Hello! I know some people don't bother reading author's notes, but I need to have explained what you're about to read regardless of whether you read it or not.
This is the love story of two neighbors who hate each other. You're going to notice some things about this story that may disarm you: the tense and the style. I really wanted to write something present tense, in a direct, more journalistic writing style than I normally use. I wanted the tone to be simple and objective, but close and intimate that way. I wanted to work on my writing skill, to exercise the basics, to bare the foundation, to uncover the strongest, barest bones of the characters and the movement of events, especially as I came up against wall after wall while writing this coming chapter of Accidental Intimacy. I just desperately wanted to feel creative and accomplished again.
Some of the content of this story is willfully obtuse, like the nature of Bulma's project, to make room for the fun of it. So just go with it. It started out as a one-shot and evolved into a novel that I've refused to share until it was completed, to both our benefits. Yes: this is completed. I don't have to hear anyone's complaints that a story hasn't updated quickly enough (I've read many in the last year), and you actually get the end of a story. I'll be releasing this one in installments rather than dumping it on you, though, for fear that it will otherwise be overlooked. Listen, I had to work on this before I continued Accidental Intimacy, because I kept wanting to mix up the characterizations, and because I was so scared that if I left this to work on AI again, I'd never finish either. So for those of you who are frustrated with me about my writing turnaround, I'm trying to be a good writer by keeping these two stories separate and therefore good. Please remember we are not machines that churn out quality fan fiction. There's a creative process. I've been writing since 2011 and I'm still at it. I'm always trying to stay on the ride, and you profit.
This is easily one of my most favorite things I've written, and I want to tell you why. It's in the beauty of writing the characters like they're a bickering old married couple before they even realize they're dumb for each other. It started by jotting down snippets of dialogue that seemed better suited to tumblr snark, and then I built the scenes around that and connected them all together with two threads: the ever elusive research project, and the deepening, complicating feelings of these two blockheads. This story is nothing but full on BV interaction. There's hardly a scene that happens without them together. This is Trollma at her best, and just dripping with arguments and sexual tension. That is what you're in for if you endure past this author's note. I asked myself: What are their worst qualities, and how can I make them redeeming? What would it look like to amplify the ugliest traits of our characters—arguably the funnest and funniest—and how do they complement each other? How do I humanize them? How do I gradually peel them like an onion? I also considered an inside out universe: What if Vegeta had all the friends, and Bulma was the outsider? How would Vegeta court Bulma if he'd already been humbled, with his post-Buu cool?
One thing that can get frustrating about writing BV are the ceaseless conflicts because of an unnecessary lack of communication (inherent in the romance genre, period). So I wanted to be have them brutal and honest with each other from the get-go and see how that might work. She doesn't like his attitude? She lets him know. He doesn't agree with her choices? He's going to make that apparent. There would be nowhere for unintentional drama to hide. I also wanted to imagine them like they were real people for once, and not cartoon characters. I submerged myself more than I ever have in an imaginary world, hunting down pictures of actors and artists that resemble them, songs and song lyrics that embody them, and really getting inside each sentence, feeling it out, determining if it works even on the most micro scale. What I'm getting at is the magnitude of work and time that went into this. I'm talking stealing away at work to write notes, getting up early to type, stopping in the middle of the grocery aisle to scribble dialogue, typing this while the oven timer is screaming at me and dinner burns. All of this labor and I won't receive a dime. So please be understanding with us fandom-artist-types.
I'd like to think you guys get it—you just find that other person who gets what a shitty human you are and it's best friends for life. That's these two, this time. Us, too, maybe? I hope you love it as much as I do.
The air is depressingly sweltering into early evening. Mature maples and birch mark time from one end of the street to the other, branches a dense canopy over the street. Their riotously coloring leaves droop in the heat. Summer has stayed past its welcome, and a shroud of humidity blankets the city.
At ten past five, cars pull up outside after a days work. This quiet city block nestled in the west side burrough is populated by a diverse demographic, by doctors and college students, entrepreneurs and retirees. It's a stones throw away from the bustle of the big city, but still contained in its heart. Each dated bungalow boasts its own narrow front path, which diverges from the sidewalk at the street curb and leads up to the porch steps. The homes huddle close together and lack driveways. Such is the sacrifice of city dwelling.
Smack dab in the middle of the block, two houses share an unfenced yard and one grand oak, which currently smothers the grass in acorns.
