Therefore I answered, “No.”

His eyes never left my face when he muttered, “I didn’t think so.”

“You wanna be involved in this shit, your call,” I told him quietly so the girls wouldn’t hear. “Anytime you wanna back out, that’s your call too.” Joe didn’t reply, he just kept looking at me, so I decided to finish it. “And I’d appreciate it, you didn’t make friends with my girls, it isn’t cool.”

“Not me makin’ friends with them,” Joe pointed out.

“Then it’ll be you who discourages them from doin’ it.”

“Not gonna be an ass**le to your daughters.”

“You had no problem bein’ an ass**le to their Mom,” I reminded him.

I watched him go from annoyed to angry. He got close, both his body to mine and his face in mine and his voice went low.

“Gotta admit, I regretted it, your mouth is sweet, other parts of you sweeter,” he told me. “The way you behaved since, buddy, figure I saved myself a world of hassle. You can be a bitch.”

I felt my body get tight but I inched my face closer to his and spoke as low as he did. “Thank you for your service, Joe, you can go now.”

“There it is,” Joe muttered, “the bitch.”

“I can’t believe you,” I hissed. “You’re in my living room callin’ me a bitch.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re actin’ like one.”

“Then I suggest you save yourself the hassle and leave.”

He didn’t move, he stayed in my face and his voice was even lower when he said in that way where he sounded like he was talking to himself, “Wonder if it’d be worth it.”

“What?”

“Breakin’ you.”

I blinked then I repeated, “What?”

He didn’t hesitate handing me his utterly unbelievable response. “Turnin’ you over my knee, spankin’ that ass of yours until you break and let go of the bitch.”

I felt my breath catch as my stomach both hollowed out and twisted into a knot.

“What?” I hissed.

“Might not be worth it but it’d be fun doin’ it.”

I clenched my teeth and said through them, “Get out.”

He didn’t get out. His big hand came up and curled over my hair at the back of my neck and he brought my face even closer, to within an inch of his. It was so close I could feel his breath on my lips but all I could see was his clear blue eyes which were staring right into mine.

“Make you beg me to stop,” he muttered. “Make you do anything to make me stop, promise to let go of the bitch and be nothin’ but sweet to me.”

“Take your hand off me,” I whispered because, even though his words were pissing me off, for some insane reason I really wanted to kiss him. I wanted this so much my mouth was dry and my body hurt from holding it away from the heat of his.

“Play with you while I do it, make you squirm at the same time I make you beg.”

My stomach unknotted, I felt wetness rush between my legs and it took everything I had not to move into him.

“Joe –”

The minute I said his name, his hand tightened on my neck almost like a reflex action.

“Yeah,” he whispered and I held my breath, not understanding what his “yeah” meant but the way he said it made it sound like it meant something important then he muttered his own name, “Joe.”

My eyes dropped to his mouth and I started to lean into him because I couldn’t hold back anymore. I had to kiss him, put my hands on him or that hollowed feeling was going to start eating out my insides.

But he let me go, I went forward on a foot and righted myself in time to see him disappear through my front door.

“I hate you,” I whispered to the door and I meant it, even though my body, ni**les hard, tingles between my legs, every inch of skin electrified, felt something else.

It wasn’t until much later, when I was in bed, the girls were asleep and I’d put aside my vibrator after a lackluster orgasm that I realized I’d never asked Joe how he knew Daniel Hart.

* * * * *

The screeching woke me.

Cory was home.

This happened a lot, Tina screeching at Cory. It was usually during daytime hours but it wasn’t unusual for it to happen at night.

I turned my head to my alarm clock and felt my temper flare because it might not be unusual for it to happen at night, even late at night, say eleven-ish, but it was unusual for it to happen at one fifty-three in the freaking morning.

“You dick!” Tina shouted. “Did you f**k her before comin’ to me? Hunh? Did you?”

God, it sounded like they were right outside my bedroom door.

And if it sounded like that to me, it might sound like that to Kate and Keira.

I threw back the covers, ran to get Tim’s robe, shrugged it on and nabbed Joe’s remote from my nightstand as I walked quickly to the backdoor.

“Fuck that! Fuck you! And f**k her!” Tina shrieked.

I hit the remote to disable the alarm as Joe taught us to do, slid the door open and stepped out on my deck. I looked to my left to see that Tina and Cory were, for some unknown and ungodly reason, playing out their latest drama on her deck.

“You have got to be shittin’ me!” Tina screamed to whatever Cory mumbled (I never heard Cory during the screeching, only Tina, then again they probably heard Tina in Bangladesh, she was that loud). “You dick!”

I ran down the steps into my yard and across to Tina’s.

I was at the foot of her side deck steps when I spoke. “Hey, could you keep it down?”

Tina’s eyes came to me and Cory, whose back was to me, turned.

Cory was a decent looking guy, nothing to write home about but he wasn’t ugly. What made him unattractive was that I got the sense he was clueless and pretty much didn’t care what kind of shit he had to take, just as long as he got laid as often as he could.

Tina, on the other hand, was very pretty, dark curly hair, blue eyes, great skin. She had a bit of extra weight on her but she carried it well and used it to her advantage, therefore it looked good but, unfortunately, she knew it.

She liked to get herself some, as Cheryl would say, and she liked to control what she got which made Cory perfect for her, in a way. Cory loved his wife, though, which kind of sucked for Tina. She’d bitten off more than she could chew with him and I always wondered why she didn’t spit him out.

All of this I didn’t know for certain, I wasn’t close to Tina. She was the only neighbor who was not friendly (at all). I’d gotten most of it from Feb, Myrtle and Pearl.