“Right? Because then you’re like, what could it be? Giant spiders? Snakes? Heights because there might be cliffs? The fear of forests? Or trees? Of animals? Heck, even what humidity does to hair.
“Anyway, I thought the key phrase in that sentence was ‘small spaces.’ Nope! The key word was ‘trapped.’ So, the handcuffs made him feel trapped, and claustrophobia—or, I guess,cleithrophobia—was activated and on steroids. I noticed at first that he was really focused on his breathing and nothing else. I asked if he was okay, and he said, ‘No.’
“Then he started full-on hyperventilating, stood up, and started pacing away. I followed, of course, since we were handcuffed together. Then he started really freaking out and shouting, ‘I need these off! I need these off!’ So the woman pretending to be the officer hurried over with the key to free us, and the keybroke off in the lock.”
“Oh, no,” Mackenzie says.
“Luckily, a guy from the yacht came over with some big ole bolt cutters. He was in the process of using them—the cutters were open, the chain between our cuffs was in the open part of the cutters… And Javier passed out.”
I gasp.
“He fell forward, taking me down with him, which was totally fine. But he landed on the bolt cutters, cracked a rib, and the pain from the cracked rib woke him up, screaming.
“Of course, we didn’t know it was a cracked rib yet, so someone called nine-one-one,we docked at about the same time the ambulance arrived, and I took him down to the ambulance.”
Livi gets distracted by trying to figure out how to fold a jumpsuit, and it seems like she’s done with the story. So I say, “Wait. You said you guys broke up. That doesn’t sound like a breakup.”
“Oh, that’s the best part! So, right as the EMTs were saying that they thought Javier had a cracked rib,his mom showed up. I don’t know how she even knew to come. Javier never pulled out his phone, so he didn’t tell her. She must’ve been listening to a police scanner for the area where he was.
“And she was glaring at me like the broken rib was my fault. Then her eyes went to the one half of a pair of handcuffs that each of us was wearing like they were bracelets, then to my courtesan outfit and his gangster outfit, hardcore judgment in her eyes.
“She stayed quiet until the EMTs blocked Javier’s view of us. Then she came up to me and said in a low voice, ‘If you are ever around my son again, I swear I will send self-exploding glitter bombs to your place weekly for the rest of your natural life.’”
“She did not,” Mackenzie says.
“So what did you do?” I ask.
“I told him we couldn’t see each other anymore. I mean, if there had been a lot of potential in our relationship and I could see marriage and babies in our future, then we could’ve addressed the threateningmom issue. I didn’t, and I decided I didn’t need the kind of toxicity she was exuding in my life.” She finally figures out the jumpsuit and puts it in the box, then looks at us. “It’s okay, though. I’m going to find the right guy, and I won’t stop looking until I do.”
I grin at her determination. “I hope you find someone who is the best of the best.”
“What about you?” Livi asks. “Anything happening with you and your cute neighbor?”
Is it crazy that my heart gets all fluttery just by Livi mentioning Owen? “Yes and no. There have been so many little things happening daily. Like last night, the power went out, and he came over, so I wasn’t alone in the dark. He brought cookies with him, and we told some soul-baring stories. We even shared a moment at the end that might have turned into something amazing.”
“But you got interrupted?” Maggie asks. I nod, and she fans herself and says, “Oh, I love a great interrupted moment!”
“And we’ve been leaving sticky notes on each other’s side of the plastic wall. When I woke up this morning, there was one waiting for me that said,In case of another blackout, please consult your emergency neighbor kit: 1. Flashlight, 2. Cookies, 3. Me. Is it weird that I’m wishing for another blackout?
“And then just before I came over tonight, I needed a new roll of paper towels from on topof my fridge, and I couldn’t reach it. We don’t have a stool, so normally I would just drag over a chair from my kitchen table and stand on it. But since they’re all currently holding or trapped by my cabinets, I couldn’t.
“I knew that Owen was home, so I just asked him through the plastic if he could come over and help. And I swear the guy bounded right over in two seconds, happy to do it.”
“And?” Livi prompts. “When he reached up high, did his shirt rise a bit and show you a sliver of stomach?”
I look down, blushing but totally smiling. “Yes. Okay, but what if he ends upnotbeing the right guy? Because you can’t totally figure out if they are the right guy before you start dating them. And then if we broke up, cue a lot of neighbor awkwardness because we’d still see each other every day. I mean, we’d still share a wall. One that will hopefully be a real wall again soon.” Plus, there’s the part where I am investigating the guy who is paying for the restoration on the building that means so much to him. That makes being interested in Owen at all feel so wrong.
“I dated and then broke up with a guy who was my neighbor once,” Maggie says.
“You dated a neighbor?” Mackenzie asks, seeming incredulous that there was information like that about her sister that she didn’t know.
“Yeah. It was a secret relationship.”
“When?”
“In high school.”
“Seriously?Who?”