The house on the right has been described as "cute," "charming," and "well-kept, especially compared to the other house." A treasured flower garden hugs both sides of the front path. Roses dangle heavily from their stems and coneflowers bounce in the breeze. The porch is swept clean and boasts a wicker patio chair and table, atop which sits a lush, potted fern. The grass is thick, emerald, and neatly trimmed. The front door and shutters gleam a cheery coral. The house will glow cozily as night draws its cloak over the city.
On the left, the neighboring house is in a much more sorry state. A gutter hangs sadly from its eaves. An old arbor sags against the oak, choked with vines. The grass is long enough to have fallen over with its own weight. The home badly needs a new coat of paint. It lets everyone know by spitting peeled paint chips on the ground. The aged yellow paint on the front door imitates the sophisticated pallor of cigarette smoke stains.
Every weekday, the occupants of these two houses arrive home at the same time. They walk up their path at five fifteen, coming from the opposite direction. Their heels strike the wood porch steps—three steps in all. They each slide their key into the tumblers on their front door. And, without fail, they each insult the other until one of them has clearly won or lost, and then slam the door. With relish, they do it all over again the next day.
Today is a Tuesday. Heels rapping the sidewalk with a confident, assured gait, Bulma Briefs makes her way up the front path, the curvy black sports car behind her blinking its headlights in affirmation as she thumbs the key fob. Her red heels and lipstick are a jolt of color in this dismal heat, a rebellion. Her heels on the porch steps are authoritative. As she steps under the low, gabled roof, her coiffed hair dampening with the humidity, movement catches her eye, and she looks left. Her eyes narrow.
Her neighbor's eyes flick over her and his mouth pulls down in disgust like she is something stuck to his shoe. No, worse. It's a look that is absolutely dismissive, contemptuous, and judgmental, and the extra wallop of accomplishing it without even bothering to look her in the eye.
He's wearing his usual white t-shirt, which strains over round shoulders and a broad chest and which falls loosely around his lean waist. He's pulling his keys from his pocket with a muscled forearm.
She scoffs at him, a little indignant puff of air, for just daring to be alive.
Her neighbor's head falls back on his shoulders, completely cool and unaffected, and this time his eyes meet hers. The look brooks no question of how he feels about her: it's a complete insult. It's utterly apathetic to her existence, abjectly so superior to her that he can't be bothered to feel any pity or annoyance at all by his burden of having her as a neighbor.
"The earth hasn't opened and hell hasn't beckoned you back yet?" His voice rolls, smooth and unhurried.
"I'm their queen," she returns, inserting the keys into the door knob. "I can go as I please." The woman slants a look at him. "You're Hell's waste disposal guy. You pick up trash on the side of the street."
His face tightens, but his voice is lazy. "One of these days, I'm going to have a lot of fun tying you up and gagging you and leaving you somewhere no one can find you."
She leans her hip against the doorjamb. "Typical you: a lot of talk and no follow through. Is it hard being so incompetent?"
"It's hard to take your comebacks seriously when you're dressed like a movie extra for Casablanca."
Her face turns stormy and a blush darkens her cheeks. "There's nothing wrong with my outfit. This is a Louis Voution skirt and Wanolo heels. I have a sophisticated aesthetic!"
He smirks. It's as close to a smile as the guy gets: cruel, lopsided, smug. If she fell and lay bleeding out on the sidewalk, he would just point and laugh. "Every time you open your mouth you just make yourself look dumber."
"Please. My intellect is atmospherically, egregiously above yours, as well as my grace, poise, and class." She clasps her hands together, looks skyward, and pretends to pray. "Thank you god, thou who art in heaven, for making me so much better than my neighbor."
He is half-lidded with cunning confidence despite her, a trickster in repose. "At least I don't sound like I swallowed a dictionary."
"Would you like me to talk real slow so that you might understand me?"
"I know what I'd like to do to you," he croons through his teeth.
From inside his house, a phone rings. It rips a hole in the mood and lets all the air out. He sniffs and turns back to his door, his hand turning the knob.
He's suddenly bored with this conversation. He's going to pretend he wins just because he gets to leave first. "Those heels belong in last year's trash, alongside your dignity," he inserts right before his door closes behind him.
"The only thing you'll find in last year's trash is your hairline," she calls.
The woman's eyes narrow into slits as he ignores her and steps inside. "Asshole," she says under her breath, and throws open her own door. But she smiles when she takes a step in, because she knows she's won this round.
Their doors slam closed at the same time.
…
Bulma Briefs has made many mistakes, but one of her most defining ones was trying to make friends with her neighbor.
