“She’s super responsible,” I say. “Sort of impressive, actually.”
“Hmm,” Quinn says again. “Has he retaliated since you filled his yard with those plastic flamingos?”
“He put my address on Craig’s List with an offer for free sausages. I had so many people knocking on my door I barricaded my driveway and put up a giant sign.”
Quinn laughs, then presses her lips together. “Sorry. Why does he need to play basketball at eleven o’clock at night anyways?”
“Exactly!”
“You said he’s older. Is he sensitive about his age? You should mail order Viagra samples to him.”
“I don’t think he’s sensitive to anything. The guy is unflappable.” Viagra might be worth a try though.
“Don’t give up.”
We talk about our night ahead and rest of her visit. Quinn and I met in flight attendant training and were lucky enough to work a lot of the same routes afterwards, bonding us like sisters. We both put in several years servicing the small towns of the intermountain west, moving up to bigger routes like Alaska and Mexico. She’s always down for an adventure and is rock solid in a crisis, whether it’s turbulence, a pervy passenger who thinks all flight attendants want to join the mile high club, or a broken heart.
“We have time for a margarita before the show, right?” Quinn asks.
“Or two,” I say with a giggle.
We swim to the shore and wade through the sandy shallows. The air carries that alpine bite I love, even as it turns my skin to gooseflesh.
“Brr,” Quinn says, wrapping her arms around her chest. “Is it always this cold?”
“You get used to it.” I reach for my towel just as the back door of my neighbor’s house opens and a tall, broad-shouldered man in a faded charcoal-gray tee and worn work jeans steps out, his baseball hat turned backwards.
He must hear us, because his jaw tenses and the second his gaze finds mine, he narrows his eyes.
Quinn makes a mild choking sound that I hope to god he can’t hear.
“Hey there!” Quinn calls.
“What are you doing?” I grit out while wrapping my towel around me.
“Just being friendly,” she says under her breath while smilingat my neighbor. She loops her arm through mine and leads me toward the stairway leading to my neighbor’s deck.
“Q,” I warn.
“Let’s just say hi. So I can picture this guy when you call me to complain.”
There’s nothing to do but sigh. Once Quinn gets rolling with an idea, she’s like a runaway train.
“I’m Quinn,” Quinn says at the top of the stairs. She extends her hand, then realizes it’s wet, and rubs it against her towel, then tries again. “Meg’s friend. I’m visiting for a few days.”
My neighbor gives Quinn’s hand a wary glance, then gives it a quick pump. The motion reveals the bottom edge of the tattoos on his bicep. “Linden.”
Quinn’s eyes twinkle with curiosity. “Like the president?”
Linden’s face stays completely unchanged, like we’re boring him. “No.”
I look away from his t-shirt stretched across his broad chest. “THAT’S” is printed above a faded bunch of giant yellow bananas. He has a whole collection like it with funny or mildly outrageous sayings. It hints that the wearer actually has a sense of humor, which I know to be false. Maybe Greta buys them for him.
My gaze lands on his muscular forearm, the dark hairs dusted with pale sawdust.
“You do all your own carpentry, huh?” Quinn asks, scanning the in-progress side deck project and behind him, to the house, then up to the steeply pitched A-joint at the top.
“I do it better than any carpenter.” His dark eyes take on an edge of mischief, like he’s daring me to object.
