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  Quick & Dirty: Neighbors

  Kate Roth

  New (Quick & Dirty: Neighbors)

  Written by Kate Roth

  Copyright © 2019 by Kate Roth

  Editing by All Good Things Editing

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owner.

  All rights reserved.

  Created with Vellum

  Also by Kate Roth

  The Low Notes

  Reckless Radiance

  The Confession Records Collection

  Natural Harmony

  Sway

  The Desire Resort Series

  Last Resort

  Best Laid Plans

  Many Times, Many Ways

  Peachy Keen

  The Bindings Duet

  Bindings

  Leather Bound

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Epilogue

  Quick & Dirty: Neighbors will continue

  While you wait for more

  Chapter One

  Monica

  I refuse to drive them to school on their last day. I don’t want to sit in that pollution creating drop-off line in my pajamas without so much as a sip of coffee in my system again until September.

  “Shoes on!” I holler from my bedroom, quickly running a brush through my hair enough to pile it on top of my head in a bun. I can hear Nate and Hailey arguing near the door and I remind myself to be kind. They are kids.

  I need coffee.

  “Guys, we have to hustle. The bus will be here in two minutes.” I bend down and smile at Hailey as I help her buckle her pale pink shoes. She smiles back at me and I feel that little ache in my chest I always get when I know I won’t see them for a few days.

  “Mom?” Nate’s voice makes my head turn and he points to the sliding glass door off of the living room that leads to our tiny concrete patio. Beyond it I see the giant yellow school bus turn into the apartment complex. I gasp and pick up both of their backpacks and shoo them out the door. The lights flash and the red stop sign pops out from one side of the bus as the brakes squeal. Nate looks up at me as he gives my side a quick squeeze.

  “You did it, Mom. We made it on time.”

  I snort. “We sure did, buddy,” I reply. Only took the whole school year. I drop down and hug them both. “Dad is picking you up. Have fun camping. Listen to your dad. I’ll see you guys in a week.”

  “Is Brandy going camping with us?” Hailey asks, her bright blue eyes shining—her excitement not even remotely contained.

  Brandy. The seventies song about sailors rolls into my mind and I curse the young twit not only for sleeping with my husband but for putting that song in my brain for the next day and a half. In all honesty I’m glad the kids like her. Oddly enough it makes things easier. But it doesn’t change the fact that she helped with the demolition of my heart eighteen months ago. Plastering on a fake smile for my girl, I nod.

  “Yep, you guys are going to have a great time.”

  The kids offer I love yous as they bounce toward the bus just behind the two other kids from the apartment complex. As the bus pulls away, I let out a sigh. My week alone begins. I should be happy. I was happy about the idea of this much ‘me time’ a few weeks ago when I told my boss at the real estate office I was taking six days off, but now I regret it. What the hell am I going to do with six days? I guess I still haven’t gotten used to being alone. Sometimes I don’t know who I am if I’m not being Mom. And even though I’ve been selling real estate for a year, the job doesn’t consume me like I’d hoped it would when I so desperately needed distraction. I suppose I still need a distraction. Especially since my dumb ass planned to have six days of nothing to do but sit and wallow while my kids are off camping with my ex-husband and his hussy. Gonna be a fun week. Maybe I should go to the office.

  As I turn to head inside for my coffee, I jump when I see the figure sitting on the patio beside mine staring at me. I don’t know my new neighbor’s name yet, mostly because he’s some cool, young, tattooed guy and I figure he probably doesn’t give two shits about the single mom and her kids next door. When I saw him and his roommate moving in last week I remembered praying not to hear some shitty jam band music or a chorus of orgasms through our paper thin walls. So far I’ve only heard the slight rumbling of action movies.

  My feet haven’t yet moved, my morning lethargy still gripping me tightly. I scan him where he sits shirtless in gray gym shorts, his black tattoos pulling me in to decipher them. Roses. They’re beautiful and they cover him from his left wrist to the center of his chiseled chest. The other shoulder bears another tattoo I can’t see from my angle and he has a few more peeking out from his shorts, gracing his muscular thighs. My eyes graze his entire body and my blood takes on a new rhythm but when I land on his face, the dark beard over a strong jaw, the penetrating dark eyes, and the sandy brown hair laying carelessly over his forehead—bedhead—I lick my lips involuntarily at the complete picture of him. He smiles at my reaction then speaks against the rim of his coffee mug. “Morning.”

  A moan slips out of me. Jesus. I cough, trying to recover a shred of dignity with no luck. The moan hadn’t been for him necessarily. It was more for the coffee. At least that’s what I tell myself. His sexy grin grows watching me—the messy bun, sweatpants wearing, bags under her eyes mom next door—lose the last bit of cool I have and his grin doesn’t help the heat growing in my loins. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve had sex, a thought that often plagues me as I lay in bed but eventually I just have a date with my vibrator, Hans, and buzz those worries away. But looking at my neighbor and considering the long lonely week ahead of me, I don’t know what I need more, that hot cup of coffee or that hot piece of twenty-something ass.