It's a chilly spring day, and a torrent of rain has been pounding them all week, making the world mud. Her coffee mugs clink against the wood cupboards as rain taps the window and she puts the remainder of her dishes away. She jets to the grocery store after emptying her last moving box, and when she returns, the clouds peel back, freeing the sunshine for the first time in days. Bulma is not superstitious, but she smiles at the good omen.
Arms hanging with bags, she notices a figure shadowing the front door of the old house on the left. He's a powerful silhouette in his doorway. Masculine. Mysterious. Within best friend radius. And she is curious.
Tragically, Bulma is cursed. She's afflicted with the need to be outgoing and friendly in a city that shuns her type. She has many friends, and, before her divorce, had often hosted a party on the first Friday of every month. She is talkative and beautiful and leads a fascinating life, so no one minds much that she is also bossy and opinionated. Bulma's moods are capricious. It's part of her charm. She's fussy, but understanding. She's unapologetic, but giving. She's forgiven of this in the way that beautiful women are, but also because people are a little scared of her.
Bulma Briefs can be intense, especially when it comes to her work. Her obsessiveness, paired with her compulsion to solve every puzzle placed even catty-cornered to her lap, quickly becomes a recipe for a magnetic woman who is only emotionally available when it suits her. It had cost her a previous marriage, and despite her beauty queen looks and popularity, she can be kind of an egghead. Her kind of intellect is, of course, married to self-imposed exile and oddity. She may be insistent and ambitious, energetic and bold, but she may also go days without speaking to anyone, invested so deeply in her most recent research. Her profession only enables her. A high-level engineer for the Defense Department, she enjoys the freedom to experiment and compose the most limit-breaking inventions. Everything she touches is stamped classified, everything she conceives a success. She'd never met anything she couldn't figure out, take apart, and put back together again. She is prodigally curious and used to getting what she wants.
And with her neighbor manifests another object for her inquisitive mind.
Her neighbor stills in the doorway, perhaps sensing and tensing at the feeling of sudden doom and friendliness emanating from his new neighbor. He turns.
The weight of his gaze startles her. He sees right through her. Every sin, every insecurity of hers, on display. Shrewd, black eyes. Thick black hair, straight brows, and a black tee, sleeves rolled up. He has high, sharp cheekbones that are both modelesque and fiercely masculine, but lips that look to be a perpetual grimace, straight and pulled down at a corner. Not pretty-boy handsome, she feels, not inviting, but temptingly unorthodox, like he's built different and her brain was trying to work out how. Like she's got to squint her eyes to see him right.
His eyes flick over her, utterly aloof, leaning against his doorjamb in a relaxed confidence that could never be characterized as a slouch. He is powerfully built, with a straight spine. He is the antithesis of a hero, like a photo with all the colors inverted. Instead of slick blonde hair and a charming smile, it's black and jagged and he never smiles. And while he's got the sulky, pretty mouth and strong jawline of a comic book hero, he can only grimace or frown. Instead of a soft, giving look a caped crusader would give an old woman after saving her purse, her neighbor's gaze is laser sharp, as if, if it were up to him, the old woman would burst into flames, a pile of black ash, and blow away. His face, like any hero's, is perfectly symmetrical. He has strong, straight brows, and despite his surly attitude, a nose that doesn't look like it's been broken time and time again, but is instead straight and proud. Handsome isn't a superlative Bulma would use to describe this man, but just enigmatic enough to be bait on a hook to lure genius women who don't know how to leave well enough alone. There is just something about him, something that sucks all the breath out of Bulma's lungs. Even relaxing into the doorjamb with a t-shirt and sweatpants, he oozes danger and control. His arms stretch the limits of his sleeves. Musculi biciptis, triceps brachii, musculus deltoideus, she thinks.
She is the first to come up for air. "Hello!" She deposits her grocery bags on the stairs so that she can wave and puts on her biggest smile. She knows how to wow. "I'm Bulma Briefs. I'm your new neighbor."
Her neighbor stretches his neck, knuckles under his chin as he angles his head, and pops it. He takes a long look at her. He doesn't try to hide it.
And then he makes a noise that, paired with a little jump of his shoulders, can only be assumed is a scoff, and slips inside his home.
It takes too long before Bulma realizes she is just standing there gaping, staring at where he used to be.
"Fine, don't be neighborly," she mutters.
She is not deterred. Bulma hasn't met anyone she can't win over.
The second time Bulma Briefs encounters her neighbor, she is convinced last time was a misremembering. A glitch, even. The coding of the universe had thrown an error; the programmer had patched it. The programmer, of course, is on her side.
