“There are a lot of type C’s,” Chance said.
Michael couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, there are. Smart ones avoid me.” Which had never really bothered him until last night. The woman next door had made it very clear that she wanted nothing to do with him once she discovered his identity. Usually, he would have rejoiced at this rejection—she wasn’t his type at all—but for some reason it stung. And he’d been rude, which was way out of character. The leash remark was inexcusable. His stomach churned just thinking about it.
“So, where’s the dog at the center of Michael’s deal downfall?” Will asked.
That question made Michael’s stomach churn worse.
“Mr. Anderson,” Mildred’s voice chimed through the speaker on his desk. “Your dog got into the lunchroom and ate almost an entire pan of lasagna. You might want to get him out of here in case he gets sick.”
At that moment, Michael was pretty sure he was the one who would be sick. Dr. Whittelsey could not return fast enough. There was no way he could do this for three weeks.
…
“Hand me that yeller yarn ball,” Gladys bellowed from right next to Mia, nearly causing her to drop her paintbrush. She’d been working with the Queen B’s all morning. The name of the group was self-assigned years ago by the three founding members, Blanche, Betty, and Bernice. When they needed a fourth for card games, they decided to allow a new member, Gladys, who was never shy to point out her middle name began with a “B.”
“Don’t yell at the girl! Can’t you see she’s preoccupied?” Blanche, Gladys’ best friend and unofficial leader of the Queen B’s, grabbed the yarn and passed it.
Preoccupied? More like exhausted. She’d spent a nearly sleepless night, tossing and turning in her bed, trying not to imagine what Don Juan was doing on the other side of the wall—which was more disturbing than anything. After seeing and meeting the guy, it was hard not to imagine a lot of things—things she’d sworn off of when she broke up with Jason.
“Well, what’s wrong with her?” Gladys asked, volume just shy of deafening. “She’s all blue and clammed up.”
“I’m sorry,” Mia said. “I’m tired today.” She was used to Gladys speaking about her as if she weren’t in the room. She suspected it was another tactic used by the woman to remain distant from outsiders.
“Tired, my arse,” Gladys said, stabbing her knitting needles into whatever atrocity she was working on. “Only a man can distract a woman like that.” She nodded to Betty on her right. “Men. Nothin’ but trouble.”
No kidding. Mia smiled halfheartedly and dipped her brush again.
“What are you knitting, Gladys?” Bernice, the quietest of the group asked.
“Don’t rightly know yet. Sometimes I just make stuff up as I go along. No plans. Kinda like our crafts teacher, Mia, huh? No plans at all.”
Ouch. Gladys was a lot more with-it than she let on.
“Leave the girl alone. She’s tired,” Blanche said. “Why didn’t you sleep, honey?”
“I have the most awful neighbor. He brings a different woman home every night and I can hear them through the walls. Well, I would if I didn’t drown him out with loud music.”
“I wish I had a neighbor like that. All I get to listen to through the walls is game shows.”
Bernice gasped. “Gladys!”
“Well, it’s true.” She picked up her needles and pulled the horrible yellow and orange scrap of knitting onto her lap. “I’m old, not dead.”
Mia stood. “Anyone else finished with their brushes?” Betty and Bernice held theirs up and she gathered them. Usually she loved her work with the women at Heart’s Home, but that afternoon, it was hard to focus. And every now and then her mind would wander to her handsome, hard-bodied, good-smelling, obnoxious, stuck-up, uptight neighbor. He certainly wasn’t uptight in his bedroom. Well, at least she assumed he wasn’t, based on the noises his guests made. And despite her willing it not to, her imagination conjured images of what it might be like to be with a powerful, driven man like that. A man who knew what he wanted and knew how to get it. So unlike Jason.
Stop! She shook her head.
“Maybe you should go over and ask him nicely to keep the noise down,” Blanche suggested.
“I think you should report him to the building security,” Betty said, wiping paint on the front of her apron.
“I think she needs to ignore it. Reporting him will only make him mad,” Bernice added.
“I’ll tell ya what she needs to do. She needs to march over to that man’s apartment and make some noise of her own with him.”
“Gladys!” a chorus of three female voices shouted. Mia simply gasped.
“Aw, fiddlesticks. I know what I’m talking about. Whenever I felt blue, my husband Tom knew precisely how to make me all better.” She winked and the women cast sideways glances from each other, to Mia, and then back to Gladys, who paid them no mind. “I miss Tom. He had the biggest—”