  “Good morning,” I chirp, my face red and my voice unrecognizable. My legs finally decide to listen to me and I head for my apartment.

  “Hey!” His voice calls out. He’s just out of sight, I could keep walking away and pretend I didn’t hear him but I stop when he yells, “Nate’s mom!”

  Nate’s mom? What is this, a Sunny D commercial? For whatever reason, despite not having my coffee yet, I become incensed at the title. He could at least call me ma’am but I’d probably still march over to him just as angrily for that one too.

  Back on the sidewalk in front of our side-by-side patios, I put my hands on my hips and lift my brows. “It’s Monica,” I clip. “Monica Anders.”

  He takes another slow swallow of his coffee, smiling eyes peer over the top of his mug at me while he does. His tongue touches his bottom lip and my anger surges. What am I doing entertaining this young asshole when I could be having my coffee and catching up on my latest binge? I have a staycation to commence.

  “I’m Logan. Nice to meet you, neighbor.”

  “How do you know my son?”

  From the moment I heard my kid’s name co
me out of his mouth, my hackles had gone up. Not even the hottest abs on the planet could stop my mama bear instincts.

  Logan sets his mug on the small glass-top table beside him and leans forward resting his forearms on his knees. I try to hold on to that mama bear concern all while watching the muscles in his neck and shoulders flex as he moves fluidly. His sexy grin softens into something sweeter.

  “I subbed in his class all of last week.”

  My chin tucks down and I shift back on my heels, my bare feet pressing into the concrete. “What?”

  “I’m a substitute teacher…” he replies, drawing his words out slowly so maybe I’ll stop looking at him like he has three heads. But my brow furrows and I don’t have another response. Logan sits straight again and laughs. “I know. I don’t exactly look the part. But I just got my degree in elementary education.” His hands quickly slide over his chest and inked arms and a shiver zips up my spine. “I cover all this with a nice button down shirt and tie,” he says with a bright smile.

  Well, hell. If the sight of him half naked isn’t enough to make me drench my panties then the fantasy of him in a fucking suit surely will. Suddenly the gears in my mind move and click together, linking his words and conversations with Nate from the week prior.

  “You’re Mr. Miller,” I blurt.

  His lips split showing white teeth, imperfect but not off-putting. “Yeah. Did Nate talk about me?”

  I absently let a hand run over my hair remembering it’s in a disgustingly messy knot on top of my head. Shit. I look like trash! Shaking the thought—it doesn’t matter what I look like since the hot twenty-something next door isn’t interested at all—I nod in reply. He’s making conversation to be nice. Neighborly. We have commonality with my son, that’s all.

  “He wouldn’t shut up about you,” I laugh. “He’d never had a male teacher before. Your existence alone kind of blew his mind. But he said you were a lot of fun…” My voice trails off and I covertly clear my throat trying hard not to show that I’m imagining what kind of fun he might be for me.

  Logan’s half-smile and absent nod is an unreadable reaction for me.

  “Do you…want a cup of coffee? I need a refill.”

  The same coffee-addicted moan slips out of me followed by a self-deprecating laugh. “Sure,” I reply.

  He chuckles and rises from his chair, waving me toward him as he moves to his sliding glass door. “Climb on over,” he says.

  I somewhat reluctantly toe into the mulched flower beds in front of my patio and cross over toward his. I hike one yoga-pants clad leg over the wrought iron bannister and just like that I’m with my neighbor for a cup of coffee. Logan pokes his head out. “How do you like it?”

  There’s a scratch to his voice I hadn’t noticed before from the distance between us earlier but closer to him I feel the gravel in his tone as something deeply sexual. Certainly I’m kidding myself. God, I’m in dire need of good dicking but Logan is not the answer.

  “Uh…sugar.”

  The tip of his lips once again quickens my blood flow but the wink he offers with his smile and the words that fall from his generous lips nearly stop my heart. “Sure thing, sugar.”

  * * *

  Three cups of coffee later I’m buzzing on more than just caffeine. Logan and I sat talking for close to two hours. The warm air of approaching summer sweeps over us, birds chirp in their nests tucked into the eaves of the apartment building, and our laughter echoes around the concrete patio. He’s easy to talk to and after that first sip of sweet, warm dark roast, I no longer care about the state of my unwashed hair or the peanut butter smeared on my yoga pants. It’s been a very long time since I sat and had coffee with a person and talked about anything other than my divorce, my kids or real estate. And while Logan did ask a little about Nate and Hailey we mostly talk about random things like the books we’ve been reading and the podcasts we like. He indulges me with a few funny stories of student misbehavior from his days as a sub and a student teacher. We talk about the weather in an earnest way, not the way you mention it to the grocery store check out person. It’s been beautiful outside and as it turns out we both like to hike in the nearby state park. Neither of us have gotten around to it during the gorgeous days though.