At the end of her front path, Bulma is having a lovely conversation with Mrs. Sotomayer, the resident retired teacher on the block. Every morning, Mrs. Sotomayer walks her tiny, fluffy dog. She is the sweetest elderly woman that Bulma soon learns is also an unrepentant gossip.
It's a sunny Saturday morning, and Bulma hears a door click behind her. Looking over her shoulder, she watches her neighbor cut down his stairs—like a knife ripping a jagged scar in the universe, a dementor whose sole purpose is to drain happiness from the world.
Bulma's eyes follow him as he sweeps down his front walkway. For just a second, their eyes meet. His are cold and hawkish. Then he's looking away, as if her existence isn't even worth recognizing, and turning down the sidewalk.
Mrs. Sotomayer stares at Bulma with a mixture of horror and pity. "Oh, honey." She shakes her head gravely. "No."
A scowl darkens Bulma's face. Bulma doesn't know the meaning of no. She doesn't give up. She is competitive to a fault, and her neighbor is practially egging her on.
The third and final time, he buries any affection for him under the roses Bulma was planting along her front path.
It's the beginning of summer, and the dog days are already upon them and determined to stay. She wipes sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm and hurries to plant the final bushes before the heat leaps into the triple digits. Sweat creeps down her chest, carves a path down her neck, rivulets staining her turquoise hair blue. Her water bottle sits empty, but she's so close to being done that she refuses to go inside to refill. She clasps the bottle, stares at it forlornly, and then tosses it back into the grass stubbornly. She spoons soil over the last of the roots when she hears a door open and close. She looks up.
Her neighbor stops in the middle of his porch. He always looks like he is coming or going to the gym. She isn't even sure he has a job. He arrives home every day at 5:15 like she does, but he carries a duffle bag and walks everywhere. Does he walk to work, somewhere close? Does he take the bus? Poorness would explain the condition of his house. It would explain why he is grumpy all the time. Although, he doesn't act like the world's beaten him down. No. He's defiant, proud. He looks like the baddie's muscle in a spy film, but with the baddie's calculating eyes. Surprise—at the end, he's actually the mastermind. Crime could be her neighbor's profession. Well, Bulma doesn't discriminate. Bulma is friends with many different people, and thus lives a very rich life. It doesn't matter how bad he is, because she is determined to get him to like her.
"Hello," she calls carefully. She's hesitant, but she quickly smothers it. She can't let him smell fear. She would project only confidence, because she's willing to take to the bank that he's the kind of man that respects it.
She stands. Sweat tickles as it slides like a finger down her breasts to dampen the space between her breasts. She refuses to acknowledge them or any other weakness. Her fists plant on her hips. She smiles, showing a lot of teeth. "It's hot today!"
It isn't her wittiest opener, but it would have to do. It was as neutral as it got: a comment on the weather. She's banking on this strategy. He can't slap that rejoinder down; it goes against human nature to not reciprocate an observation about the weather. Bulma has him in the bag. Get ready to be one of the many trophies on my mantle, she thinks.
To her surprise, the man ambles over, taking the stairs light on his feet, and then moseys straight for her. He's holding his own bottle of water, his duffle bag in hand, which pats against his thigh. He stops a few feet from her. It's the closest they've ever been. The heat doesn't seem to bother him at all, and she frowns. She squints under the glare of the pressing summer sun, heading for its apex at noon, baring down on her pale shoulders.
Her mouth ticks down at the corner when he smirks at her.
Then he uncaps his water, tilts back his head, and drinks.
She watches his thick neck move as he swallows in big gulps. The bottle mouth against his lips, as he watches her under long, damp lashes. A few drops escape, scattering down the column of his throat. She goes wide eyed watching him crumple the bottle in his fist. He levels her with a scorchingly malicious smirk, and then pivots away. Her hands fist when he tosses the bottle—still half-full of precious life ambrosia—at his trashcan, which still hasn't been moved from the curb. The bottle smacks dully against the side and clatters to the sidewalk.
There would be a crater that could be seen from space, made by the impact of the urgency of her revenge. It had originally been a game she'd been playing with herself. How do I trick the grumpy neighbor into liking me? Now the game has changed. Now the stakes are high. Now she must beat her neighbor at his own game.
Later that week, the hot weather has conjured up a spurt of thick rain clouds, and the world as they knew it is gone. The new one is soaked; they are halfway to Water World. Small-scale rivers forge paths along the street curbs while sewer gratings can't diffuse it fast enough. Bulma's car wipers move, batting away the torrential downpour uselessly. She travels slow down her street, the radio a dull hum. Then she sees him. Walking home under a black umbrella, at exactly 5:14.
