To Hate Adam Connor

And if by dumb luck we saw him walking around half-naked—or hopefully fully naked—well, it wouldn’t be our fault we were looking then, would it? The blame would lie solely on his shoulders.

So that’s how we ended up in Olive’s backyard, carrying that damn ladder.

“What if he is naked, Lucy? What do we do?”

“Umm, make sure he is naked by his own will? It’s practically indecent exposure, but we’ll skip calling the cops, I think.”

“Are you being serious?”

“Of course I’m not! Be careful, watch where you’re going—there’s a tree behind you.”

After giving me the stink eye, she glanced over her shoulder and narrowly avoided the trunk of the tree. “Oh, thanks.”

I smiled and shook my head. Jason was about to get one hell of a surprise when he found his wife drunk off her ass.

When we were close enough, I slowly lowered my end of the ladder. “Don’t let go, okay? We need to lean it against the wall.”

“I know what we need to do, stop bossing me around. And will you please stop hitting my bush!”

“Geez, Olive, I’m getting shredded by your stupid bush here, and you’re not even worried that I might die from severe blood loss.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t die from a few scratches. Plus, this whole thing was your idea, I’m gonna keep repeating that when Jason comes home and busts us.” She sing-songed her last sentence while I was trying my best to get away from the deadly bush.

“My idea?”

Groaning, I helped her prop the stupidly heavy thing against the wall. When it made a loud thudding sound, I winced and dropped my ass to the ground between the bush and the stone wall.

“Shit,” Olive whispered and hugged the ladder. “Do you think he heard it?”

“Who?”

“Adam Connor.”

“I think the whole neighborhood heard that, but let’s hope Adam has hearing problems.”

“Come on then, get up. I wanna have a look,” she ordered as she jumped from one leg to the other and looked up at the wall. “We’ll look just for a second, though, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. You said that already. And it’s not like we’re gonna make this into a routine. We’ll just look this one time and that’s it.”

“Yes. That’s it, Lucy. I’m so relieved you said that.”

As far as walls go, it wasn’t exactly the highest wall out there, which was sad for the wall, but also weird considering how obsessed rich people are with security. Then again, I guess when two equally hot and successful movie stars became neighbors, they didn’t have any reason to suspect each other of stalking.

I quickly tied my shoulder-length hair up in a ponytail. Holding on to the ladder, I lifted my butt off the soft soil.

“So, how do we do this?” I asked as I dusted off my jeans. The steps were actually wide enough to hold both of us, but climbing up them at the same time would be impossible—considering we were both intoxicated, quite possibly deadly too.

When I met Olive’s sparkling green eyes, she shrugged and motioned for me to go first, so I did. “When I’m at the top you can come up too. You’re taller than me, so you stay on the lower step, okay?” When she didn’t answer and just kept jumping around, I frowned and whispered, “What’s wrong with you?”

“I need to pee, but I’m holding it. Come on, let’s do this already.”

“I’m going to remind you that you said that if it becomes necessary, and try not to pee on me while you’re at it.”

I grabbed the ladder on both sides and took my first step up as Olive placed her hands on my ass and started to push me up.

“I’m not a pussy.”

“What are you even talking about, Olive?”

“Come on, go faster already!”

“Jesus, fine,” I exclaimed, looking down at her. “Calm your tits, woman.”

When my head reached the top of the wall, I stopped and looked down at Olive, who was already climbing up. “Move your ass to the left a little,” she ordered in a huff before grabbing my ankle as leverage.

“Are you sure you’re oka—”

“I’m sure. Go up one more step. I can’t see a thing.”

“Now who is the bossy one, I wonder,” I murmured, climbing up one more step so I could peek over the wall. While the lights were on in the house, from what I could see, nobody was out in the backyard. Still, I wanted to play it safe and not look like a legit peeping Tom by actually hanging over the wall to try and see inside the house better.

“What are we looking at?” Olive asked when she finally made it up.

“I’m looking at an empty backyard and what looks to be an equally empty house. What are you looking at?”

“I think I’m looking at the same thing. Bummer, don’t tell Jason, but I just wanted to see him once, you know. Of course we drool together every time we watch his movies.” She shook her head and lifted it a bit higher while I tried to stay steady on my feet. “It’s been months since he moved in, but we never run into each other. On top of everything else, Jason isn’t exactly being cooperative about this. I already asked him to introduce me to—”

I gave her a sharp look. “You asked him to introduce us, right? Not just you.”

“Us, right. Of course I said us. Sharing is caring. Oh! Lucy, look!”

She rested her chin on the wall so I did the same thing to get a look at what she was seeing. “What? Where is he? I don’t see him.”

“Not him,” she whispered urgently.

“Who the hell did you see? Tell me!”

“I think…wait, there! Look at the window behind that big plant on the right.”

I craned my neck higher, exposing my entire face. “Oh, is that his son?”

“Must be. Oh, he looks so cute, Lucy.” She awwed next to me, her voice going all wonky.

“Oh God, please don’t start crying again, not while we are teetering on the edge over here.”

“I told you I’m not a pussy. I’m not gonna cry.”

In the quiet of the night, we watched the little boy press his hands against the window and look outside with the saddest expression on his little face. After a few seconds passed, he abruptly turned around and looked up as if he was talking to someone. As much as we tried to, we couldn’t see who was standing behind him.

“Don’t lean on me too much,” I said urgently as Olive’s shoulder pressed against mine in an attempt to see who the kid was looking at.

“I think it’s him,” she squeaked, ignoring my warning.

While I was doing my best not to fall off the ladder, our mystery person stepped forward and lowered himself on one knee.

“It’s him,” I whispered to Olive.

We watched Adam Connor ruffle his kid’s dark blond hair and nudge his chin up with his knuckles. If I said my heart wasn’t doing all kinds of jumping and flip-flapping, I would be lying. After all, he was a handsome bastard, and it wasn’t my fault my heart was weak. We couldn’t see their expressions that clearly, but we saw Adam’s lips start moving and then the kid throwing himself in his father’s arms and hugging his neck.

“I feel like we’re doing something bad,” I said as the kid suddenly let go of his dad and ran away, out of our sight.