore it, getting back to my book when another picture pops up of my house through his window, and captioned on the photo is “My grouchy neighbor.” If I zoom in, I can see right into my bedroom.

I storm to my window, lifting the shades for him to see my two middle fingers, then slam them shut.

Chapter 8

Grayson

Asmile is plastered to my face when I wake up the next morning. I will my lips into a frown, as though I’m tying weights to the corners, but it’s useless.

I pull on black shorts, deciding against wearing a shirt in the morning heat. My black running sneakers are perfectly lined up beside my everyday sneakers. I step into the ones for running, the soles are chalky white from the bleached pebbles of my driveway.

The sun is usually still rising when I do my daily run. I never set an alarm, my body always wakes me up before the sun has even peaked above the horizon, but today I was surprised to see it was nine thirty when I first opened my eyes.

There are children building sandcastles and splashing around the beach. Adults are wearing floppy hats that shade them from the relentless sun. I ignore the static prickling the side of my face that’s begging to glance at her house, to see if she’s dancing behind those tiny windows.

I run so fast that sweat burns my eyes and my muscles strain to hold me upright, and then I push myself even farther, until all I can think about is pulling oxygen into my lungs and notthe woman living next to me. The one I’ve mistakenly given a hundred reasons to dislike me.

Once I’m back on my street, I slow to a walking pace, with my chest heaving and sweat gleaming. There’s an Amazon package at my front door, and I already know what it contains when I bring it inside. Three novels that Macy wrote. I flip through the pages. There are thousands of words all thought of by her.

I go out onto my back porch, not even bothering to clean myself up as I sit on the white wooden chair, perch my leg onto the other and read the dedication page.

To those who prefer a fictional man to a real one.

I laugh and flip to page one. By the time I’m thirty pages in and fully invested in the characters, a sound catches my attention.

Macy is shooing away a pelican that stands on her porch railing, only a foot from where she’s sitting on a swinging bench, laptop resting on her thighs.

I clear my throat, knowing she’ll hear it from the twenty feet that separates us. Her eyes flit to mine, then down to the book in my hand. I grin at her, then go back to reading. I feel her gaze on me, but I will my eyes to focus on the page, hardly able to focus with her staring.

In the span of four hours, I sneak a few glances at her focused expression. Her lips are moving like she’s mouthing the words she types. Every so often she goes inside only to return a minute later with a mug of what I can only assume is coffee. I think she’s on her third cup by the time I get two hundred pages in. My stomach is empty, no doubt hers is too. I call a delivery service on the island to pick up some food from The BARnacle.

I read twenty-six more pages by the time the delivery person is ringing my doorbell. I walk through the house, hand her some cash and retrieve the three heavy bags. Macy is concerninglyunaware of her surroundings while she works. “You look hungry,” I say.

She jolts and when her eyes set on me, an expression of pure disdain is my only greeting. I ignore the incredulous look she’s giving me as I set the takeout bags on her little wooden table and start grabbing boxes out of them. I thought the airdrop thing would make her laugh, but now I’m starting to think I pissed her off even more than I already have. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I got a little of everything.”

She blinks up at me. “Why?”

“Because you’ve been out here for hours, and I haven’t seen you eat once. And I’m starving too.”