Thin Walls

Chapter 2

This was absolutely unbearable. I hated loud noises and especially when my husband was on top of me, doing his business. It was plain rude to start building a cabinet, or whatever it was, in the middle of the night. Especially when you knew there were people living in the same building as you.

Prior to this moment, I'd never once felt the need to complain about my neighbors, but this was outrageous. If I couldn't even enjoy having sex, I'd at least want to not enjoy it in silence, not with someone hammering IKEA furniture.

Though, Robin and I could afford a much bigger place, we'd both grown accustomed to the apartment. He was hinting that whenever we'd get our first child, he wanted to move to a house with more space, but that was a problem for later.

Right now, the problem was our extremely loud neighbor that wouldn't shut up. I winced and pushed Robin off me. "Sorry, I can't do it with all this pounding," I said and he looked confused.

"Was I going too fast?"

"I mean our neighbor. It's very irritating," I said and got off the bed. I grabbed my bathrobe and put it on.

"Where are you going?"

"To talk to them," I said. "Explain the living conditions for this building, meaning it needs to be silent after eleven p.m."

"Regina, honey, let it go. She's new, I only met her yesterday, it's a very sweet woman and we don't want to make a bad impression on her. Just come back to bed."

The loud sounds from the apartment beside us had finally stopped, but I was in no mood to get back into the bed. I walked away from Robin and left the apartment, only to knock on the door next to ours.

It didn't take long before I heard footsteps on the other side and the door opened. My eyebrows shot up when I noticed Emma Swan. She was dressed in pajamas, but was holding a screwdriver in her hand.

"Uh, hi, thirty year old woman from the shop two days ago. What are you doing banging on my door in the middle of the night?"

I had to take a moment to comprehend the fact that this woman was living next to us and suddenly I remembered the story she'd told about her neighbors having horrible sex. She'd been talking about us and I couldn't be more embarrassed.

"You're very loud. I live in this building as well and I could hear you working in my apartment," I said, not giving away that I was her next door neighbor.

She nodded slowly. "I'd really expected you to live in some fancy ass mansion," she said and smiled. "I'm very sorry for the nuisance, but my next door neighbors are having very loud sex and it's impossible to listen to them. I already told you about them, di..." She suddenly stopped talking and looked intensely at me. "If you are my next door neighbor, I am going to be very embarrassed and in that case, I'm sorry for offending your sex life earlier."

I swallowed and nodded. "How did you know it was horrible?"

Emma stepped slowly backwards and opened the door further. "It's getting chilly out here, do you want to talk inside?"

Robin was waiting for me, but I think he'd understand if I was a little later. He was the one that told me not to make a bad impression on her.

I went inside the apartment and was surprised to see the interior of another loft in the building, because architecturally speaking, it was exactly the same, but Emma had a much different style than Robin and I. It wasn't as modern and it was much cozier, with lots of colors.

It was quite a mess, though, with books and clothes lying around everywhere I looked. "Sorry, I didn't expect anyone," Emma said as she looked at the chaos. "Especially not someone whose name I still don't know."