  I haven’t forgotten that he’s shirtless. My eyes drift to his tattoos more than a few times and eventually he offers the meaning of each of them. The roses are for his grandmother named Rose who was his favorite person. I audibly sigh at that anecdote. His shoulder has a Celtic cross chosen for his Irish heritage on his father’s side. The others are all for appearance alone. A sexy mermaid pinup on his calf, a traditional swallow, and an old school heart with a dagger in the middle.

  “There’s a few more you can’t see,” he says. A breath sticks in my throat but I force a giggle albeit awkward. What I wouldn’t give to see them all.

  “Do you have any?” Logan asks.

  A genuine laugh slips out and I shake my head, finishing the last of my lukewarm coffee. “No. I always wanted one but my husband would’ve killed me.”

  His eyes bounce to my left hand and his brow wrinkles.

  “You mean ex-husband?”

  Shit. I didn’t mean to bring him up but I suppose it’s inevitable. When you spend more than half your life with someone they are bound to be a part of it for long after they’ve moved on. I nod as I train my eyes on a fuzzy bumble bee flying from flower to flower in the bushes in front of us.

  “So what’s stopping you now?”

  I make a noise when his question fully computes in my mind. When I glance at him his tongue slides carefully over his bottom lip and his eyes hold me firmly. My head bobbles but an answer never accumulates into words. My mouth is too dry looking at him, his golden skin lit by the late morning sun, his dark beard begging to be stroked, the muscles of his shoulders, arms, chest, abs—fuck, every muscle on this man’s body calls out to me for a caress.

  “Do it,” he says.

  Say what? I pull in a breath through my nose to wake myself from fantasy. He means the tattoo. I put on a smile and meet his penetrating stare.

  “I don’t know. It’s a big decision. It’d be on my body forever.”

  “Life’s too short to get caught up worrying about forever. Don’t overthink it. It’ll be a pretty picture on a pretty woman, that’s all.”

  I gulp. He just called me pretty. I can feel a rosy blush bloom on my cheeks and my chest. There’s no way he could know how long it’s been since anyone had complimented my looks. But it was just an offhand remark, nothing more. A nice conversation between neighbors over coffee and then a flippant statement from a man much too young to understand anything about what a woman like me had been through. I sit the mug down and rise to my feet.

  “I should get going. I should start my day. Thanks for the coffee,” I say.

  For a second I think I see a wince of regret and rejection cross Logan’s handsome face. But soon enough he smiles. “Sure…sure. It was nice to get to talk with you, Monica.”

  I’m already over the railing and into the flower bed when I turn back to see him.

  “You too, Logan,” I say softly. “If you need help with anything… you know…getting settled in here…just let me know.” God, I’m rambling like a dork, tripping over words while nearly tripping over shrubbery as I back away. Logan smooths a hand over the closely trimmed beard along his jaw and grins.

  “Yeah,” he croons. “You let me know if you need help with anything, too. That’s what neighbors are for.”

  A stuttering laugh escapes me and like a fool I wave and hustle to my front door. I close it behind me and lean my back against it with a heaving breath.

  I’m rusty at flirting.

  Wait, was he flirting?

  I don’t even know what flirting looks like anymore. I’ve been so busy with my kids and work and trying to sort out my finances since the divorce, I haven’t even started thinking about dating. There hasn’t been a man on my radar since Todd and I spli
t up. And there’d never been a man before him… It’s just been me and Hans my battery operated sleeping pill—not so much as a slight consideration for anyone else for anything else.

  Until now.

  I shoo away rogue thoughts of Logan and all the ways I’d like to make him more than just my neighbor and get to work. The apartment needs scrubbing, laundry needs done, bills need paid and after all that is done I’ll need a shower.

  Hours of housework pass quickly with my headphones in my ears and when my tasks are done I opt for a long hot bath instead of a shower. When I’d gone looking for apartments shortly after I found the six months worth of emails and texts between my husband—my high school fucking sweetheart, the man I’d been with since I was fifteen—and his dirty little secret, I didn’t have many boxes I wanted ticked off aside from three bedrooms and a washer and dryer. But when I came to tour the apartments at Crescent Harbor, I realized there was something else I wanted. A giant fucking bathtub. Luckily for me, the three bedroom at Crescent Harbor has a master bathroom with a garden tub. My first time without the kids in our new place, I lit candles, poured the wine and cried into my bubbles.

  There’s little else I indulge myself in besides a hot bubble bath to soak my worries away. It’s the most self-care I allow on a regular basis and after the strange morning I’d had lusting over Logan and the back-breaking cleaning I’ve done all day, it’s deserved. I soak then scrub my body, shave and wash my hair, rinsing it under the faucet as my final step. When I get out, I wrap myself in a fluffy towel and sit on the edge of my bed and put vanilla sugar scented lotion all over as I finish my glass of wine. My eyes drift to my nightstand and a little flutter in my belly evolves into a tingle traveling from my navel to the place between my legs.