Palm flat against the wheel, she turns the wheel slightly to the right. Her wheels dig into the puddle gathering in the curb and slosh water all over the single person on the sidewalk. With a smug, contained smile, Bulma parks the car in front of her house. One red heel plants on the street, and then, gracefully, Bulma swings out of the car, unfolding the umbrella in a single motion and shutting her car door with a benevolent sweep of her hand. Then she turns to him.
Her neighbor stands there, sopping wet, glaring at her.
Bulma twirls her umbrella and smiles, showing a lot of teeth. She winks, and then saunters up her front path.
They had fallen into the cracks of hell, into a kindergarten classroom, an asylum.
He had lobbed the first grenade in their suburban war.
She would win it.
…
The clink of glasses and conversation drifts out the open windows and into the night. Music and laughter murmur from the backyard, the softly glowing string of lights a curtain that insulates the party from the night.
Bulma steps out from behind the privacy fence, shutting the gate with a click. Gripping a trash bag, she heads for the trash bin on the side of her house when she catches two men in black standing at the end of her neighbor's front walkway.
Bulma slows, listening closely. Bulma is an unabashed snoop, and these men are right here in her snooping territory. The two men talk to each other without bothering to pitch their voices low. They think they're alone. They're big, scary guys. Despite that they're in the middle of a war, Bulma feels like maybe she should warn her neighbor.
She's taking a step forward when the man himself steps out from the shadows of his porch. He takes the stairs easily, closing the distance between himself and the men. Her neighbor's voice is quieter, authoritative. Bulma squints as she strains to hear. He points down the street. His words are unintelligible from this distance, but while the two big guys seem on edge, her neighbor isn't worried. He's collected and calm, although calm isn't the right word for someone who's always so alert. He seems confident he can handle any problem. He's talking to them with the tone she'd imagine a warlord would have, with complete faith in his strategic decisions and his own importance to the world's continued spinning. It's smooth, cultured, and not at all what she was expecting when they first met. Her dastardly neighbor deserves onion breath and toothless gums and bulbous eyes, but instead life is unfair, and the asshole is handsome.
And then the men in black are sliding their massive frames into an unmarked car and pulling away. Bulma forgets she's gawking out in the open until her neighbor turns to head back up his walkway, a hand in his pocket. Instead of molding into the shadows, Bulma's shirt, pristine white, gives her away. His eyes land on her and he halts. He does not look happy to see her.
Bulma stiffens, and with irritated aplomb, tosses the trash bag into her trash can, no longer concerned that anyone will hear her. She folds her arms over her chest and marches over there.
He doesn't take his eyes off of her. She makes the trek with bone-deep knowing that she's in someone's crosshairs and their finger is on the trigger. That laser vision is 100% focused on her, and it's enough to leave a woman shaken. He doesn't scare her, but she's kind of scaring herself. A little voice of reason in the back of her head asks her what the hell she's doing. Why not just turn her back on him and head back for the party? Why bother instigating him at all?
"Not surprised at all to see you socializing with villains," she says, pulling up to him. This is now the closest they've ever been. Their front doors had always seemed so far away, like two warring countries, founded on opposing ideals, divided by an invisible but unbreachable wall. Now they're just a few feet away, and for no good reason at all. She doesn't know why she's throwing out perfectly good rules of war, but whereas the beggar prince next door seems all self-control, stringing out his hostility with patience and precision, Bulma has none. She's impulsive and emotional. It was her most tiresome trait, her ex-husband would have complained.
Her neighbor up close is scary. It's not the way he dresses—he's almost always in the most unremarkable, casual athletic wear, a cotton tee and fitted sweatpants—but in some kind of primal knowing of predator versus prey. He doesn't even try to hide that he's not human. In the dark, his judgmental glares pack even more punch. His nose is a straight angle that turns up just slightly at the end. It's actually a very nice nose.
It's a beautiful night. The humidity has evaporated and there's a breeze that picks up, caressing them in a relaxed rhythm. For work, her hair is usually set with curlers at the ends and around the front—her "Hollywood hair," her friends call it—but today it's straight and clutched at her nape, and the breeze blows wayward strands into her face.
Her neighbor finally deigns her with a reply, as if he's thought on it for awhile. "Your hair looks like shit today."
Bulma is offended to her core. This man is the devil suited up in man's skin.
