A Little Crazy

Chapter One

A little story we wrote a looooong time ago. It's been prettied up and is complete, so updates should be pretty regular. Thanks for reading! - Lo & Christina 

June 3rd

He moved in quietly in the middle of the night. A large truck sat at the dark curb and three men shuffled boxes and a few pieces of furniture inside.

She watched from her living room, awake as usual.

The truck pulled away with a deep shudder and the street fell silent again.

June 4th

Parents ushered their kids into cars, and husbands kissed wives goodbye at the doorway. She sat on her stoop, watching the house across the street. Dusty blue paint curled at the windowsills, and the grass had overgrown since the previous tenants—a young, scruffy couple—had moved away.

The house had been silent since the last box was unloaded and the door shut behind polite waves and whispers of thanks.

She waited to see him again, wondering if he was the one who stayed, or if he was one of the two who left in the truck.

The blue house was never rented for long. Three months, six months. Once it had been rented for almost a year. The neighborhood had grown tired of the revolving door of tenants and had learned to ignore the quiet house. Kids passed it over at Halloween, neighbors borrowed sugar two doors down instead, and Fourth of July parades never lingered in that yard.

But she always noticed the house. She noticed the transient tenants. The neighborhood's general disregard made her feel protective of it, defensive. She felt the house deserved better. She always made a pie for new tenants, in hopes it would convey to them that it mattered to her they were here, that someone cared about the house. 

June 7th

The asphalt was melting in the heat and the air was distorted close to the ground. She parked and began unloading groceries when she saw him again, noticed him deep in his driveway, washing a car she had never seen before.

It was a late 80s Volvo station wagon: rust colored and dusty. He was beautiful and shirtless, his arms covered in blues, reds, and yellows. His hair was damp from sweat and his shorts were drenched with water from the bucket on the ground. She let her eyes linger on his arms, on the stories told atop the muscles of his forearms and the taut lines of his biceps. His back was bare but for words in black along his lower spine.

He stood and stretched, turning to crack his back. Their eyes met and lingered.

“Hi,” his lips said in a smile.

“Um,” she mumbled, before turning and walking into the house with her bags.

June 8th

His pie had crust latticed over apricots, blueberries, and scattered purple plums. Colorful and beautiful. She hoped he wouldn’t notice, and she hoped he would. She carried it over, hopping barefoot on the hot street, balancing the pie. She reached the door and knocked once on the familiar wood.

Footsteps slapped along the hardwood and wavy brown hair appeared in the row of windows before hazel eyes peeked over and then disappeared again.

Several moments of silence passed and she feared he could hear her heart beating. She also feared he had walked away. The knob turned and he appeared in front of her. Clean but scruffy. Beautiful but, sadly, clothed. His ears were stretched with small black bands, his eyebrow pierced with a small ring, and he had a silver vertical labret in his lower lip.

“Hi.” She smiled, nervous now. “I brought you a pie.”

He blinked from her gaze abruptly and looked down at her hands. “For me?” he asked, grinning.