The men in my yard look uncannily similar to the dancers from Club Red. The dancers. The ones I couldn’t stop watching.
It’s definitely some kind of illusion or delusion, but after blinking several times and pressing my face closer to the glass, the perception persists.
The man who’s mowing and the one who’s raking look exactly like the handsome twins from last night. They can’t be.
I should call out to the men and ask them to take their shirts off so I can identify them. I studied them in detail last night, so I feel prepared to use the muscles in their upper bodies as evidence.
I’m laughing at my absurd thought and am not quick to notice that a third man is approaching my back door from the other side of the yard.
It’s the dark-haired man who rode the wild bronco on stage last night, and he’s heading right toward me, his eyes fixed on mine.
I let the blinds fall back in place and freeze as he knocks on the glass. Shit. I got a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror a few minutes ago. I was apparently too wasted last night to bother taking off my makeup, and my shoulder length strawberry-blonde hair looks like birds have nested in it.
I am not in any shape to talk to anyone, especially not this man.
4
Leo
The face at the window takes me by surprise, because the state of the yard made me think that the house was vacant. Either that, or it’s owned by an older person who isn’t capable of caring for their lawn, but the woman looking out doesn’t seem very old.
She holds up a finger, indicating that I should wait, and it’s at least a minute before she finally opens the door.
“Hi. Good morning,” she says. Her voice is thick, her hair is tousled, and there’s makeup smudged beneath her striking green eyes. Was she having sex? Is that why she looks so beautifully disheveled?
“Good morning. Are you Mrs. Martin?”
The woman pauses for a beat before nodding. “Lorraine.”
“Lorraine. I’m Leo. Nice to meet you.” I hold out my hand, but when she hesitates again, I realize my palm is grimy with dirt. “Oh, sorry,” I say, pulling it back and wiping it on my pants.
“Do you … need something?” she asks, adjusting the collar of the bulky, oversized sweater that hangs halfway to her knees. Her arm is wrapped around her middle, holding the sweater closed. Her bare legs are very shapely, but I pull my eyes away.
“The yard is, uh … going to require more time than I anticipated.” We maintain a few yards in this neighborhood of upscale homes, and none have ever been as overgrown as this one.
“Yeah, sorry,” she says. “I know it’s a mess.” She holds eye contact for longer than is typical, and when she’s not staring at me, she’s looking past me to where the others are working. I sneak another full-length glance at her. Even though I can’t see what’s beneath her sweater, the skin that is exposed tells me she probably has a very impressive body. The sweater doesn’t completely hide her curves.
“We won’t be able to finish today, but we can come back later this week.”
She squints at me, still staring, and answers distractedly. “That’s fine.”
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
Her eyes drop to the floor before she again looks past me into the yard. “This is going to be a strange question,” she says when she looks at me again. “Do you, by any chance, perform at Club Red?”
I let out a breath and nod my head. “Yeah. I guess you’ve seen the show?”
“Just last night,” she says with a small laugh. “I thought I was imagining things.”
“No, you’re not imagining it. All of us were on stage last night.” I turn toward the yard, where my brother is trimming a hedge and Dante is starting a second pass with the mower, because the grass was too long to cut all at once. Darian must have hauled stuff out to the truck, because I don’t see him at the moment. “Would you like to meet everyone?” I ask her.
She looks down at her sweater before shaking her head. “Maybe later. I don’t want to disrupt your work.”
“Did you like the show?” I haven’t seen any disappointed women leaving Club Red, so I ask her this only to keep the conversation going. Trying to keep my eyes away from her legs, I notice how full and soft her lips are.
“It was good. Not my usual thing, but enjoyable.”
“It can be good to take a break from the usual,” I tell her.
She continues to look at me for another beat with an expression on her face that I can’t read. When I flirt with women I get smiles, sometimes giggles depending on their age, and almost always some flirtation in return, but Lorraine’s response is different.