He seems pleased as cream, as if he's been studying her and knew that one would hit home.
"At least I've been invited to a party," she bites back. It sounds lame once she's said it.
"I'd rather die than go anyway."
"We'd rather die than have you there."
His gaze is typically heavy and critical, a canny scrutiny taking place behind his eyes at all times. But at her remark, the weight lightens a little. "So you've added eavesdropping to your repertoire?" His voice is sharp, but his lip crooks up at the corner. He moves with the dangerous confidence of someone who understands himself at all times. What is that like? Bulma can't decide day to day what she's going to have for breakfast.
"I wasn't eavesdropping," she balks. She cannot stand him. "I was taking my trash out. And by the way, your grass is outrageous," she condemns. "You really shut cut it. I'm sure it violates some HOA rule. I'll make sure to bring it up at the next meeting."
"Try me," he says, and his teeth gleam in the dark.
"I''ll pass," she breezes. Lets it sink in. "And here I was, going to warn you that strange men were loitering outside your door."
"Don't bother."
"I won't."
"Good."
They are seconds away from blowing a raspberry at the other. Bulma takes a big breath through her nose. She realizes she hasn't been breathing normally since they'd started arguing.
There's an awkward pause, but it's unfinished, like neither of them is ready to turn and leave.
It's a leap, but she takes it. "It's too bad you're such a terrible person that I hate." She twists a little, gesturing behind her. "I could grab you a beer so that you don't even have to socialize."
"I'm not a drinker."
"Not even on special occasions?"
"This isn't a special occasion."
Bulma plants her knuckles on her hips and throws her shoulders back. It's the I-mean-business pose that she utilizes at work, and she's hoping it works its magic here. "Is it too impolite to ask who those big scary guys were, if they weren't planning on dastardly deeds? There's no way you have friends. As a member of the neighborhood watch, I really should be informed."
"It's absolutely boorish and unrefined of you to pry into my personal life. Though unsurprising. Also, you're not a part of the neighborhood watch."
"You're up to no good, aren't you?"
He sinks his hands into his pockets and doesn't answer. Despite that he likes pushing all her buttons, he looks most content in this moment just letting her hang. Bulma wonders on the kind of man who is so grumpy all the time that him easing into a neutral expression gives the impression that he's happy. Weirdly, it's a good look on him.
She doesn't know it yet—if she did, she'd be shrieking—but she doesn't want this to end. She has to know more. She leaps. "You must work out a lot?"
It's a searching, small-talk question that normal people could use but they cannot, and one that she immediately regrets. It's cannon fodder; she's just given him ammunition to use against her. The bottom drops out from under her.
His eyebrow wings, but he's pleased as punch, savoring her pain, her panic, like it's a drink from under an umbrella on the beach. His dark eyes seem to crinkle at the corners even as he doesn't crack a smile. "Are you coming on to me? Are you objectifying me?" This time he smirks. "I really shouldn't be surprised. But you're always sinking to new lows."
She can't help it; her mouth gapes. He always gets the best of her. "Are you suggesting that I look at you like..." She can't even finish, and his smirk ratchets up further. "I would never," she's declaring, aghast. "You're so beneath me I don't even recognize you as human."
"You're truly depraved—"
"Wow, so many polysyllabic words out of your mouth today—"
"—and I am deeply disturbed by your sexual harassment—"
"What, did you eat a dictionary?"
"—and I'll definitely be bringing that up at the homeowner's association meeting."
She is pretty certain the HOA is getting sick of seeing them. At this stage, HOA meetings exists as a stage for their petty rivalries.
"I look forward to it," she announces, the breeze pushing her hair in and out of her face.
They don't take their eyes off the other.
The gate whaps closed behind them and Bulma jumps. One of her guests high pitched voice tears its claws over the moment. "Who's the frowny guy, Bulma?"
Her neighbor slides her a look—accusingly, like, of course these kinds of people would be her friends—and, hands in his pockets, turns and walks back to his house. Straight through the grass, like the invisible wartime wall's not even there. Eyes on his back, she makes a disgusted noise. "He's not cute, he's abominable and a plague on my house and on this land." She knows he's heard, but her neighbor has ceased entertaining her tonight.
Her friend slips back behind the gate and Bulma moves to follow.
"He'd be a wet blanket, anyway," she mutters, too late, watching him retreat up his steps. Before the gate closes behind her, she looks back over her shoulder at the empty walkway and the edge of his porch, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.
What did she really know about her neighbor?
Bulma suddenly wants to know everything.
