At the word, a trill raced down my spine, exploding along my lower back and cascading over my bottom. I experienced this swift, surprising and alarmingly pleasant sensation and slowly turned to the door.
One syllable. He’d said one syllable and I’d met him once and I knew who would be there. I knew who made me feel that feeling.
I was right.
In the office doorway stood Mickey Donovan in loose fitting, navy track pants and a short-sleeved, skintight white workout shirt.
And he was smiling, doing it warmly, looking pleasantly startled (likely at my being in a boxing gym) and very welcoming.
I was startled he was there at that precise moment, but I wasn’t surprised he was at a boxing gym.
“Not where I expected to run into you,” Mickey remarked.
“Well…no,” I replied. “How are you, Mickey?”
“Doin’ good,” he told me, leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb, a casual stance I found oddly devastating to my peace of mind. “You?”
“Just fine,” I lied.
“You know Amelia?” Jake asked and Mickey’s eyes went to him.
“She’s my new neighbor,” Mickey shared then added, “The Cameron place.”
I felt Jake’s gaze and tore mine off Mickey to look up at him.
“The Cameron place?” he asked when he got my gaze, then noted, “That’s a fuckuva score.”
“You’re right,” I agreed, even though I wasn’t entirely certain how he meant that. I took a guess and remarked, “It’s an amazing property.”
He nodded. “It is. No way me, Josie and the kids’d ever leave Lavender House, but the realtor had an open house for Cliff Blue so we went and we all loved it. The place is phenomenal.”
I liked that he agreed with me but I was confused.
“Cliff Blue?” I asked.
“Your house, darlin’,” Mickey stated, and I had to control a jump since his voice was a lot closer than before.
I managed that and looked up at him to see he was close. Not as close as I would have liked but could never have, but a lot closer than before.
“My house?” I asked.
“Cameron called it Cliff Blue. It stuck. And it works,” he explained. “Folks who had the lot before had an old house on it. Two generations of women who liked the feel of their hands in the dirt tended that property for nearly seventy years. Place was covered in bluebells. Planted some, they took off, went everywhere. Even jumped the street and now they’re all over my lot, and that’s not a complaint. Cameron liked ’em too, used them in the design, the color, the stained glass, the walk, and was careful not to disturb them if he didn’t have to. Went so far as to plant a bunch more to replace any they killed during construction. ’Cause of that, March and April, your house looks like it’s floating by a cliff on a cloud of blue.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered, his words filling my head with a wondrous image, making me wish for another reason that I’d been able to move in several months earlier. “The realtor should have put a picture of that on the Internet. If I saw it, I would have probably paid full price.”
I couldn’t contain my jump when Mickey’s laughter filled the room, not only because it was an exceedingly handsome sound, but because it came as a surprise.
Before I could ask what was funny, he told me.
“Glad you didn’t, babe. The couple who built that place were pieces of work. She was a raging bitch and that was only capped by how huge of a dick he was. Place was on the market forever because neither would agree on an offer and actually got into it with the buyers so bad they’d pull out. They kept screwing around, the price on your place dropped three times, which is a shame ’cause that house is that house. Not a shame ’cause those two assholes got screwed in the end. But it’s a pain in the ass because that house is in my neighborhood and that kinda shit affects the values of all the properties around it. Figure the only way they could sell was to someone like you who the realtor could keep those two piranhas away from.”
“That sounds unpleasant,” I noted and the residual grin from his laughter turned into a smile.
“Suffice it to say, I don’t know you too well and I like you a whole lot more than I liked them,” he replied.
And one could say I liked that.
But I shouldn’t like that. I shouldn’t anything that.
Even so, I needed to make a response so I did it mumbling, “That’s good.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Bad neighbors suck.”
Considering our first meeting he had to rescue me from my infuriated, foul-mouthed ex-husband, I decided not to respond to that.
Mickey didn’t stick with that subject either.
Instead, he prompted, “Still got no idea why you’re here, Amelia.” His blue eyes twinkled and my stomach fluttered. “But if you’re a female fighter, that’d shock the shit out of me.”
“Oh, right,” I mumbled then cleared my throat and carried on, “I’m selling a few things and thought I’d donate the proceeds to the junior boxing league.”
Another smile from Mickey. “Fantastic.”
“House sale. Josie’s gonna help,” Jake put in and Mickey looked to him then to me.
“Got some shit I could put in. Tell me when you’re havin’ it. I’ll lug it over.”
This was not conducive to me steering clear of Mickey Donovan, but if the young boxers needed decent equipment, the more was definitely the merrier. So at least for that, I’d have to suck it up.
“Of course. I’ll make sure you know,” I replied.
“And you need help, I’m across the way,” he offered.
That wasn’t going to happen.
“Thanks,” I said, swiftly looked to Jake, stuck out my hand and continued, “It was nice meeting you. I’ll call your wife soon.”
He took my hand, squeezed it and returned, “Same meetin’ you. Sure I’ll see you again soon.”
“Yes.” I nodded and forced my attention back to Mickey. “Good to see you again, Mickey.”
Another grin. “You too, babe.”
I dipped my chin, averted my eyes, murmured, “Good-bye, gentlemen,” and walked to the door.
This got me a, “Later,” from Jake and a, “’Bye, darlin’,” from Mickey.
As I swiftly made my way through the gym, I sent a hesitant smile to the boxer still training, doing this now not punching a bag as he had been when I walked in, but jumping rope.
He smiled back distractedly but I got the impression he did it only because we met eyes.
I kept moving through the gym as his attention drifted away and something about this stung.
He was not unattractive, though he wasn’t gorgeous like Mickey and Jake. I couldn’t fathom his exact age but I guessed both Mickey and Jake were around mine, and although the rope-jumping boxer looked younger, he was nowhere near his twenties so he was not that far off.
What he was was not interested in me.
I was a woman in a boxing gym. I had breasts. I had a booty. I had long hair and it was thick and shiny.