Page 4 of Forbidden Dreams
“Fuck this,” he spits, walking back to his car. “She’s not fucking worth it.” He opens the door. “You’re probably fucking him too.” He motions from Harmony to me with his chin, and I look down at my boots to hide the laughter. I’ve said maybe six words to her in the ten years she’s been living in this town. Most of them were “excuse me” or “thank you.” He gets into the car and peels out of the driveway.
I take a deep breath, and I’m about to leave when she says softly, “Thank you.” Her voice cracks. “I’m sorry for the trouble.”
I nod. “Yeah, whatever.” I turn and walk back to my house and away from the house that looks like it’s falling apart. I hear the door close softly; the click of the lock fills the quiet night. I take a second to look back over my shoulder at the house, wondering why in the hell anyone would fucking rent it. The house is literally falling apart and has been for years. The old owner passed away ten years ago, leaving it to his son, who lives out of state and basically forgets this house exists. He’s hired one of the local real estate agents to be a property manager and get it rented out. In the past two years, three people have lived there, lasting only a few months. I’m waiting for him to visit to see if I can buy it from him so I can fix it and sell it. I planned to do that with my own, but now that it’s done, I’m too in love with it to sell it.
I should go inside and shower, but instead, I sit on the top step in the dark for thirty minutes, making sure he’s gone and not coming back. “Asshole,” I mumble to myself before I get up and walk inside my house. A soft glow comes from the stove light, and I just bypass it as I walk up the steps to my bedroom. Pulling off my shirt, I toss it in the overloaded hamper. It lands on the top and slowly falls to the pile that surrounds the basket. “Fuck, I have to do laundry,” I grumble as I kick my boots off and add my jeans and boxers to the pile before going to the shower.
I let the warm water wash over me before wrapping myself in a towel and then sliding into bed. The sheets are the only thing I wash on a weekly basis, every single Sunday. But I do have a set of sheets that I alternate during the week if I have anyone over.
I fall dead-ass asleep right away, but then my eyes fly open, and I toss and turn for a while before I get out of bed. Slipping on a pair of basketball shorts and jogging down the steps to the kitchen, I open the fridge and grab a cold bottle of water. Making my way to the back door, I open it and then push open the storm door before sitting on the back porch. Twisting open the white lid and looking out into the backyard, I put the bottle to my mouth and swallow all of it. My eyes look even longer when I see the light from the house next door turn on. Knowing it’s coming from the kitchen, I look over and see it’s almost 4:00 a.m. I shake my head before getting up and tossing the bottle in the recycle bin, then I walk back upstairs and crash again until the alarm on my phone wakes me.
I reach out and slam it from the side table before turning and closing my eyes again. Lying on my side, I fall back to sleep until the alarm wakes me again. I turn it off and take a second before I turn to my back and look up at the vaulted ceiling that took me over six months to sand and get the perfect molding I wanted. The antique chandelier I got at an estate sale completes the whole look of old with modern. It was the one room I didn’t know if I wanted to complete, thinking I would wait until I had a woman in my life to see what she wanted and add her input, but then I said fuck it and made it a room I wanted. Hopefully, I won’t have to modify it too much when I do get that woman.
I get out of bed and walk down to the kitchen. Starting a pot of coffee, I rub my hands over my face to wake up. The smell of coffee fills the room as I walk over to the cabinet and get a mug, pouring myself a hot cup. Then I head out to the back porch, where I have my coffee every morning.
Stepping out and sitting down at the little wrought-iron table, I put my cup down before looking out into the distance and seeing Harmony in the backyard with her son trailing her. The two of them work side by side as they pull weeds. I look at my phone and see that it’s just a little after eight in the morning, and she’s already out there doing yard work. I take a sip of my coffee when I hear her yell and then run away.
With a plastic garbage bag in her hand, her son laughs and picks up the grass snake and chases her with it. “Momma, it’s just a grass snake,” he teases. “It’s fine.”
“Wyatt, don’t you dare.” She points at him, and he just laughs. I take another sip of my coffee, thinking he doesn’t look too shaken up about his father showing up in the middle of the night.
Getting up from my table, I take one more look at them as he puts down the snake, and she walks back over to him. “Hopefully, he’s nothing like his father.”
CHAPTER 4
Harmony
I pull open the oven, grabbing the oven mitts from the counter before removing the glass baking dish from the second rack. The smell of baked apple pie wafts through the house as I walk it over to the stovetop and put it on one of the cooling racks I have set out.
I hear footsteps coming down the stairs slowly before he rounds the corner, rubbing the sleep away from his eyes. “Good morning, baby,” I greet quietly as he comes to me and face-plants himself in my stomach, wrapping his arms around my waist as I bend to kiss the top of his head. “You are getting so big; I don’t have to bend too much to reach your head.” I wrap my arms around his shoulders. “Did you sleep good?”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t move from my embrace as I rock him side to side.
“You hungry?” I ask, rubbing his back, and he just nods. “What do you want? Pancakes?” I wait for him to answer, but nothing comes. “Eggs?” He nods. “Bacon?” He nods again. “On a plate or do you want one of those biscuit sandwiches?”
“Sandwich,” he mumbles, and I laugh.
“Okay, how about you go lie down on the couch, and I’ll call you over when it’s done?”
“Okay, Momma.” His sweet voice makes me smile as he turns around and walks toward the living room. The only thing in there is a two-seater couch and the smart TV I was able to get at a garage sale.
I take a pan and turn toward the fridge, grabbing all the things I need to make the sandwich. Then I grab a biscuit from the basket in the corner, which has been cooling since early this morning. “Do you want cheese on that?” I put my head to the side and shout at him.
“Yes, please!” he shouts back, and I look to the side. My eyes are on the back door as it opens, and Brady steps out wearing gym shorts and nothing else. My mouth hangs open when I see his bare chest. A coffee cup in his hand and his phone in the other, he pulls out one of his wrought-iron chairs and sits down before taking a sip of his coffee and then running his hands through his hair.
“Is it almost done?” Wyatt shouts, making me turn away from ogling my neighbor.
“Yeah,” I lie to him since I haven’t even started the bacon. I quickly turn on the gas stove and throw in two slices of bacon, letting them cook before adding the egg beside them. It takes ten minutes before I’m plating his sandwich and calling him over. He skips back into the room this time, sleep gone from his features. “Do you want some orange juice with that?”
“Can I have milk?” He walks over to the little table in the corner of the room with two chairs, pulling out one and sitting down. As I put the plate in front of him, he doesn’t even wait for my hand to move out of the way before he’s picking it up and biting into it.
“Good?” I ask. He mumbles with his mouth full as he chews, and all I can do is laugh. I pour myself my third cup of coffee today before grabbing a glass and filling it with milk for him. I set both cups on the table before going back and grabbing my own lightly baked biscuit, walking back to the table with a jar of the apple butter I attempted to make the other day.
“Eww,” Wyatt says right away, “that is not good.”
I shrug because he is not wrong. It was my first time trying to make it and to say it was a bust is an understatement. It’s very tart. I should have added more sugar, but then I didn’t want it to be too sweet. “It isn’t that bad,” I point out to him. “Besides, I’m not wasting it.”
It’s his turn to shrug his shoulders, and I take in a deep breath. “You okay?” I ask, and his eyes immediately fly to look at mine. It’s been a couple of days since Winston paid us a visit, and we haven’t spoken about it.